User:SOTO/Forum Archive/The Panopticon/@comment-1293767-20151029072618/@comment-5918438-20161209201706

And I'm not even sure that "to be continued" is positively used anymore on cases that are clearly two-parters. Co-Owner of a Lonely Heart just ends on a cliffhanger and then goes straight to a next time, but it is more than clearly a two-parter with the following episode.

"To be continued" has also been used inappropriately, in an effort to get audiences to anticipate the Christmas special, which never belongs to the same story thus far and does not even belong to the same run.

But if we are to take that approach seriously for a few minutes, Heaven Sent does not have a "to be continued" into the following episode, and so Heaven/Hell does not count in either system. The Girl Who Died does have a "to be continued", and so those two are a two parter according to both systems.

But then we split off at a crucial point in 2007: if we go by the existence of such a title card at the end, Utopia > The Sound of Drums > Last of the Time Lords > Voyage of the Damned is necessarily a four-parter. The Runaway Bride probably gets tied on to the series 2 finale, as well, though I haven't checked.

I can see that it's simple, but "to be continued" is not used every time every other grain of evidence points towards a two-parter, and it's often used inappropriately where it makes no sense for the following episode to be part 2 or 3 (or 4) of the same story.

You know what, if this was 2006 or 2007, I might have agreed that, while not very nuanced, using "to be continued" as the only clue is sufficient. But we're way past that point now. Things are not nearly so consistent, either from a narrative point of view or with regards to the production choice of whether to slap "to be continued" at the end.

We have no promise that "to be continued" will be continued. Class didn't use it at all. Torchwood did not employ it for its series 1 finale; Dead Man Walking doesn't next time into A Day in the Death; nor does Fragments next time into Exit Wounds. In future series of Doctor Who, as well, they might forgo its use under new direction. I think we need a stance that will last us, and that doesn't just apply to the Doctor Who (specifically) production team of a certain range of years.