Trivia / Doctor Who S22 E3 "The Mark of the Rani"

---

• Blooper: When the Doctor dangles above the coalpit, one of his three attackers falls in. A moment later, there is a close-up of three pairs of hands aiming weapons at him. This shot belonged to an earlier part of the sequence, before they arrived at the pit.
• Creator Backlash:
  • Eric Saward found the script to be workmanlike. He also greatly disliked Pip and Jane Baker.
  • The Bakers took the blame for the tree scene, saying that they would have changed it if they knew it wouldn't work on the budget.
• Died During Production: The original music composer for the story, John Lewis, was suffering from AIDS when he was commissioned, and only got as far as composing the first episode and a few scenes of the second before the illness prevented him from continuing. Lewis died shortly afterwards, leading to BBC staffer Jonathan Gibbs being bought in to rescore the entire story. The DVD offers an option to play Episode 1 with Lewis' unused score; the later Blu-ray release also includes the option to play Episode 2 with the completed portion, which was not known to exist at the time of the DVD's production.
• DVD Commentary: Colin Baker relates a story about being tied to a pole during filming.
• Edited for Syndication: This story, like the rest of Season 22, was produced in forty-five minute episodes, but when sold to other countries such as Australia and America, the episodes were re-edited into twenty-five-minute episodes.
• Inspiration for the Work: The Bakers were inspired to have the Rani focus on brain experiments based on an article they read in The New Scientist.
• No Stunt Double: Colin Baker did his own stunts in this serial.
• Out of Order: This story was produced after "The Two Doctors", and intended to air after it at the time of production. However, because "The Mark of the Rani" and the next-produced story "Timelash" both featured famous historical figures (George Stephenson and H. G. Wells respectively), it was decided at a late stage to swap "The Mark of the Rani" with "The Two Doctors" in the broadcast order. Happily, this didn't cause too many continuity issues; the reference to the Stattenheim remote control in this story was intended as a Callback to "The Two Doctors", in which it was used, but it works just as well as Foreshadowing instead.
• Troubled Production: Not the worst that's happened to a Doctor Who story, but it was certainly no less memorable:
  • Primarily, the cast and crew were stuck with the issue of having to film the story mostly on-location during inconsistently rainy weather. As the story entailed one part to be in clear weather and the other in the rain, this resulted in the team having to constantly shift back and forth between areas in order to get everything filmed properly.
  • One such scene in the clear weather portion involved the Doctor being tied to a pole in the forest by his hands and feet, and because it took a long time to set up (due to Colin Baker needing a special rigging to keep his back supported while tied up), it wasn't easy to shift from that scene to a rainy one on the fly. As fate would have it, rain started coming in exactly as they were filming that scene, and the crew were in such a rush to get to the other location that they left Baker stranded in the woods, tied to the pole, for around half an hour. Baker later related the story in the DVD Commentary for the serial.
  • In addition, Nicola Bryant injured her neck from sleeping the wrong way, and had to wear a neck brace whenever the cameras weren’t rolling.
• What Could Have Been: Peter Cushing, Michael Gough, Patrick Stewart and Peter Vaughan were considered for Lord Ravensworth.
• Working Title: Too Clever by Far and Enter the Rani.

---