Should there be a return to more traditional WHO stories?

[davejames]

Nothing like that has been announced at all. All that Moffat said was that the show is already mostly standalone single or double-parter episodes, and that it would continue as such. He said nothing about removing arc storylines.

Yeah I don't really see much of a difference from the previous 5 years of the show. Moffat's arc episodes may be a bit wackier and more "time bendy" than before, but we're still only talking about the beginning and ending episodes of the season here.

Everything in between is still just as straightforward and standalone as ever.

 

[Captain Crow]

There were Zero stand alone episodes in Classic Who.

Actually there is one one episode story. "Mission to the Unknown" from 1965.

 

[DAK]

I love the story arc structure. The more complex and involved and timey-wimey it is, the more I love it. But then I'm one of the die-hard fans who never miss an episode, even when it's an actor or writer I don't like much. The only way to alienate me now would be to bring back Tennant or RTD.

 

[TigerBait]

Moff himself has stated that the audience appreciation index for the arc-centric stories have been the highest. if this is the case, it doesnt really matter what individual opinions are, if the fans are wanting more of them, they'll make more...

 

[VDCNI]

Not for Lets Kill Hitler which got 85. Very good but lowish by Who standards.

 

[VDCNI]

Nothing like that has been announced at all. All that Moffat said was that the show is already mostly standalone single or double-parter episodes, and that it would continue as such. He said nothing about removing arc storylines.

Yeah I don't really see much of a difference from the previous 5 years of the show. Moffat's arc episodes may be a bit wackier and more "time bendy" than before, but we're still only talking about the beginning and ending episodes of the season here.

Everything in between is still just as straightforward and standalone as ever.

Episodes 1,2,7,8 & 13 are all arc episodes, that's 5 of 13 episodes and 5&6 were heavily tied in introducing the Gangers concept. Hardly just the beginning and end.

 

[Sindatur]

I don't know much about Troughton/Hartnell, but, Pertwee had an arc running through his entire run, Being exiled on Earth, trying to get his TARDIS running, UNIT, and being sent on missions by the Time Lords, and the Master being in about half of the stories. This led directly into Tom Baker's first series, which had all it's stories continuing exactly where the previous one left off, and all connected to Ark in Space story, still included UNIT, and still included the Time Lords sending him on Missions. Then you had the Key To Time Arc, the E-Space Trilogy, which led directly into Keeper of Trakken/Logopolis/Castrovalva Arc. And of course, Colin Baker's Trial of a Timelord Final Season.

McCoy's entire run seemed to be building up to something big, but, it never got there, maybe because of the cancellation.

There are connections, but calling them "arcs" is generally overselling it. Pertwee being exiled isn't an arc, it's just the status quo of the show for a few years, a bit of background they mention now and again. The Master is a recurring antagonist, but there's hardly a story arc; indeed, he has a new plan every five minutes. And stories leading into each other does not an arc make; Revenge of the Cybermen might be set in the same location as The Ark in Space, but there's no story elements running through.

The closest the old show got to arc were the Key to Time, E-Space, and the Black Guardian trilogy, and even they were pretty slim; the stories stand alone quite well.

I disagree Pertwee's exile wasn't an arc. We saw him slowly building to getting his TARDIS working and slowly gaining more freedon, definitely an arc there.

Trial of a Time Lord, definitely an Arc

McCoy, maybe I'm wrong in this impression, but, it certainly feels like something big is being built towards throughout his run, and it just didn't have enough air time to achieve the culmination.

 

[davejames]

Episodes 1,2,7,8 & 13 are all arc episodes, that's 5 of 13 episodes and 5&6 were heavily tied in introducing the Gangers concept. Hardly just the beginning and end.

Yeah, but this wasn't exactly a normal season. For all intents and purposes episode 7 was basically a season finale and had to be written as such.

And it's only really the tail end of the Ganger story that tied in with the arc. I don't personally think that's enough to qualify it as an "arc episode".

 

[VDCNI]

No, Pertwee's exile wasn't an arc. It was just how the show was made at the time. One production team decided to make the show Earth based (partly to save money) and the next wanted him back out in time and space they just did it gradually and kept the Earth based aspects as well.

Trial fine though the first three stories within Trial functioned as stories in their own right at least and the final two episodes just wraps things up.

McCoy - yes there were a few hints and mysteries within the stand alone stories but take them out and nothing changes.

 

[Candlelight]

Just once I would like a season to emulate the classic series, with a 2-2-2-2-2-3 episode structure (like season 22).

Similar to the Tom Baker "standard" of 4-4-4-4-4-6.

 

[DWF]

I don't know much about Troughton/Hartnell, but, Pertwee had an arc running through his entire run, Being exiled on Earth, trying to get his TARDIS running, UNIT, and being sent on missions by the Time Lords, and the Master being in about half of the stories. This led directly into Tom Baker's first series, which had all it's stories continuing exactly where the previous one left off, and all connected to Ark in Space story, still included UNIT, and still included the Time Lords sending him on Missions. Then you had the Key To Time Arc, the E-Space Trilogy, which led directly into Keeper of Trakken/Logopolis/Castrovalva Arc. And of course, Colin Baker's Trial of a Timelord Final Season.

McCoy's entire run seemed to be building up to something big, but, it never got there, maybe because of the cancellation.

There are connections, but calling them "arcs" is generally overselling it. Pertwee being exiled isn't an arc, it's just the status quo of the show for a few years, a bit of background they mention now and again. The Master is a recurring antagonist, but there's hardly a story arc; indeed, he has a new plan every five minutes. And stories leading into each other does not an arc make; Revenge of the Cybermen might be set in the same location as The Ark in Space, but there's no story elements running through.

The closest the old show got to arc were the Key to Time, E-Space, and the Black Guardian trilogy, and even they were pretty slim; the stories stand alone quite well.

I disagree Pertwee's exile wasn't an arc. We saw him slowly building to getting his TARDIS working and slowly gaining more freedon, definitely an arc there.

Pertwee's Doctor was only allowed off of earth twice by the Time Lords, he didn't gain his freedom slowly it was given to him after The Three Doctors.

And McCoy's Doctor did have a three story, story arc Dragonfire, Silve Nemesis and The Curse Of Fenric are connected. JNT did have a way with trilogies, there was the E Space trilogy, the Master trilogy and the Black Guardian trilogy during his run as well.

 

[Cutter John]

I guess my problem with this years arc is that we really know the Doctors not going to die at the end of the series. I'd just as soon get the damn thing over with and get on to more interesting stuff.

Now if Moffat really wants to impress, write us a 12 part episode, complete with cliffhangers.

 

[Allyn Gibson]

I've made my peace with the arc format; it's what genre television requires today. Or at least, it's what genre television writer/producers think genre television requires. So long as the arc-format is the status quo of water cooler television, I expect Doctor Who to stay there.

However, I wouldn't mind seeing a return to some of the traditional Who genres. I'd like to see Moffat have the cojones to do a pure historical.

 

[Photoman15]

Now if Moffat really wants to impress, write us a 12 part episode, complete with cliffhangers.

He has. It's called season/series 6. Only some of the cliffhangers for some individual episodes are not that apparent.
Until the season/series is over, you can't say each episode was not part of a 12 part set.

 

[Starkers]

However, I wouldn't mind seeing a return to some of the traditional Who genres. I'd like to see Moffat have the cojones to do a pure historical.

Yeah, I doubt the universe would come crashing down about our ears because one out of the 13 episodes didn't feature an alien threat!

 

[Valin]

There were Zero stand alone episodes in Classic Who.

Actually there is one one episode story. "Mission to the Unknown" from 1965.

But wasn't that the setup or lead in to "The Dalek's Master Plan"? So, not really standalone or arcless.

 

[The Lensman]

I'll stick to just watching Star Trek it's less confusing. Of course I was fortunate enough to never miss an episode of Babylon 5, if I had I'm sure I would have given up watching that too. (as many people obviously did or it wouldn't have been cancelled prematurely)

Sarcasm? Babylon 5 wasn't "canceled prematurely". It made it to the end of the story. Crusade on the other hand.....

 

[Sindatur]

I'll stick to just watching Star Trek it's less confusing. Of course I was fortunate enough to never miss an episode of Babylon 5, if I had I'm sure I would have given up watching that too. (as many people obviously did or it wouldn't have been cancelled prematurely)

Sarcasm? Babylon 5 wasn't "canceled prematurely". It made it to the end of the story. Crusade on the other hand.....

To be fair, it was cancelled at the end of S4, and then saved by TNT for S5 (and that uncertainty ended up costing us Ivanova in S5) and then of course, TNT sabotaged Crusade,because they changed their mind, but, were already halfway in.

 

[23skidoo]

I guess my problem with this years arc is that we really know the Doctors not going to die at the end of the series. I'd just as soon get the damn thing over with and get on to more interesting stuff.

That's not the arc at all. The arc is about how the Doctor is going to get out of dying. We've already been given two clues as to how this might happen - one being the Gangers and the other being, of all things, Miracle Day.

Arcs are the new normal for TV. Shows without arcs are being looked down upon (I know people who refuse to watch shows like Law & Order and CSI because of their lack of arcs). The era of bite-size pieces of TV is over. That's not saying we can't have standalone stories - and in fact I find the standalones often are the ones we remember more than the arcs (The Doctor's Wife and The Girl Who Waited are the poster children for this in 2011) - but these are going to be the special cases moving forward, not the norm. And if someone strikes a magic balance between arc and standalone - as was the case with nuBSG's "33" - then you have magic.

The irony of course is today's Doctor Who is doing nothing different than what the original series did for 26 years and that everyone recalls with fondness. The only difference is the length of the stories. I've seen plenty of classic-era Doctor Who ranging from things like The Keys to Marinus to Talons of Weng-Chiang which would have had viewers today making the exact same criticisms of "get on with it" and "it's taking too long" that have been levelled by impatient fans against Moffat and Miracle Day.

My only advice to those who really can't abide by the fact it takes so long to tell the arc stories is don't watch the show. At least, don't watch it in its week-to-week broadcast format because it's just going to frustrate you. Wait for the DVD and Blu-ray and watch it that way. I never watched nuBSG in weekly broadcast; I waited the DVDs and was able to follow the story and get into the arc more than if I'd watched week to week. I'm doing the same with Fringe (and you talk about a multi-year arc...). In the case of Deadwood I waited until the series was completed in total before starting to watch it. And of course all those classic-era Whos that no longer require you to keep track of the story for 4, 6, even 10 weeks ("The War Games", considered a classic story, is far more guilty of padding and running in place than Miracle Day ever was). I'm sure there are a lot of people who won't have watched Miracle Day over the summer but will gladly watch the thing on Blu-ray in a few months.

Alex

 

[DWF]

The irony of course is today's Doctor Who is doing nothing different than what the original series did for 26 years and that everyone recalls with fondness. The only difference is the length of the stories. I've seen plenty of classic-era Doctor Who ranging from things like The Keys to Marinus to Talons of Weng-Chiang which would have had viewers today making the exact same criticisms of "get on with it" and "it's taking too long" that have been levelled by impatient fans against Moffat and Miracle Day.

Alex

None of the classic seasons had you waiting years for revelations about the characters though like what we're getting with River Song. It's been four years since she's been introduced and we still somewhat in the dark about her.