1. A Sense Of Scale And Grandeur To Stories
With every story a single episode, its hard to get a sense of the big moments in each series. Stephen Moffat nailed it with the series seven finale, but aside from that, if every episode is the same length, can any really stand out? Classic Who had big, sweeping stories, that ran for four episodes (the equivalent of modern two parters almost), with six or more for the bigger stories they wanted to tell. Many felt the fatigue (
The Web Planet and the
Chase...two and a half hours each I'm not getting back) but others took the extended length of time to sell really grand stories to the audience. The six-part
Inferno is a masterpiece and even though it stretched to 10 parts, the Second Doctor's swansong story
The War Games is so epic in scale that it kind of warrants the length. Looking back over Nu Who, there are two moments that really stand out for me. The first is the Master arc of series three.
Utopia is very much like the first two episodes of a classic Who six parter. (Think
The Thing in the first two episodes of
The Seeds of Doom compared to the
Day Of The Triffids story-line in the final four) The final two episodes with John Simm's Master stem from this episode, making it like one of the great six parters of old. And even bigger, the four episode story-line of series six, starting with
The Rebel Flesh Let's and ending with
Let's Kill Hitler is positively epic in tone. From the birth of the Flesh, Amy's kidnapping, the revelation about River Song and her change from killer to saviour...its a big story that is given the time it needs to be done justice. We need more of this in series eight please.
My Ideal Series Breakdown...
Series three for me had the absolute best pacing of episodes (though I find series 5 the strongest). And that's because there was a strong mix between episode types. In series eight I would love to see a handful of single episodes (because in Nu Who I feel we need these still), two two parters throughout the year (NO MID SERIES BREAKS PLEASE) rounding off with a cracking three parter to tie everything up. Like Utopia or Turn Left, that first episode of the final three-story arc should begin as something else entirely, only at the end coming up with a corker of a cliffhanger to launch the final two episodes. What are your thoughts? Do you think multiple episode storylines drag the plot out too much? Or do you love cliffhangers like me? And what's your favourite two episode+ story of Nu Who? I continue to remain torn between
Human Nature/The Family Of Blood and
The Pandorica Opens/The Big Bang. Both quite different in plot but both stunningly paced. Please comment below!