"[3] Caroline Frost of HuffPost UK called the Rani "one of the few characters to match the irrepressible [Doctor] for wit, power and supernatural abilities.

He and his human companion, Peri Brown (Nicola Bryant), encounter the Rani, a Time Lord and old acquaintance of the Doctor's who rules the planet Miasimia Goria.

Her biological experimentation on the enslaved populace has heightened their awareness but inadvertently compromised their ability to sleep, turning them violent and plunging the planet into chaos.

To restore order, the Rani has been harvesting the neuro-chemical that promotes sleep from human brains, carrying this out in violent periods of Earth's history so the resulting aggression and sleeplessness go unnoticed.

[11] The Discontinuity Guide by Paul Cornell, Martin Day and Keith Topping noted that "the concept of the Rani mocking the ridiculous Master/Doctor rivalry is wonderful.

[5] In her 2003 autobiography Vamp Until Ready, she said that while shooting The Mark of the Rani, she was treated much differently by crew members who did not recognize her while made up as an old crone, versus when she was transformed by flashy wardrobe, hair and "my most glamorous make-up.

[23] The end of Time and the Rani required O'Mara to be hung upside down like a bat, but after some blood vessels in her eyes burst, the studio nurse forbade filming her in that manner to continue.

"[15] Doctor Who: The Television Companion also praised the actress: "Another highlight is Kate O'Mara's performance as the Rani which, although undeniably camp and over the top, perfectly suits the mood of the piece and is never less than entertaining.

She almost steals the show, in fact, and her impersonation of Bonnie Langford in the amusing sequence where the Rani fools the disorientated and drugged Doctor into believing that she is Mel is wickedly perceptive.

The Rani later appeared as the principal villain in Dimensions in Time, a 1993 Doctor Who charity television special written by John Nathan-Turner and David Roden, and supporting BBC Children in Need.

She has opened a hole in time, allowing her access to the Doctor's timeline and cycle through his lives, causing him and his companions to jump back and forth between past and present incarnations.

The Rani has been collecting specimens of every creature in the universe to create a supercomputer, and at one point unleashes her "menagerie", including a Cyberman, a Sea Devil and an Ogron, to attack the Fifth Doctor (Peter Davison).

[29] The serial was to feature the Sixth Doctor, Peri and Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart (Nicholas Courtney) facing off against the newly-introduced Rani, the Master and the Autons, and would be shot in Singapore, where episodes of the BBC drama Tenko had been filmed.

[29][30] However on 27 February 1985, BBC One announced that production of Doctor Who would take an extended hiatus, citing a decline in ratings and audiences' growing concerns over violence on television.

[34] He completed a story outline,[35] but ultimately Yellow Fever and How to Cure It and other planned serials were set aside in favor of a season-spanning arc called The Trial of a Time Lord.

[31] In the planned story for Yellow Fever and How to Cure It, the Sixth Doctor and Peri arrive in Singapore to find the Rani allied with the Nestene Consciousness to create Autons with bullets that can shoot around corners and hands that can melt the face of the adversary.

"[39] The following year, Harry Beckett of Doctor Who TV voiced his desire for the Rani to return, and noted that despite Moffat's comments, the producer had indeed brought back other lesser known old characters to the series.

[8] This renewed buzz about the Rani's potential return portrayed by Anderson, who had been discussed in association with the role as far back as the 2010 debut of Matt Smith as the Eleventh Doctor.

In "Tales of the TARDIS: The Curse of Fenric" (2023) the older Seventh Doctor implies that the Rani was involved in the decision made by Ace (Sophie Aldred) to part company with him.

Her agent contacted me and said that she would love to reprise the role with us, and when I mentioned this to executive producer Nicholas Briggs and script editor Alan Barnes they leapt at the opportunity ... Justin [Richards] wrote The Rani Elite for us, and we were just a few weeks away from recording when the terrible news reached us that Kate had passed away.

[12] In this Sixth Doctor audio adventure, the Rani attempts to reverse engineer chaos theory using the collective minds of the academic elite attending the College of Advanced Galactic Education.

[47] She arrives on the planet Miasimia Goria, a world she once ruled over, where the current leader, Raj Kahnu, regards her as his mother whilst also harbouring deep contempt for her.

Kahnu, a genetically engineered humanoid who resides inside the body of a mechanical cockroach, later allows the Rani to leave the planet in a TARDIS survival pod that her previous incarnation had left there.

[48] The Rani is the villain in Race Against Time, a 1986 Choose Your Own Adventure-style children's gamebook, also written by the Bakers, which is part of the Make Your Own Adventure with Doctor Who series.

The Rani tries her hand at political machinations in this reality before the intervention of the Doctor breaks her control over the entity, at which point she escapes in her repaired TARDIS.