The Roundheads.

Approx. 557 minutes. Written by: Mark Gatiss. Produced by: Neil Gardner. Performed by: Anneke Wills.


THE PLOT

The TARDIS materializes in London in December 1648 - in the wake of the Second English Civil War. King Charles I, whose Roundheads were defeated by Oliver Cromwell's Cavaliers, is now a prisoner. Those in Parliament viewed as sympathetic to the king have been either turned away from Parliament or arrested, leaving the way clear to charge King Charles with treason and execute him.

But plans have been set in motion to rescue the doomed monarch, and the members of the TARDIS crew soon find themselves scattered among the opposing forces. Ben is press-ganged onto the Teaser, a ship under the command of the mysterious Capt. Stanislaus, whose Dutch "cargo" is seen as the king's salvation. The Doctor and Jamie are arrested as vagrants and soon find themselves guests of Oliver Cromwell, evading potentially lethal suspicions by pretending to be seers.

Meanwhile, Polly falls in with a group of Royalists working out of the attic of an inn, using her desperation to find her friends to manipulate her into helping to rescue King Charles... An act which could disrupt the proper course of history!


CHARACTERS

The Doctor: For much of the book, he does little to advance the story. He spends more than half the running time locked up while Ben and Polly carry threads that actively advance the plot. As if to underline this, there's even a scene in which he stages an elaborate escape from his cell only to end up right back in it, sighing that it was "worth a try." Despite this, his scenes don't play like filler. Writer Mark Gatiss writes a spot-on Second Doctor, balancing both his serious and comedic sides, and his interactions with historical figures like Cromwell are sharply scripted and feel authentic to the character.

Polly: The prologue sees Polly after her return to her own time, visiting the Tower of London and remembering the events of this story - which frames this up-front as more Polly's tale than anyone's. Her loyalty to her friends becomes an Achilles' heel for her, as she's (a little too) easily exploited by Royalist John Copper into assisting with a plot to save the king. Her compassionate side shows in the quick friendship she strikes up with the innkeeper's daughter Frances, and she also forms a rapid connection with Christopher Whyte, a charming Cavalier. The ending forces Polly to make a difficult decision, which is played in an effectively subdued manner.

Ben: Once separated from Polly, he spends the bulk of the story in his own, enclosed "pirate movie." Here is where writer Mark Gatiss' love of pastiche shows, as Ben spends time in the company of Sal Winter, who is basically a likable distaff version of Long John Silver - She not only has a pegleg, but also a false nose, and her every utterance is in pirate speak. Ben acts as the voice of caution to the headstrong Winter, and the odd friendship they strike up works surprisingly well.

Jamie: Admits to the Doctor that Ben and Polly's well-intentioned ribbing hurts his feelings sometimes, as they have a way of unintentionally making him feel stupid. The Doctor has already recognized this, which is why he insists on taking Jamie for a little time away from their other companions. This is a convincingly in-character reason to separate them; it also conveniently allows the story to spotlight to the iconic 2nd Doctor/Jamie pairing, while at the same time giving Ben and Polly plenty to do in their own plot strands.


THOUGHTS

"Have I seen them [alternative futures]? Yes, I've seen them. Or heard of them. Englands with a third, fourth, or fifth Civil War. A resurgent monarch who ruthlessly oppresses all democracy. Or a triumphalist, hereditary Puritan Protectorate that rules the country until the twentieth century. Or an invading Catholic army which takes advantage of England's crisis to take over most of the known world. Oh yes, they're all out there. All kinds of futures. Some great, some truly terrible."
-The Doctor, musing about the possible futures that can result from changing history.

The Roundheads was one of the early BBC Past Doctor novels, published in 1997 - not long after the BBC brought publication of Doctor Who novels in-house. This review is of the unabridged audio reading released in 2015 - but save for notes about the performance and production, it applies every bit as much to the printed novel.

Writer Mark Gatiss obviously did his research into the period. The story's recreation of the historical period is convincing, and there's a decent feel for the issues on both sides of the central conflict. Some of the most vivid scenes in the story don't involve the regulars at all: The dramatization of Pride's Purge, in which 2/3 of Parliament were turned away by the military, for example; or the argument between Cromwell and Thomas Fairfax over trying the king for treason... These are scenes that could easily belong to a straight historical novel set during this time period. A good one, at that.

The audio book is a fine production of a good story. The atmosphere is boosted by background sound effects, such as murmuring voices, horses' hoofbeats, and gunshots and sword clangs during action sequences. The effects help bring it to life, but are used sparingly enough that they don't become a distraction. Anneke Wills' reading is terrific, offering distinct voices for each of the regulars: A soft-voiced, gravely Doctor that captures the kindliness of Troughton's incarnation; a peevish Scottish accent for Jamie; an enthusiastic Cockney for Ben; and a strong recreation by Wills of her own mid-1960's youthfulness as Polly.

Not everything works. There's a bizarre scene late in the book in which one supporting character becomes a would-be rapist for no readily apparent reason. It's jarring enough to have an attempted rape in a story set during the innocent Troughton era - and it's even more jarring given that absolutely nothing leads up to this moment. The character in question has been portrayed as manipulative and ruthless, but not lascivious. He also has barely interacted with the object of his aggression prior to his abrupt assault. It feels out of place, and would have been better excised.

Still, this is a good Doctor Who novel, and very well-treated by its audio production. A strong addition to Who's ever-expanding audio catalogue, and well worth the time of readers and listeners alike.


Overall Rating: 8/10.

Previous Story: House of Cards
Next Story: The Faceless Ones


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2nd Doctor Television Review Index

2nd Doctor Audio Review Index

Out of the Darkness: Moon Graffiti

1 episode.  Approx. 60 minutes. Written by: Dave Stone. Directed by: John Taylor.  Performed by: Colin Baker, Nicola Bryant.


THE PLOT

The Doctor and Peri have gotten the Zeiton-7 needed to fuel the TARDIS. But their problems are not over. The Doctor has discovered that the tinkering he did during his unstable, post-regenerative state actually did a substantial amount of damage to the ship's systems. Every repair he makes now creates a new problem, and the only permanent solution is to track down an elusive particle, left over from the Big Bang.

He tracks this element to Earth in the distant future, a future in which the human race has been driven underground by an invasion by an insectoid race of Pararachnids, intergalactic vandals who destroy worlds before moving on. But not all of the Pararachnids have left - and soon, the Doctor finds himself caught in a struggle for survival between the remnants of the human race and their insect-like oppressors.


CHARACTERS

The Doctor: Now that his regeneration has stabilized, he seems to have developed into a spiky, yet highly protective, avuncular figure to Peri. He takes pains to see to her safety before dealing with the larger problems before him.  Just as he would not talk to Varos' governor about the true value of the Zeiton 7 until Quillam's experiment was halted, so he insists on Peri getting back to the safety of the TARDIS before he deals with the Pararachnids here.

He hasn't fully adapted to the limitations of his new body. His plan for escaping from the Pararachnids using a trick he learned from Houdini fails, because his newest body cannot accomodate some of the physical feats he's used to being able to perform. He remains quick-witted, however, and improvises ably.

Peri: Now that the Sixth Doctor is no longer behaving like a maniac, she is demonstrating an innate trust in him. Veneance on Varos showed her far more at ease with the new Doctor than previous stories, and showed a softer and more companionable relationship between them - well, except for the poor (and almost certainly Saward-penned) TARDIS padding scenes. Their relationship in this story is more or less identical to their relationship in that one, and follows on from it quite well.


THOUGHTS

Moon Graffiti was the main feature of the 2 CD audio short story anthology, Out of the Darkness, first released on disc in 1998, later re-released in the Tales of the TARDIS collection. This story took up the entirety of the first CD, and was the only one of the three tales to feature fully-dramatized scenes acted out by Colin Baker and Nicola Bryant, as well as full sound effects.

As such, this is almost a pre-Companion Chronicle, a halfway house between an audio play and a talking book. Throw in one more actor (for the role of Keno Arne) and this could probably pass muster as a radio play. Colin Baker and Nicola Bryant do the various voices justice. Baker is particularly adept as switching from a neutral narrator's voice to the Doctor's voice and back again, in such a way that one never is confused as to which bits are narration and which bits are dialogue.

Other than a single, misconceived moment in which Bryant delivers one or two of Baker's lines simply because they fall within a paragraph she is reading (the only occurrence of such in the story), the production is quite good, and there are no issues with visualizing the action. Writer Dave Stone clearly understands the vaguely OCD fan tendency to want to be able to precisely slot a story into the chronology. As such, he not only takes care to identify this story as taking place shortly after Vengeance on Varos, but takes care to make the characterization of the Doctor and Peri fit into this position.

The story itself is rather slight, stock stuff. The villains are two-dimensional, giant insect creatures who want nothing more than to destroy and to eat people, with nothing more to them. They are also played strictly for laughs, which is effective when the Doctor is escaping from them, but less effective at the climax. Comedic descriptions of how, presented with a human buffet, the rules of Pararachnid society could "go stuff it," may amuse... but they also obliterate the horror inherent in a scene in which the Pararachnids gorge themselves on semi-frozen humans, and continue to do so once the humans begin to be revived. The climax would have been better-served had Stone dropped the comedy at this point, and instead shifted gears to all-out horror.

Still, while Stone is no Douglas Adams, his attempts to emulate the Adams comedy style amuse more often than not. The climax may be misjudged, but for the most part the comedy actually helps to elevate a stock story, making things much more entertaining than might have been. Benefiting from a good pace, a strong production, and an excellent reading/performance by Baker and Bryant, this is too slight to give a truly strong rating. But it does what it needs to, so gets off with a solid:


Rating: 6/10.

Previous Televised Story: Vengeance on Varos
Next Televised Story: The Mark of the Rani


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6th Doctor Television Review Index

6th Doctor Audio Review Index

Earth & Beyond: The People's Temple

1 episode. Approx. 95 minutes. Written by: Paul Leonard. Directed by: John Taylor.  Performed by: Paul McGann.


THE PLOT

While reading a book about Stonehenge, Sam gets the bright idea to ask the Doctor to take her there, to see it "when it was new, when it was a temple." But she is not prepared for the sight that awaits her. Poor villagers, enslaved by the cruel Bear Man, Coyn, labor night and day to construct the perfect temple. Human sacrifices are performed as ritual by the Deer Man, Shalin.

The Doctor warns Sam against interfering. But faced with such abject misery, the young London girl cannot make herself stand by and watch. The results of her meddling may just spark a war - and the Doctor and Sam will be lucky just to get out of ancient Stonehenge alive!


CHARACTERS

The Doctor: "You look like a man who keeps lists of the people he kills." Paul McGann's laid-back delivery of lines such as this condemnation of the Deer Man, Shalin, oddly helps to emphasize the Doctor's moral judgment. It seems counterintuitive, but his light touch is far more effective than if he spluttered and shouted. It also gives his performance a place to go. The scene with Shalin, in which McGann uses a light touch for the Doctor's lines, is followed about ten minutes later by a similar scene with Coyn. In that scene, McGann does go for harsher, sterner tones, which differentiates it from the earlier encounter and keeps the performance varied.

Sam Jones: Unsurprisingly, by far the longest of the Earth & Beyond stories also offers by far the best characterization for Sam. Writer Paul Leonard neatly parallels her relationship with the Doctor to the childhood relationship between Shalin and Coyn, with her loving the Doctor's ability to take her suggestions and go a bit further with them. Sam is impulsive, which is what puts both her and the Doctor in their situation in this story to start with. But she also can think quite quickly, drawing on what she knows of people from this time period to bluff the superstitious natives. When the Doctor is held by Coyn and Shalin, Sam is thrust into a leadership role with Dorlan, a prisoner she helped to free. Sam feels guilt when her plan to help Dorlan's people goes badly wrong, and even when the Doctor points out that she isn't responsible for the actions of others, she insists on claiming responsibility.


THOUGHTS

Many of the reviews of The People's Temple from the time of this story collection's release complained about it: too long, too slow, no science fiction elements. I will say that people who found the Hartnell historicals dull probably will find this story dull as well. But I was always a big fan of the Hartnell historicals, and that may explain why I enjoyed this story so much.  The People's Temple may originally have been published within a short story collection, but it's more of a novella - and the added time allows writer Paul Leonard to present characters, a society, and a situation with some actual depth and texture.

Coyn and Shalin are particularly strong characters, complex individuals whose lifelong friendship, and growing wariness of each other, drives the story. An excellent prologue presents them as children, and Leonard's polished and careful writing (a notable step up from the prose of the previous two short stories) details that friendship as a series of negotiations: Coyn makes Shalin feels useful, Shalin makes Coyn feel brave. "That is one reason why they are friends." An epilogue brings the story full circle in a way that's highly satisfying, aided by the simple but effective sound effects used in this production.

This is definitely a story aimed at adult readers/listeners, and would probably be barely recognizable to fans familiar only with the new series. The pace is slow and measured, the violence genuinely brutal, and the tone often bleak. It presents two memorable guest characters, each a seriously flawed individual responsible for many deaths, and yet doesn't ultimately treat either of them as simply a villain. Most reminiscent of the early Hartnell historicals, it's a story I'd most recommend in its audio form (thanks to the production values and McGann's excellent reading) and one probably best enjoyed by those who appreciated the early Hartnell historicals.


Rating: 8/10.

Earth & Beyond: Dead Time

1 episode.  Approx. 35 minutes.  Written by: Andrew Miller. Directed by: John Taylor.  Performed by: Paul McGann.


THE PLOT

Trapped within a dead, forgotten derelict, totally paralyzed and helpless, the Doctor finds himself besieged by ghostly voices invading his mind. He will have to use all his mental powers to defend himself, before these beings known only as "The Forgotten" not only kill him, but wipe his very existence out of history!


CHARACTERS

The Doctor: The story confirms that this is still comparatively soon after the regeneration into his 8th persona. We also are told that a tiny part of the Doctor's brain dies every time he regenerates, healing over but remaining essentially dead tissue. Once he figures out the true nature of "The Forgotten," his fear of them is replaced by scorn, as he regards them as incompetent bunglers and murderers.

Sam Jones: Has a strong sarcastic streak in this story - maybe too strong, as she has a sarcastic response to almost everything the Doctor says to her, though at least it's played off as a reaction to their spooky surroundings. Her crush on the Doctor is still strong, as evidenced by her blushing when he ties his cravat around her to keep them together in the darkness, and she is nervous about showing her fears within this darkened derelict, lest she come across as a frightened child.


THOUGHTS

This is a well-crafted short story that is given an extra boost by an excellent audio production. The production is approached very much like a ghost story, with the voices of "The Forgotten" rendered in ghoulish whispers that shift from one side of the audio frame to the other, echoing to chilly effect. Sound effects and music enhance the atmosphere, while Paul McGann's voice lends itself quite well to the gothic mood. McGann seems to particularly relish voicing "The Forgotten," who whisper lines about how they "are going to kill you, Doctor... so slowly."

The story itself is a good one, with writer Andrew Miller using a flashback structure to good effect. The story begins with the Doctor already trapped, fighting against the mad voices who seem not to threaten his death so much as promise it. From that point, the story moves back and forth between the Doctor's struggle against "The Forgotten," and the events that led to him becoming trapped. When the flashback has fully caught up with the story's opening, then the narrative moves on to a solution - one which could seem like a continuity overload, but which manages to work within the context of the story.

As with other short stories, there really isn't much to add. It's a tidy little piece, very well-produced and well-read by McGann. If you can get hold of it at a good price, either in the original cassette release Earth & Beyond or in the Tales of the TARDIS collection, this one is recommended.


Rating: 7/10.

Previous Story: Earth & Beyond: Bounty
Next Story: Earth & Beyond: The People's Temple

Earth & Beyond: Bounty

1 episode, approx. 35 minutes.  Written by: Peter Anghelides.  Directed by: John Taylor.  Performed by: Paul McGann.

THE PLOT

The Doctor has promised Sam Jones, a young London girl, one trip in the TARDIS - and then straight back home, much to her disappointment. She is angling to extend her time with him during their easy, relaxing visit to a beach. But that vacation is cut short when the Doctor and Sam discover alien debris in the sand. Abruptly, the piece of debris is knocked away by a shape-shifting alien, who runs off with it - and with the Doctor's TARDIS key!


CHARACTERS

The Doctor: This story has a splendid chase sequence, in which the Doctor uses his mind to catch up with the alien he's pursuing. The alien has much faster transportation, while the Doctor is on foot for this leg of the chase. But the Doctor observes the winding road, and uses it to keep the chase viable.

Sam Jones: Given the limited time available, writer Peter Anghelides does a good job of making Sam likable and plucky. Her interplay with the Doctor over a game of "I've never done..." is quite amusing, and Anghelides gives a nice turn of mood when Sam challenges the Doctor to deny that he's ever killed anyone, and then is disconcerted by the Doctor's non-reply. She enjoys being with the Doctor and clearly has a fairly strong teen crush on him (one wonders if she'd have been half as fast to go off with the First or Sixth Doctors), but she isn't quite sure of him at this point - something used to good effect when the Doctor feigns callousness for the aliens' benefit.

THOUGHTS

Another short story which, like Benny's Story, is fairly thin on a storytelling level. This is actually an even more generic story, as the meat of the tale amounts to a big chase scene.

But it may well be that very thing that makes this story work within its brief running time.  When you only have about a half hour to work with, a simple story is usually best. Because the story itself is so uncomplicated, there is plenty of time for some charming character interplay. Anghelides is a good writer, one who understands setting up a moment to pay it off later. As a result, Sam's offhand challenge to the Doctor of "I've never killed anyone," ends up having multiple payoffs by the story's end.

This isn't a fantastically ambitious Doctor Who story. But it's a well-judged short piece, very entertaining with some decent character bits. Well worth a listen.


Rating: 6/10.

Next Story: Earth & Beyond: Dead Time


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8th Doctor Television Review Index

8th Doctor Audio Review Index

Short Trips: Degrees of Truth

Not Yet Reviewed.

Short Trips: Stop the Pigeon

Not Yet Reviewed.