BASIC PLOT
Plans are afoot to spirit King Charles from his prison and the Doctor and his companions become embroiled in the intrigue.

DOCTOR
Second.

COMPANIONS
Ben, Polly and Jamie.

MATERIALISATION CIRCUIT
An alley near The World Turn'd Upside Down inn, Dec 1648.

PREPARATORY READING
None.

CONTINUITY REFERENCES
Pg 8 "He had joined the TARDIS crew after an adventure with the Jacobite rebels of 1745" The Highlanders (but see Continuity Cock-ups).

Pg 19 Reference to Susan.

Pg 34 "Ben had once told Polly that he could handle Daleks and Cybermen and all the futuristic horrors that went with them" Ben and Polly met the Cybermen and the Daleks in The Tenth Planet and Power of the Daleks respectively.

Pg 37 "And Ben was such a headstrong fellow. Insisted I take him back to his ship because he'd be late. I kept telling him he was two hundred years early!" The Smugglers.

Pg 53 "I've always fancied running a pub." This was Michael Craze's occupation after he gave up acting.

Pg 60 "Polly Polly Wright" Polly's surname was never given on TV, but Gary Russell made a case for it in the introduction of Invasion of the Cat-People.

Pg 62 "In fact, if she'd run into him back at the Inferno Club back in Chelsea, she might have considered him quite a dish." The War Machines.

Pg 75 "I've been trying to get back to my ship all this time" The War Machines. Ben's ship, the Teazer is mentioned here.

Pg 100 "The day she had left to become Professor Brett's secretary at the Post Office Tower." The War Machines.

Pgs 239-240 "You don't think a little elementary hypnosis is beyond me, do you? I knew someone ages ago who taught me. Of course, he was an absolute master." The Master and the Doctor are friends at this point, as seen in The Dark Path.

OLD FRIENDS AND OLD ENEMIES
None.

NEW FRIENDS AND NEW ENEMIES
Oliver Cromwell, Richard Cromwell, John Thurloe, Christopher Whyte, Sir John Copper, Thomas Culpepper, Frances Kemp, Van Leeuwenhoek.

CONTINUITY COCK-UPS

• Pg 8 "He had joined the TARDIS crew after an adventure with the Jacobite rebels of 1745" The Highlanders took place in 1746, not 1745.

PLUGGING THE HOLES [Fan-wank theorizing of how to fix continuity cock-ups]

• The rebellion started before 1746 so this may be what the date refers to.

FEATURED ALIEN RACES
None.

FEATURED LOCATIONS
Present day London (the prologue).

London, the Teazer (at sea) and Amsterdam, December 1648.

London, January 30th 1649 (the final scene).

IN SUMMARY - Robert Smith?
The Roundheads holds great promise, but it squanders its best set pieces in favour of political intrigue that isn't terribly interesting. The Roundheads of the title appear so briefly that it's difficult to tell which side they're on and Ben being shipped off to sea feels cliched before it begins, not to mention his murderous tendancies towards the end. The saving grace is the subplot with Jamie as the seer of the future and the children's book, but even this is dealt with so perfunctorily that it ultimately disappoints. It's not awful, by any means, but it could have been so much better.