Arriving in the town of Killingworth in the early 19th Century The Doctor and Peri find social unrest as the Luddites , workers opposed to new technology , riot and destroy machinery . As things turn out these Luddites are under the control of The Master and another renegade from the Time Lords who calls herself the Rani
This is the first DOCTOR WHO script from the husband and wife team of Pip and Jane Baker . The Bakers are considered the worst writers to have ever written for the classic series which is slightly unfair . Certainly they wouldn't be confused with Nigel Kneale but in their defence their stories were often written in a hurry . This story does tend to show up their flaws - one of very unnatural sounding dialogue . This is a failing of season 22 which really suffers from some dreadful dialogue which is probably the fault of script editor Eric Saward It's not helped by the cast either . You can expect Anthony Ainley to camp it up no end and here he does . Kate O'Mara before she relocated to America to star in DYNASTY does bring a feline menace to her character but is let down by all too obvious moralising dialogue . I believe the term is " sententious " and you can't criticise the characters for being monosyllabic . Terence Alexander appears in a supporting role and by this stage in the show's history relatively big name character actors would never be much more than workman like in their roles . We also get an appearance from a real life character George Stephenson the first time in 20 years a real life character had appeared in a pseudo historical and wouldn't be the last time in this season this plot device would be used
The plot itself is very vague and just seems used to set up scenes for characters to spout moral relativism . I quite enjoyed the historical type stories from the Davison era but now that Colin Baker is in the lead there's something missing in these type of tales . The Mark Of The Rani isn't a bad story but if this was a Davison story it would be far more likable
