Board Thread:The Panopticon/@comment-1293767-20151029072618/@comment-5918438-20160108022940

Bwburke94 wrote: Is there any actual reason to use directors and/or production blocks instead of writers? Well, yes. First off, we're considering a two-parter here to be something inherent in the production of Doctor Who. Writers are related to script, and the script is not a definitive source for what counts as a single story. Here's the thing. Take a look at series 8. Missy appears in almost every story, leading up to the grand finale. Series 5. Cracks in the universe are all over, and there's all sorts of mentions of events disappearing and such. Really quite frequently—and this is often, if not always, the choice of the head writer—there is a narrative link that goes through a whole series. Gone are the days where a season of Doctor Who is just a bunch of unrelated serials which can be wholly considered in their own right. So we look at neither the script nor the narrative to determine when something is its own story. A cliffhanger, for example, does not mean something is one part in a larger Doctor Who story in its own right.

Quite often, as I have pointed out numerous times, standalone stories—produced as standalones, and not even given the same director—build up to a bigger story, typically the finale, or mid-series finale while those existed. And, really, most penultimate stories seem to lead directly—or almost directly—into the final story of a modern Who series, certainly at least lately. Fear Her ends with a moment of "a storm is coming...". Utopia brings back Jack Harkness, and introduces the Master, ending on a cliffhanger which leads directly into the finale. Turn Left reintroduces Rose Tyler, brings us the idea that the stars are going out and ends on a cliffhanger which leads directly into the finale. The Waters of Mars ends with an Ood beckoning the Doctor to come, and though he delays for quite a while, that's how The End of Time then starts. Closing Time quite obviously (and quite explicitly) leads into The Wedding of River Song. Though not, strictly speaking, the second to last episode in series 7, The Name of the Doctor ends on a cliffhanger which leads into The Day of the Doctor. Face the Raven has Clara killed and the Doctor teleported into the setting of Heaven Sent. Oh yeah, and remember how the Titanic shows up after Martha goes? And how Donna appeared in the TARDIS, ruining our heartfelt moment missing Rose? Are those all part one? This is why we don't look to the script.