Board Thread:The Panopticon/@comment-1293767-20151029072618/@comment-24894325-20170404101610

I have a strange and radical idea. What if we do not define two-parters completely? You could say that it would devalue this whole discussion aimed at creating clear rules. But! It was always the case and will always be the case that individual cases can be discussed separately and treated separately. If there is a community decision to ignore a rule for one story, then so it will be.

From this perspective, it might not make sense to provide a general rule for especially subtle cases like Hell Bent/Heaven Sent. What I propose is to set criteria that suggest a two-parter on the one hand and set criteria that suggest it is not a two-parter on the other hand. This will automate simple cases, of which there is a majority I guess. It will also set the stage for debates about interesting cases in terms of what to look at and what to ignore. Both types of criteria are more or less given in the preceding discussion.

Let me give you an example of how it works: although COMIC: Whodunnit? and COMIC: The Sound of Our Voices have separate names, but they share the same writer, same artists, are consecutive in a seasonal run of the comics, share the same setting, and the second one does not introduce any new characters. That case is clear cut: all criteria point to a two-parter.

Why do I think it is useful to have two-parters? Because (correct me if I'm wrong) it is allowed to refer to a two-parter as one whole as in (COMIC: Whodunnit? / The Sound of Our Voices). It often takes an inordinate amount of time remembering/researching which exact portion of a story a particular bit of information comes from, especially when the setting and the characters do not change at all. For me personally, it often means not adding information because I do not remember the exact source. Thus, I'd dearly love the opportunity not to rewatch two episodes every time.