User:SOTO/Forum Archive/The Panopticon/@comment-1293767-20151029072618/@comment-5918438-20161207041844

I still think the four rules I outlined above allowed for consistency. Four guidelines to follow, much like at T:VALID, so we don't ever have to go through this mess again.

SOTO wrote: (T:MULTI/T:STORY COUNT should have a different colour to the four little rules, like maybe red, but I ain't got time that now.)

Four rules of the multi-parter

Two or more TV episodes are considered a two- or multi-parter if the following statements are found to be true:

1	The episodes follow each other directly in broadcast, within a consecutive run.

2	The episodes belong to the same production block, with the same director in charge of all of them.

3	A minimum of one (1) linking character (see below) is present in all episodes.

4	If a story was broadcast as a serial, rules 2 and 3 need not apply.

Finer detail

Rule 1: The episodes follow each other directly in broadcast, within a consecutive run.

- Specials, such as those aired on Christmas, are not usually included in a consecutive run, with one exception being The End of Time.

- When a series is divided into two distinct runs, as with series 6 and series 7, those runs are to be considered separately. A Good Man Goes to War and Let's Kill Hitler are not, here, considered consecutive.

- It is not required that the length of time between episodes is 1 week, though this is usually the case.

Rule 2: The episodes belong to the same production block, with the same director in charge of all of them.

- Episodes may alternately belong to the same serial. More than one director is permitted, as needed, for serials only. As with An Unearthly Child, rule 3 also need not necessarily apply to all episodes in a serial.

Rule 3: A minimum of one (1) linking character is present in all episodes.

- A linking character here refers to one who is usually specific to that story. Often, these are guest characters as well.

- Community discussion may extend this rule to other linking elements, such as setting, but this change will not be adopted if it in any way affects the status of episodes aired before 2016.

- With regards to this policy, "linking character" means something quite precise:

Linking characters

- The following statements must be true for a character to qualify to link two or more episodes.

1. They must, again, appear in all episodes of the proposed multi-parter.
2. They must not also be present in a majority (50%+) of episodes in that series run, nor can they appear in a consecutive run of more than three (3) episodes.
3. Characters introduced within the last 10% of an episode's runtime do not add to this count. This is a necessary precaution, as such cliffhanger endings are not always related to multi-parters. These characters are often, though not necessarily always, last in the cast list.

Thus, those characters like Donna Noble in Doomsday and Santa Claus in Death in Heaven would not count as linking characters, and Winston Churchill is not qualified to link The Beast Below to Victory of the Daleks.

Missy appears in a majority of series 8 stories, and Kovarian in a majority of series 6a. Jack Harkness in series 1 appears in a continuous run of 5 episodes, while Mickey's in around 60% of series 2. Amy and Rory, as well as Clara, appear in a majority of their respective series runs.

- It is not required that a linking character be played by the same actor in all appearances.

Serials

Rule 4: If a story was broadcast as a serial, rules 2 and 3 need not apply.

- Obviously, anything produced and released serially should be considered a single multi-part story. Sometimes, due to a variety of issues, different directors have directed different parts of the same story. Thus, any number of episodes which follow each other in a consecutive run, and which were clearly intended to be a serial, are considered multi-part stories, regardless of whether or not the director and linking character clauses are met.

- Regardless of recording blocks, even in 1960s Doctor Who, a single serial is a single multi-part story, and multiple serials are never combined in that fashion.

- Beyond pre-1996 Doctor Who, almost all TV stories of The Sarah Jane Adventures were serialised, and combined as such, and series 3 and 4 of Torchwood were both serialised as well, as Children of Earth and Miracle Day, respectively. Thus, COE and MD are each one story with multiple parts, and this is reflected in story counts.

Further details

- If two or more episodes are said in official statements, by either the BBC or an executive producer in charge of the series, to make up a multi-part story, and those episodes do not qualify as such by our four rules, community discussion may be necessary to expand on these three rules. Such an expansion may not affect the multi-part status of any episodes aired before 2016, or it will not be approved.

- Amendment 2.1: In light of the unique case of Heaven Sent/Hell Bent, the community has decided to expand rule 2 to also allow for two episodes, each alone in individual production blocks, with a maximum of one (1) episode produced in between, to also be considered a two-part story, as this is simply a case of double banking.

- Amendment 3.1: In the odd case that one or more of the episodes has no characters, besides the Doctor and/or his companion(s), in a speaking role at all, and sufficient production evidence exists that those episodes are a multi-parter, a community discussion may decide to count those as a multi-parter, again through official statements by the BBC/executive producer, if those episodes also meet the requirements of rules 1 and 2.

TV stories considered multi-part by these rules

BBC Wales Doctor Who

• Aliens of London / World War Three
• The Empty Child / The Doctor Dances
• Bad Wolf / The Parting of the Ways
• Rise of the Cybermen / The Age of Steel
• The Impossible Planet / The Satan Pit
• Army of Ghosts / Doomsday
• Daleks in Manhattan / Evolution of the Daleks
• Human Nature / The Family of Blood
• The Sound of Drums / Last of the Time Lords
• The Sontaran Stratagem / The Poison Sky
• Silence in the Library / Forest of the Dead
• The Stolen Earth / Journey's End
• The End of Time Parts 1 and 2
• The Time of Angels / Flesh and Stone
• The Hungry Earth / Cold Blood
• The Pandorica Opens / The Big Bang
• The Impossible Astronaut / Day of the Moon
• The Rebel Flesh / The Almost People
• Dark Water / Death in Heaven
• The Magician's Apprentice / The Witch's Familiar
• Under the Lake / Before the Flood
• The Girl Who Died / The Woman Who Lived (different writers, but this has no bearing on our rules)
• The Zygon Invasion / The Zygon Inversion
• Heaven Sent / Hell Bent

Heaven Sent has no speaking characters besides the Doctor, so BBC statements as to production intent qualify here according to amendment 3.1, under further details above.

1963 Doctor Who

• All, except for The Five Doctors and another that's not coming to me. The TV Movie, if considered part of classic Who, also does not contain multiple parts.

Torchwood

• Everything Changes / Day One (linking character: Andy)
• Captain Jack Harkness / End of Days (even airs on same day)
• Dead Man Walking / A Day in the Death (different writers, but this has no bearing on our rules)
• Children of Earth is a five-part serial, from Day One to Day Five, all directed by Euros Lyn.
• Torchwood: Miracle Day is a multi-part story. It has multiple directors, but was not produced in production blocks. Because Children of Earth is a clearer case of serialhood, Miracle Day is classified as one too for consistency. Indeed, this line of thinking is apparently confirmed by certain statements made by Russell T Davies, in TM 17 calling "one continuous story", which he hoped series 4 would be, something very different from "13 one-part stories", or "13 one-offs".

The Sarah Jane Adventures

• As with classic Who, all SJA stories but one are serials. (A modern DW equivalent is The End of Time)

K9

• None. All 26 episodes of K9 are standalone stories.

K9 and Company

• None. Not in this universe, anyway.