Despite Disney, the BBC, and returning showrunner Russell T Davies being adamant that the Ncuti Gatwa era of Doctor Who would be super friendly to newbies who hadn’t dipped their toes into the franchise’s vast 60-some odd years of history before, that claim didn’t turn out to be all that true. Davies’ second turn in the TARDIS saw him bring back a former Doctor (David Tennant), multiple previous companions (Catherine Tate’s Donna Noble and Bonnie Langford’s Mel Bush), and a barrage of classic villains and old school characters that ranged from ancient enemy The Toymaker to death god Sutekh. Heck, even the Time Lord’s long-lost granddaughter, Susan (Carole Ann Ford), showed up at one point. Doctor Who 101, this was not.
But while it was genuinely fun for longtime fans to see so many references to the show’s storied history, greet familiar characters, and indulge in some serious deep cut lore, many of those stories weren’t exactly what you might call fleshed out. In fact, most of these reappearances lacked the context to really hit all that hard as part of their respective stories outside of the nostalgia and fan service of it all. (And please don’t get me started on whatever the heck that mess was with Omega.) But this era of the show has failed no character harder than the Rani, a figure whose return fans had been clamoring for and speculating about for literal decades, but whose arrival satisfied almost no one.
A classic Doctor Who villain who hadn’t appeared on the main series since 1987’s “Time and the Rani,” the character had grown rather infamous in the modern era for not returning to the show’s canvas. (The characters who turned out to be Madame Kovarian, Missy, and the Fugitive Doctor? All were initially speculated to be the Rani by many fans. We’ve been waiting a while.) But almost none of us expected that Ruby Sunday’s (Millie Gibson) bizarro neighbor, Mrs. Flood (Anita Dobson), would turn out to be the renegade Time Lady, or that she would ultimately bi-regenerate into two separate versions of the character, with the second played by former The Good Wife star Archie Panjabi. And, neither, it turns out, did the woman who played her.
“For the first series, I was oblivious and just really enjoyed all the little character things and mannerisms that Russell was throwing at me,” Anita Dobson, who played Mrs. Flood, told the Radio Times. “Then, when he asked me back for another series, my curiosity was piqued as to who she was… But it wasn’t until I read the last few scripts of that series that I found out, and I was completely shocked.”
