Goths and Robbers

I wish I could give Goths and Robbers a higher rating. It takes place in the tail end of the Roman Empire and the early antecedents of the Holy Roman Empire, which is a really cool setting for a largely pure historical. It features the Fifth Doctor, Tegan, and Nyssa, which is a potentially fun crew for any Doctor Who adventure. It is a little weird how Short Trips 24 has two back-to-back Roman stories, but that makes sense in the larger narrative of the anthology itself. Besides, Goths and Robbers is fundamentally different from The Slave War in just about every respect.

Unfortunately, this one just doesn't feel as strong or as tightly written as the other stories I've read in Quality of Leadership so far. Though it is a great lesson in leadership, one nuanced and thoughtful at that, the story itself leaves a lot to be desired. The Doctor finds himself in a time loop of sorts, where he encounters an adult named Theodoric and then has to travel back in time to Constantinople to help this man as a boy. It's a neat idea, but doesn't quite make sense when you revisit the story. The doctor tells boy Theodoric that he might see him again with a different face as a nod to regeneration, but the Doctor knows for a fact that he just saw adult Theodoric as the Fifth Doctor, so he is just needlessly confusing the boy.

Theodoric's character is just okay. He has one of the more underwhelming reactions to going inside the TARDIS for the first time and it isn't played for laughs, we just don't really have enough time for the moment to get it's proper due. Tegan, the narrator of this story, is a little off. She is a bit too knowing of the Doctor and his ways, leading to her character seeming flat and not overly invested in the story around her. Nyssa has literally nothing to do and is absolutely pointless here. It's quite disappointing in that regard, but the short story itself is far from unbearable.

In spite of my critiques I did enjoy a lot of writer Diane Duane's ideas here. She is normally a Star Trek writer (like many of the authors in Short Trips 24) but she did a good job with a lot of stuff here, from picking a unique setting to having some interesting ideas surrounding the history of Rome and the Crown of Byzantium, all of which is well done, in my opinion. I also love how this whole story is largely framed around the TARDIS crew just trying to make some pasta. That's fun as hell as a silly little reason for our crew to travel to Rome, and leads to an enjoyable ending on the whole, which includes some interesting thoughts about leadership from Theodoric. Goths and Robbers might lack a lot, but so far, out of all the Quality of Leadership stories, it is the best take on leadership, which is something.