Talk:Parasite (audio story)

Audio anthology
Should we consider this an audio anthology or a six-part story? It's incredibly serialised in the same vein as Believe and Outbreak and the episodes lack any real identity of their own. -- Saxon (✉️) 16:11, August 20, 2020 (UTC)

I think it’s a six part story. As you say, it’s heavily serialised and none of the individual episodes stand on their own. Outbreak is considered to be one story instead of three, so this should probably be treated the same. SarahJaneFan ☎  20:48, August 21, 2020 (UTC)
 * While I haven't heard these story(ies) yet, and I will try to do some research on the topic later, but from a quick glance at it's article in VOR 137, BF seem to market it as a six-story anthology: "Torchwood Soho – Parasite contains six stories: The Man From Room 13, Meet Mr Lyme, The Mould, The Spread, The Dead Hand and The Liberty of Norton Folgate" and "Scott Handcock has been responsible for directing the series. How did he find bringing this volume [...] to life?". Mind you, it's not uncommon for anthologies have one story run into the next (Charlotte Pollard: Series Two comes to mind, but surely there are plenty of examples).
 * Again, I'll try to do more research on it; maybe pull a similar quote for Outbreak or Believe might help. OncomingStorm12th ☎  05:26, August 22, 2020 (UTC)
 * Hmm great. To make things even "easier", in the very same article, we have this: "so when James first mooted this I suggested we do it as a six-part serial of half-hour episodes". Anyway, I'll try to see further quotes for the other releases tomorrow. OncomingStorm12th ☎  05:28, August 22, 2020 (UTC)

Well, there's other examples of serialised stories parts of which are treated separately - there's Dalek Empire I, Dalek Empire II: Dalek War, Dalek Empire III, Dalek Empire IV: The Fearless (in this instance episodes are literally called Part 1 through Part 4), Cyberman 1, Cyberman 2, The Worlds of Big Finish, Charlotte Pollard 2, Extinction, Shutdown, Silenced, The Master of Callous, etc. And there are stories that seem to bear the same amount of serialisation, and treated as a single one - Time in Office, Dominion, Intervention Earth, Enemy Lines, Outbreak, Believe, etc. Dmitriy Volfson ☎  06:04, August 22, 2020 (UTC)


 * Any updates on this? It’s probably useful to note that it is treated a six individual episodes on the Big Finish app. Whereas Outbreak for example, which has a three individually titled episodes is still just treated as one whole story called Outbreak on the app.


 * It’s difficult because it really just feels like the split into six episodes is a an aesthetic choice to replicate an 50s serial above all, and functionally it’s really just a single three hour story much like Outbreak or Believe.


 * And then also it just seems bizarre to treat this as six individual episodes, but then have releases such as Time in Office and The End of the Beginning as single stories. SarahJaneFan ☎  17:54, 25 March 2021 (UTC)


 * So, after a few months I've finally heard this story. And yeah.... it's really a case where we could go either way and it'd work. It can be viewed as a six-part serial, or as six stories that lead into each other. Honestly I don't think we'll ever be able to come up with a general rule for releases like this, and I'm afraid more often than not, behind-the-scenes comments will be contradictories. What we'll need to do is evaluate ourselves which option will benefit us as editors and readers.
 * For example, we could cover The Trial of a Time Lord as a single story, all under a single page, but that'd be terrible, both for us editors and for readers. For a recent audio example, we could cover Ravagers as a single story, under a single page, but that'd also not be too good for anyone.
 * All in all, I believe the best path for this specific release is for us to cover it as a single story, rather than an anthology. One further evidence to support this is that individual episodes don't have credits, unlike most recent anthologies have. Like most single releases (such as most Main Range stories), the credits are read after the final episode's credits.
 * And to address User talk:SarahJaneFan's concerns: I wholeheartedly agree with you on these two releases. I think it's just a case of "no one ever brought it up, so no one ever truly discussed it". Perhaps leave a message about this in either talk page, and let's start a discussion for it. OncomingStorm12th ☎  00:58, 18 June 2021 (UTC)