Board Thread:The Panopticon/@comment-1293767-20151029072618/@comment-5918438-20160108214909

Yeah, that would be rather tenuous. That's just the thing. There are no guest stars. So what's our backup rule that's only applicable where at least one of the episodes has no guest characters, which HS/HB meets? Is it simply an extension to rule 3 in the form of: "In the odd case that one or more of the episodes has no guest characters in a speaking role at all, and sufficient production evidence exists that those episodes are a multi-parter, a community discussion may decide to count those as a multi-parter if they also meet the requirements of rules 1 and 2."?

In that case, I would suggest getting rid of the "unique setting" clause, and simply allowing for community discussion when no guest characters appear, because surely the guest character requirement shouldn't disqualify a story where it simply can't apply.


 * Brian Minchin: We're doing more two-parters – and not just conventional two parters. We're doing linked stories where you might not be sure how they’re going to be connected until you see them. We're pushing the storytelling that way, to give us more scale of adventure.

Two-parters in series 9 are "not just conventional", but I believe enough production evidence exists for those episodes, at the discretion of the community, to be considered two-parters as well.

Please remember that that community discussion clause is only applicable if one of more of the episodes does not feature any guest characters, and perhaps also in unusual cases where no director is credited or no broadcast took place at all.

And I would also like to emphasise that a brief cameo appearance right at the end of a episode, simply leading up to following episode and not at all related to the story at all, does not constitute a guest appearance of a character with regards to this policy. Not sure yet how I'll write that in.

But Donna does not count as a guest character in the s2 finale, and Churchill does not count at the end of The Beast Below. Please remember that a guest character, by definition, belongs to the main cast of that episode. Ian McNiece is credited all the way at the end of the cast list, and only appears at the very end of the episode, essentially advertising the next adventure in-story. That's no different, in effect, from the Titanic crashing into the TARDIS at the end of series 3.