A review by nwhyte
Doctor Who: The Roundheads by Mark Gatiss

http://nhw.livejournal.com/1145131.html?#cutid1[return][return]Gatiss takes the Second Doctor, Ben, Polly and Jamie back to late 1648 for a pure historical story: they get involved with Oliver Cromwell and a plot to liberate Charles I from captivity. I'll have to say up front that this didn't completely work for me. Simon Guerrier handled this period (setting his story a year later, and the other side of the Irish Sea) far better in The Settling; Gatiss's characters talk like history lessons (apart from his rollicking sailors). In addition, the precepts of historical Who stories are somewhat violated by allowing Richard Cromwell to read a history of the Civil War (though this is dealt with) and, rather more dramatically, having Charles I's escape plan succeed, if only temporarily, provoking the Doctor to intervene rather un-Doctorishly to put history back on track (indeed the last few chapters have everyone acting a bit out of character). Also Gatiss seems a bit hazy about the location of the Solent, which appears in his account to be somewhere in the London suburbs.[return][return]There are some nice bits too. Ben falls in with the aforementioned rollicking sailors and goes to Amsterdam and back. Polly has an almost-romance with a young man called Whyte, which I found personally amusing. Charles I himself is moderately well-rounded as a character. So it's not awful, just not as good as it might have been.