An Autist Reviews: Time Apart - The Dancing Plague (Doctor Who - The Monthly Adventures 266.4)

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

Strasbourg, 1518, a deadly, if not rather odd, plague is on a rampage. Luckily, the Doctor is here to help with his assistant Margareta… sorry, no, he is her assistant… or something like that… With the leaders of the town hiding away, and the uneducated masses afraid for their lives, the Doctor doesn’t have long to save Strasbourg from the plague or the pitchfork-wielding commoners.

Okay, let’s get THIS over quickly: The story is 20 minutes long. The pacing is spectacular for a 20-minute story. But in general, it’s pretty damn crazy. It jumps from scene to scene with little care for telling you time is passing and sometimes entire what should be big events are skipped over. As for the dialogue situation, it’s generally good, but the conversations between the Doctor, Margareta, and the leader rub me the wrong way, as well as how easily swayed Margareta is towards the end of the story. Also, Margareta is just really weirdly characterized, being both a strong-willed woman fighting a sexist world and also being a squealing annoyance quite often. The story itself is also a little messy, with mixed morals and a weird ending. All that being said, it’s a fun roller coaster to go on for 20 minutes.

The acting in this is very nearly perfect. The Doctor and the leader of the town are on point, with the leader being insanely well-acted and deliciously evil and manipulative and sexist! Margareta is the only character who has enough odd line reads to justify bringing down the rating, but even then she is mostly amazing, even if she’s just being amazing at reading very whiny lines. (also it’s hard to describe her character, so give me a break, okay?!)

The music in this is brilliant. I love it so much, it fits the medieval setting SO WELL! The background music is great, and the music actually being played is even better, but the problem is there isn’t enough of it. Honestly, there should have been even more music in this story to help it along, but that’s mostly just personal preference. The dancing effects, unlike the music, were very bad. They came down to an occasional pat on the floor of a foot, even when surrounded by dancers! Other effects such as running were brilliant, but the dancing is just unforgivably lazy. The crowd effects were pretty dang good, even if they sounded pretty weird when the Doctor and Margareta were pushing through the crowd. The transitions in this story are crazy, they jump from scene to scene with no care for making time jumps noticeable, or transitions period! Basically, the effects are good enough, brilliant most of the time, but there are too many things that are lazy or weird for me to rate the effects any higher.

As for re-enjoyment, this story is amazingly fun to listen to. It’s a crazy rollercoaster of a story with some amazing acting and effects with a neat twist at the end! You won’t glean more information from relistening, but why let that stop you?

For a story being told in just 20 minutes, this is a banger, and if you don’t mind a breakneck pace story with odd transitions and slightly lazy effects, it’s really enjoyable. The acting is absolutely on point and it’s just, generally, a great way to spend 20 minutes of your life… just don’t focus on some of the possible issues with how the Doctor acts towards Margareta...

Total - 8

Original Guesstimate - 8

Plot - 8
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Story - 8
Pacing - 6
Dialogue - 7
Narration - NR
Exposition - 10
Enjoyment - 9
Twists - 10
Resolution/s - 10
Ending - 7

Acting - 10
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MCs - 10
SCs - 9
BGs - 10
Narrators - NR

Effects - 8
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Music - 8
Voices - NR
Actions - 8
Background - 8
Transitions - 6

Replay - 7
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Re-Enjoyment - 9
New Details - 5

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