Good Queen, Bad Queen, I Queen, You Queen

Well, dang. This had a lot of potential, and a lot working against it. This is the third story in Short Trips 24 that is Roman themed. While it makes sense in the context of the anthology, it is a lot. Still, what does Good Queen, Bad Queen, I Queen, You Queen some justice is the variety of Roman history. The last two took place (at least in part) in Italy later into the time of Rome; this one takes place in Roman Britain. So the setting still feels different enough it isn't the problem.

Nor is the problems the idea of the story. The Doctor and Romana, fleeing from the Black Guardian, wind up befriending Boudica. It's an interesting companion piece to Wrath of Iceni, essentially an inversion of that story that endorses Boudica's behaviour much more than challenging it, even going so far as to have the Doctor save her life while Romana fills in for the tribal leader.

Terri Osborne, another Star Trek writer that seems to have gone inactive, goes even farther than I described as above, putting out a twist ending I really didn't see coming, and putting a lot of heart into the story of the Iceni as a historical drama. The problem is it falls flat, and falls hard, on its execution. Our narrators are Boudica and Romana, and I find bother underwhelming. Romana's narration takes a lot of teeth out of her own character's mystique, while Boudica doesn't make as much sense given the ending, though I might have to check again for hints to that.

It's got a lot of flaws, but is far from unacceptable, too.