Doctor Who: Planet of the Rani

While not without its flaws, this is rather better than its predecessor story, The Rani Elite. The story opens with the Rani in prison, but soon moves to the titular planet, one that she once ruled, and where, predictably, her experiments have gone awry in her absence. As a result, we're mostly seeing the results of her scheming, rather than the process itself and the nature of those plans serves more effectively to delineate her from the Master.

There is some nice imagery in this, with the people trapped inside cockroach-like armour being particularly effective. As much of the focus is on the Rani's replacement as ruler of the planet as on the rogue Time Lord herself, and this works reasonably well, with the character's motivations and loyalties being ambiguous for much of the story so that we don't quite know who to trust.

New companion Constance also distinguishes herself effectively from Lucy Miller, and not just because her primary point of reference is 70 years earlier. While we don't really see much of her reaction at what is (presumably) her first journey in the TARDIS, she does continue to show promise as an ongoing character, and there is time for some, admittedly brief, exploration of her background.

On the other hand, attempts to link the Rani's experiments with the Doctor's past mistakes feel rather tacked on as an afterthought, and some of the action scenes towards the end are a little difficult to follow (as is often the case on audio). And, as usual, the Rani remains a somewhat limited character, hardly one of the more interesting villains in the canon - she's actually at her best before we get to the planet and she's still directing things rather than reacting to events.

There's enough to like here for me to rate this as 3.5 stars, and round up, but I also can't say that I'm disappointed that this has been (as of 2019) the Rani's last outing on audio. While the story is left open for a possible return, there's not terribly much further than can be done with the character.