POINTS OF DEBATE: WHAT CONSTITUTES A THREE PARTER IN NEW WHO?

I wanted to make August the month for POINTS OF DEBATE, but I got really busy as September approached and couldn't finish this third essay I was working on. So I took a break from the blog to handle the paying writing gigs and now I'm back. My inner completist couldn't leave an essay half-done so I figured I'd finish it here before moving on to some other stuff. 

This one has been an interestingly subjective concept that showrunners seem quite happy to not give a straight answer on. RTD was especially tight-lipped on the matter during his period. But there's even some stuff with Moff that left us wondering a bit, sometimes. You might even say that Chibnall played a bit of  a Long Game with this format, too.     




One would think that a production team would keep things pretty simple when it comes to how many episodes constitute a full story. But, believe it or not, this has been a somewhat cloudy issue throughout the entire history of the show. Particularly in eras where episodes get specific names. It's hard to determine when the story begins or ends. But even during periods when episodes are numbered rather than titled, the confusion continues.

Before embarking on the main topic, let's start by looking at this issue during the Good 'Ole Days:


EPISODE SUBJECTIVITY IN CLASSIC WHO

Doctor Who has never shied away from telling a story with a complicated and variable episode structure. Most of the Classic Series used episodes with an approximate running time of about 23 minutes. While the bulk of the adventures that the Doctor went on took up four of these type of episodes to accomplish, we have seen shorter tales that lasted only two or three episodes and longer ones that took up six. Others still, would go on for seven, eight, ten or even twelve episodes. Depending on how you view an umbrella themed season, you can even say Trial of a Time Lord constitutes a record-breaking fourteen episodes. But if you take that stance, then you might as well say the Key to Time story was twenty-six!

But can you actually say that about Trial or Key? Most people wouldn't. Yes, they are telling a long-reaching plot, but said plot is broken down into subsections that would constitute separate stories in and of themselves. And yet, the opening credits of Trial of a Time Lord insinuate otherwise. Each episode simply says the name of the season and gives the latest episode of it. Instead of, say, Episode Two of Mindwarp or Episode One of Ultimate Foe (which, in some strange corners, is actually referred to as Time Inc.), we just get Episode Six and Thirteen of Trial of a Time Lord. This would indicate that Season 23 is the longest-running of all the stories in the history of Classic Who. And yet, many would argue otherwise.

One could cloud this issue even further, though. If Trial and Key are a grey area where some say they are one story and others say they aren't - then what about something like The Ark from the Hartnell era? The way the plot is laid out, it could just be a pair of two-parters rather than the usual four episodes we see it as. What about Frontier In Space and Planet of the Daleks? The two six parters flow into each other quite smoothly. Could this be Twelve episodes? Could all those trilogies in the 80s (E-Space, Regeneration, Guardian) constitute 12-parters, too?

These sort of issues can greatly trouble the pedantic nature of your average Doctor Who fan. We like stories to be arranged in a tidy manner. But production teams don't always give us what we want.


SIX EPISODES IN CLASSIC, THREE IN NEW

As we move into the New Series, things feel pretty clear for the first little while. Aside from the latest season, running times for episodes come in at about 46 minutes (with a few notable exceptions). Most stories are told in just one episode. Which, by Old Who standards, would constitute a two-parter.

A few times a season, we would get a New Who story that takes two 46-minute episodes to tell. We would know this was a two-parter because the first episode would end on a very definite cliffhanger. The cliffhanger would be resolved at the beginning of the next part and whatever plot conflict they had been dealing with in the previous part would, ultimately, be resolved by the end of the second episode. Once more, if we apply running times of episodes from the Classic Series to this format, this would be the equivalent of a four-parter.

And then, finally, we have the occasional three-parter. This is our real Point of Debate. New Who has any number of stories that could be three episodes telling a single story or it could be something else. Several of these prospective three parters (or, what would have been 6 episodes during the Classic Series) follow a very similar pattern to a two-part story but don't quite work the same way. Which leaves us wondering, sometimes, if this is truly a three part tale or if it's actually a different format. Potentially, it could be one episode followed by a two-parter. Or a two-parter followed by one episode. Or even just three individual episodes. It can be quite difficult to determine.

Fortunately, there is one tale from the Classic Series that could help us a bit in sorting this out.


THE TEMPLATE OF THE TWO DOCTORS

While some people still malign Season 22 from the Classic Series, many have had time to stew on the radical changes it was trying to introduce and see it in a much more positive light. But Season 22 is truly a blessing when it comes to this particular debate. It was in this season that they tried out 46-minute-long episodes. So we can use stories from this particular era as a sort of "measuring stick" for determining the numbering of episodes in the stories of New Who.

Most of Season 22 was comprised of two-parters (or, what would have been considered 4-parters in in previous seasons). But we do get an extra long story mid-season. The Two Doctors goes for three 46 minute episodes. This is, of course, the equivalent of a six parter during earlier years. 

The Two Doctors will represent our template for three parters in the New Series. So let's look at some of its specific traits: 

What's most curious about The Two Doctors is how it doesn't need to stay in one place. It begins on Space Station Camera and gradually takes all of its characters to Spain. It does a bit of moving around in Spain, too. We are in a remote hacienda for a bit and then we head into Seville, proper. Then head back out to the countryside again. If you want to really nitpick (and I frequently do!), the Sixth Doctor and Peri seem to be fishing on a strange alien world when we first meet them (it looks like Spain but, to the best of our knowledge, there are no Spanish bodies of water that contain gumblejacks). So consistency of location is not a necessary trait for a three part story. Characters can jump around from location to location but it's all part of the same story. 

Consistency of characters is a bit more important in The Two Doctors, though. Within the first few minutes of Part One, we meet Dastari, Chessene and good 'ole Shockeye of the Quawncing Grig (a greatly under-rated one-time villain who almost made my Top Five List a while back - he's so fun!). They are with us all the way to the end of the story. They get killed off in the last few minutes but they are part of the plot the whole time. This seems an important trait for a three-parter. We need a critical mass of cast members that persist through the entire plot.

Having said that, however, The Two Doctors does leave room for characters to join the tale later on. Commander Varl of the Ninth Sontaran Legion and his underling show up quite a few minutes into the story and then stay for most of it. Oscar and Anita do the same but fade in and out of plot threads. Giving them a fairly limited overall screentime.

So it would seem that a Proper Three-Parter needs a certain level of character consistency. But it can be flexible on the matter. There should be, at least, a few cast members outside of the TARDIS crew that have a solid foothold in the whole adventure. But other characters can come in later and, maybe, not have quite as much presence. That works okay too.

Probably the strongest consistent element that is required for a Three-Parter is the actual plot. There is a need for a certain core issue or theme to prevail through all three episodes. Or, more specifically, a main conflict or problem that needs to be solved. In The Two Doctors, it's the battle to stop Chessene of the Franzine Grig from learning the Full Secrets of Time Travel. Things can meander off a bit in different directions here and there. The Sixth Doctor and Peri, for instance, spend quite a bit of time dealing with the defense systems of Space Station Camera before getting into the central storyline in Spain. It's a nice little way to pad things out without just using a bunch of captures and escapes. But, this slight diversion doesn't get too far away from the main plot. It's an extension of it rather than a self-contained story that merely links into the central tale at its end.

Okay, that's a thorough look at our Two Doctors Yardstick. Let's now use these measurements and see how they apply to our Highly Subjective New Series Three-Parters. Just to be thorough, we will do it on a story-by-story basis. 


Utopia/The Sound of Drums/Last of the Time Lords

What many consider to be the first Three Part Story of New Who (or the equivalent of a  Classic Series Six-Parter). It's strongest point of support is the Consistency of Stoyline. The Master is reborn and has formulated his latest plan to take over the Universe. He must be stopped. This idea persists through all three episodes. This trait, alone, gets many fans to give it the Proper Three-Parter stamp.

We've said that locations can change in a Three-Parter. So the journey from Utopia in the first episode to modern-day Earth in the next two is acceptable. It happens very distinctly at the end of the first part but that doesn't, necessarily, have an impact on how we view the story's structure. But it does influence our opinion a bit. Putting that location change at the end of the episode does give one the impression that Utopia is its own separate story and that Sound of Drums and Last of the Time Lords tells a slightly different tale. Utopia can almost feel like a prequel to the other two episodes rather than an extension of them.

What really works against these three episodes forming one tale is character consistency. Aside from the Doctor, Martha and Jack, the only other person that makes it from Utopia to Earth is the Master. We get introduced to a whole new set of characters in the latter two episodes. That's not a very big core cast of supporting characters that are in all three parts. Again, things feel like Utopia is its own story because of this.

One could argue, of course, that we do see a whole host of characters from Utopia in the Toclofane. They are meant to be the ultimate form that humans choose as they await the end of the universe. The Toclofane are, essentially, the people we saw boarding the ship for Utopia after the engines started working. So we are seeing a greater level of character consistency, after all.

That sits pretty subjectively with me, though. In some ways, it's a valid point. In others, it seems a bit too abstract. 



Turn Left/Stolen Earth/Journey's End

Of all the Possible Three Parters in New Who, this one seems the least likely to qualify.

Turn Left just feels, very much, like its own story. It provides a tenuous link into the Series Finale as it concludes with a big cliffhanger. But, otherwise, it's about Donna finding her way out of an alternate reality. Once she has, we can get on with the main plot.

Having said this, however, the consistency of characters in all three episodes is half decent. Rose is, technically, no longer a member of the TARDIS crew and more of a supporting character, now. And we see her in all three parts. Wilfred Mott and Sylvia Noble also have a presence in all the episodes. This is actually a higher consistent character count than Utopia/Sound of Drums/Last of the Time Lords. And those set of episodes are considered by many to be a Proper Three Parter. So, maybe, we shouldn't be so harsh, here.

While location isn't considered so important, Turn Left does, very much, stay in the same place as Stolen Earth and Journey's End. All three are, technically, in a contemporary Earth setting and take place, chiefly, in London. One episode is just in an aborted timeline.


Face the Raven/Heaven Sent/Hell Bent 

For quite some time, Three Parters seem to fall off the face of the Earth. Throughout all of the Eleventh Doctor's era and the first season of Twelve, we get nothing that resembles this format. Then, at last, there's the finale to Series Nine.

Story Consistency seems to be a pretty big sore point, here. We could give everything in these three episodes a very general theme of The Loss of Clara. That's what they are really about. But each episode tells it's own fairly distinct tale. Face the Raven could be labeled Clara Dies. Heaven Sent is The Doctor Grieving. And Hell Bent transforms into The Doctor Tries To Get Clara Back. All three episodes do link together and tell a bigger tale. But the plot of each episode does feel very self-contained in a lot of ways. Like three stories that come together to form one. Rather than three parts of a story.

Character consistency doesn't do so well, either. Me does have a strong foothold in two of the episodes. Otherwise, only the Doctor and Clara are seen in all three. And Clara is almost not present at all in Heaven Sent. When she does show up, she's meant to just be a figment of the Doctor's imagination.

While location doesn't have a strong role to play in determining a Three Parter, the fact that all three episodes occur in distinctly different places doesn't help with getting them to gel. Raven is in the streets of modern London. Heaven is in the Doctor's Confession Dial. Hell is on Gallifrey and mid-western United States. The harsh change of locale in each part gets them to seem like they are their own individual story.

As silly as it sounds, these three episodes just "feel" more like a Proper Three Parter than, say, Turn Left/Stolen Earth/Journey's End. It's probably a structural issue more than anything. Three episodes that seem very distinct from each other coming together to form a whole adventure has a better sense of completeness to it than one episode telling a story and then the other two going in a different direction.


Extremis/The Pyramid at the End of the World/The Lie of the Land

To the best of my knowledge, this is the first time the production team truly labels a story to be a Three Parter. The Press does quote Moffat on several occasions as saying that these three episodes are meant to tell one story. Before this instance, when asked if a certain set of episodes were considered a Three Parter, we had RTD saying things like: "It's up to the fans to determine this." And Moff just not really saying anything at all on the matter! But Extremis/Pyramid/Lie is most definitely referred to as being one big adventure by the people who put it together.

And yet, the three parts only stand up so well to the Two Doctors Yardstick. Character consistency is pretty poor. Each episode introduces a whole new cast that is, pretty much, written out by the end. Some characters from Extremis do briefly show up in Pyramid but they don't remain for long. The Monks do persist for all three parts. That does score a point or two for character consistency. But it doesn't help that they are more just the monster-of-the-week than actual characters in a plot. Even Missy's presence in the episodes is somewhat fleeting. She's seen in flashbacks during the first part, pretty much disappears for the second, and comes back for a bit in the last.

Just like the previous Three Parter, each episode also introduces a pretty strong shift in location. Yes, everything is on modern-day Earth. But, for the most part, the story is told in different areas of the planet during each part. Once more, this causes each episode to feel separate and distinct from the other rather than getting them to unify better.

What is probably most damning is the fact that Extremis plays out quite similarly to Turn Left. Once more, the first episode of the tale is about a false reality that needs to be escaped. Then we go to "actual reality" to continue dealing with the conflict. If we had a hard time accepting the Series Four finale as being a Three Parter because of this, shouldn't we have the same problem here? And yet, we're still told that this is most definitely a Three Parter by the production team.




World Enough and Time/The Doctor Falls/Twice Upon a Time

Most would say these three episodes don't constitute a Three Parter at all, but I would suggest that there's some pretty strong evidence to support that they do.

On several levels of consistency, the three parts don't line up well. Twice Upon A Time introduces a whole new set of characters that aren't seen at all in the previous parts. But other Three Parters do the same and still tend to get that title.

The same can be said for locations. The Doctor most definitely leaves the Mondasian colony ship at the end of Doctor Falls and the story moves on to somewhere new. But we've been saying right from the start that location is only so important in achieving the Three-Parter label. And, the fact of the matter is, we do see the Doctor at the South Pole in all three episodes. This gives these episodes better location consistency than some other stories that have made this list.

The strongest argument against this being a Three Parter would be the plot. World Enough and Time and Doctor Falls deal with fighting the Cybermen and dealing with two Masters at once (or, more specifically. one Master and one Missy). Twice Upon a Time is about the Doctor realizing that Testimony isn't really so bad, after all. These seem like pretty distinct storylines. But, again, we've seen other Three Parters take pretty sharp turns in their plots. So can this really be that big of a determining factor?

But we should also consider that the Doctor facing his latest regeneration is also a huge issue in all three parts. It becomes a bigger and bigger thread as the episodes progress. Reaching its ultimate culmination at the conclusion of Twice Upon A Time. So, in some ways, there is a story consistency going on. It's just that there are other aspects of the plot moving in different directions. But a core issue does get addressed throughout all three episodes. Which does give them a certain degree of unity and cohesiveness.

So maybe, just maybe, this is a Three Parter.

I will admit, however, that this does open a whole new can of worms that we might not want to deal with. Other Christmas Specials work as extensions of the Season Finale. Army of Ghosts/Doomsday/Runaway Bride would be the best example of this. All three episodes deal quite heavily with the loss of Rose. So does this mean it's a Three Parter, too? I would argue no as I feel the through theme isn't quite as strong as it is in World Enough and Time/Doctors Falls/Twice Upon a Time. But some might say otherwise. This is, at best, a very blurry issue.


SOME SUPER-SUBJECTIVE STUFF

Admittedly, claiming that Capaldi's final moments is a Three Parter is a pretty grey area. But I'd like to go even more grey for just a little bit.

I would like to suggest that Three Parters came way sooner than we think they did. I believe we actually got them right in the first series. They just strayed from the Two Doctors Standard in one major way: the three episodes don't follow each other in immediate succession.

For obvious reasons, I like to call them Long Game Three Parters. Part of the story gets told earlier in the season, then we go off in a new direction for a few episodes, then we finish the story. Ultimately, however, this process is accomplished in three parts.

We see two examples of this in Series One.  Aliens of London and World War Three begin the tale of the wretched Slytheen family from Raxacoricofallapatorius (yes, I had to look up the spelling!). Boom Town completes the adventure. Was it a sequel to those first two episodes or the third installment of a Three Parter that took a break for a while?

The same can be said of The Long Game and Bad Wolf/Parting of the Ways. All three episodes are about a saga taking place on a space station in the far future. Yes, Boom Town and Long Game seem like very separate stories from the other two episodes they link to. But so does Utopia or Turn Left. So perhaps we can consider these to be a very unique type of Three Parter.

We can go even more subjective and claim that a Long Game Three Parter also takes place in Series 11. The Woman Who Fell to Earth and The Ghost Monument have a few strong links to each other. Both deal quite heavily with the Stenza. Woman actually introduces us to one while Monument speaks extensively of their effects on the Universe. Both episodes are also linked by a pretty serious cliffhanger. The Quest to Retrieve the TARDIS is also a pretty strong theme that runs through both episodes. We could say this is a legitimate Two-Parter.

The Battle of Ranskoor Av Kolos sees the return of the dreaded Tzim-Sha for a final battle. Some fairly important character and plot arcs that were first introduced in the earlier two parts reach a final resolution, here. Most specifically, Graham faces up to his desire to seek revenge for the death of Grace and resists it.

One could say that there are enough common threads between all three episodes that this could constitute a Three Parter. Truth be told, those connections might just be a little too weak. But it's still an interesting point to ponder...


CONCLUSION

The bottom line here is that episode structure in the New Series is far more subjective than it was during Classic Who. And, as mentioned in the opening paragraphs, things were even pretty blurry back in the Original Series!

So, which of these stories are legitimate Three Parters? Or are any of them? Personally, some of the stories I've listed in here I feel don't qualify (Turn Left/Stolen Earth/Journey's End, for me, is a one-parter followed by a two parter). While there are others that I do firmly believe fit the mold even though most of fandom doesn't think so (World Enough and Time/The Doctor Falls/Twice Upon a Time is a great example of this). I even believe in the idea of Long Game Three Parters.

Ultimately, however, I have to go with what RTD said when asked about this issue. It's really up to the opinion of the individual fan. You may even think there are a set of episodes that I didn't itemize in this entry that should be considered a Three Parter. I can't argue with you if you do. It truly is a personal preference issue.



Sadly, this will be the only entry I write this month. It was a bit longer than most. Hopefully, that makes up for the loss a bit. Things will slow down for me a bit in October and I will have a little bit more time for leisure writing. Which is precious to me. It's important for me to write for the sheer enjoyment of writing (which is why you're not getting ads on this - if this becomes a source of income for me then it loses its sense of catharsis).  

I do think this will be it for POINTS OF DEBATE for a bit, though. I have some other ideas that I would like to debate but I can always explore them later. Whereas I do have an ANALYTICAL essay that I'd like to take a shot at. 

We'll see what happens next time I jump into here with an afternoon to spare!