User:SOTO/Forum Archive/The Panopticon/@comment-1293767-20151029072618/@comment-5918438-20160108080033

Further summary:

Two or more TV episodes are considered a two- or multi-parter if the following statements are true.

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

- Specials are not usually included in a consecutive run, with one exception being TEOT.

- 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 AUC, rule 3 also need not necessarily apply to all episodes in a serial.

Rule 3: A minimum of one (1) guest character and/or one (1) unique setting is present in all episodes.

- It is not required that a guest character be played by the same guest actor. A guest character by definition is not a recurring character.

- Unique setting is defined as one which is not featured in other adventures within the same run of episodes, and which is not recurring.

Further details

- 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.

- 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, 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.

Complete list of BBC Wales Doctor Who episodes considered multi-part stories by these rules

• 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
• The Zygon Invasion / The Zygon Inversion
• Heaven Sent / Hell Bent

Classic Doctor Who

• Almost all of classic Who serials have multiple parts or episodes to them. One notable exception is The Five Doctors. The TV Movie, if considered part of classic Who, does not contain multiple parts.

- Regardless of recording blocks, even in the 60s, a single serial is a single multi-part story, and multiple serials are never combined in that fashion.

Torchwood

• Possibly Everything Changes / Day One, only if Rhys Williams and/or Andy Davidson can be considered guest characters, which I believe they cannot. They are recurring.
• Captain Jack Harkness / End of Days (even airs on same day)
• Dead Man Walking / A Day in the Death

notably also written by different writers, so there's precedent

• Children of Earth is a five-part story, from Day One to Day Five, all directed by Euros Lyn.
• All episodes of Torchwood: Miracle Day are either:

1. to be considered individually, as none were directed in production blocks, rather, as individual episodes.
2. to be considered collectively, as a serial. This would be consistent with Children of Earth. Evidence in favour of this treatment is RTD, in TM 17, calling "one continuous story" something very different from "13 one-part stories", which he also calls "13 one-offs". I think both COE and MD have a serialised structure, and can each be considered a serial.

The Sarah Jane Adventures

• As with classic Who, all SJA stories but one are serials. (A modern DW equivalent is The End of Time) Serials are an established system of multi-part stories. Serials may never be combined to form multi-serial stories.

K9

• All 26 episodes of K9 are standalone stories.

K9 and Company

• Seriously?