User:SOTO/Forum Archive/The Panopticon/@comment-1293767-20151029072618/@comment-5918438-20160108043439

Bwburke94 wrote: I made a compromise proposal above, which allows us to treat HS/HB together without having to twist the wording of the three main rules. I don't believe this would be truly twisting. If we allowed that one specific case as an exception, then we specify the specifics specifically. I know, I want to die. So we would list the three rules, with rule 3 allowing for a guest character and/or unique location, and then specify under further details the one singular case that is also acceptable as alternative to two stories in one production block. If any future stories do the same thing (Part 1 - something else - Part 2, each as one-episode production blocks, and the two parts meet every other requirement), they may also be considered a two-parter.

The guest character specification is very important, by the way. Guest actors, by definition, appear in a story and not in the whole series. Sometimes they appear in two stories in the same series, or more. But if an actor is a guest actor, it is because they are a guest in the main cast for that story. If two consecutive stories that meet all other requirements fail at guest character, and also fail at unique setting common to both stories, they can't be a two-parter.

Also important is the consecutive run rule. This is why The Long Game isn't part of a three-part story with Bad Wolf and The Parting of the Ways. This is why The Lodger and Closing Time are not a two-part story. If those had been broadcast together, in one consecutive run, they would count as multi-part stories. Well no I take that back. The Craig Owens episodes wouldn't because they have different directors, but if they were produced together in the same production block, directed by the same person, and broadcast one following the other, they would be considered a two-parter because of the guest character in common. Well actually the same applies to The Long Game, which has a different director. Lol. You get my point. If the intention was for those stories to be multi-parters, they would have been given the same director, but let's not speculate.