An Autist Reviews: The Satanic Mill (The Eighth Doctor Adventures: Doom Coalition 1.4)

*This is an older review, it is not as detailed as my more modern reviews*

*All Reviews Are Spoiler-Free Aside From Any Spoiler Sections*

*FYI in the 70 minutes long BTS… less than 20 minutes are dedicated to parts 3 and 4. TWENTY MINUTES. TWO RELEASES. Just so you know why these last two are NOT good.*

Arriving on a mysterious Victorian factory floating through space, the Doctor, and Liv, and Helen find themselves separated into workgroups. The women find themselves stirring pots of soup and vats of clothing which irks them to no end and amongst workers born today who will work until they die. The Doctor, meanwhile, finds himself being clued in by a worker with no concept of ‘tomorrow’ named Paine. The Eleven has a plan to get revenge on the Doctor… but that’s not all.

Second verse, better than the first. This is a solid improvement of Galileo Trap. The story itself is fun and interesting, but it does rely too much on the Eleven being incompetent and the Doctor having some secret plan to escape… which he shouldn’t… that goes for both of those statements. The writing is poetic and wonderful at times… but at others, a character literally will go “tell me what is here,” and then they will… it’s awkward and dumb. Paine is a cute little puppy who is endearing and interesting. Still, fun and creepy and with some nice social commentary on the state of women and workers in general in the past.

The acting is all over the place. Mark Bonnar doesn’t make the best use of his voices as the Eleven and that’s a massive negative, but he’s still the best actor in this. Paine is fun but he and the other workers tend to be a little poor acting-wise… but at other times they’re pretty good. The whole main cast suffers from some poor acting here, but they also do really well at other times. Really the acting is just back and forth from bad to okay to great.

The effects are pretty good here. There are lots of minor details that get effects, but also some weird effects are thrown in. At the beginning what sounds like lasers going off is used for… something related to elevators? The Eleven’s synth is also worse than it is in the first story and will be in later stories. The music is basic, boring, and not worthy of a music suite.

As for replay, don’t come here expecting some revelations or expecting things to be even better than the first time. It’s lovely to listen to over again, but it’s not extremely special. You get some more out of it because there’s no pressure, but it’s not anything unique.

All in all, an improvement from the last story, but it ain’t perfect. The story is good but relies too heavily on things it shouldn’t, the writing goes from atrocious to Shakespeare levels of quality, the acting is all over the place, the effects are good but the music sucks, and relistening to it doesn’t do anything special for you. It’s a fun story, don’t get me wrong. It has some really good moments and it is very memorable… but it just isn’t anywhere near perfect.

Total - 7 (Fudged it a little… I like some parts more than I should so deal with it!)

Plot - 6
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Story - 7
Writing - 5
Enjoyment - 8
Twists - 3

Acting - 7
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MCs - 7
SCs - 7
BGs - 8

Effects - 7
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Music - 4
Voices - 8
Actions - 8

Replay - 5
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Re-Enjoyment - 7
New Details - 3

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