Upon recently re-watching both The Hungry Earth/Cold Blood & The Rebel Flesh/The Almost People, I've realised now more than ever how much I appreciate these slower-paced 2-parters. I was just wondering how others felt about them, so to begin, here's my opinion on them:

The fact of having more layers to the story can be put forward compared to the more bombastic 2-parters like The Sontaran Strategem/The Poison Sky, I just feel like I'm connecting more than ever now the stories. Both of these slower-paced stories to me have made it much more easy to watch because the action isn't in your face so to speak. Its now more subtle there and that's what I like now. Moffat, under RTD did this with his 2-parters, but now under his reign its so nice to see more writers doing this because life isn't always like an action movie! It can be so much more subtle.

Yes, before anyone points out, I know the Moff made the Series 5 finale 2-parter very bombastic, but I'm happy with that because its the finale and also because the other 2-parters weren't in the same style. It was a refreshing change for that series.

I just hope to see more 2-parters like this in future and hope the series won't rely on 'the world is at stake' or plots similar to that! Smaller-scale works so much better! And coupled with slower pacing makes it all the more Sci-fi in feel...

I agree, but many would call these "borefests" or something.
But yeh, I really do enjoy these slower-paced two parters. Unfortunately I don't think we have any two-parters at all in Series 6 Part 2.

I'm not a fan of any of the three you mentioned but I don't see how The Sontaran Strategem/The Poison Sky is any faster paced than the series 5/6 stories.

Yes it gets off to a brisk start but then part 1 has enough time to do that prolonged scene with the worlds most stupid soldiers and allowed Donna to catch up with her family while the Doctor investigated what was going on.

This kind of comment was thrown at people who didn't like these stories at the time but for many of us the problems weren't anything to do with the supposed slower pacing.

Personally I think New Who has rarely nailed its two parters - only The Empty Child/Doctor Dances would make my New Who top 10.

Snorefests is the word I usually use but it amounts to the same thing!

Looking back at New Who I find 2-parters in general hit and miss really. The slower paced ones aren't necessarily crap. The Human Nature/Family of Blood one wasn't exactly action-packed but it was a good one because it was extremely well written and acted and above all, interesting! The Silurian Story in Series 5 had enough tension to keep you riveted as to some degree The Weeping Angels one.

However, I really can't agree, and it is just an opinion, that The Rebel Flesh/The Almost People was in anyway an interesting story. It seriously bored me, especially The Rebel Flesh. And that's the thing about slower paced stories, they need to be interesting to be good to make up for the lack of action.

What about Human Nature/Family of Blood? I thought those episodes were really good.
Silence in the Library/Forest of the Dead wasn't bad either.

The way I see it is: The first 2-Parter is a slightly more fast-paced story with some recurring enemies and the second 2-parter is usually slightly slower-paced, darker and more scary/spooky.

Human Nature was fine but it's nowhere near as good as the book so I rarely think about it - I've never rewatched it.

I enjoyed Silence but until he took over the series I thought it was Moffat's weakest story by quite some way.

Well to me in that 2-parter apart from Donna's moment with Sylvia & Wilf, the action is all around. The blaring music throughout sort of emphasised that to me what with the Mission Control sequence, Sontarans raging throughout, Car going into the water, gun battles, explosions and ofcourse the sky on fire! It was so in your face compared to S5 & 6 where it so much more subtle and horror is always there, just not in the forefront.

But that is just my opinion, and obviously I take into account yours, but from what I've interpreted from Moffat interviews on Confidential, TV reviews and opinons on here is that S5 & 6 2-parters are slower-paced compared to S1-4. I just wish it to stay that way!

That's fine I just don't think those stories are great for many other reasons - Hungry Earth is horribly predictable with poor dialogue and some of the worst acting in recent Who - it's Karen Gillens worst story by quite some way. The Rebel Flesh just lacks an engaging idea at its centre and has a bunch of nothing characters who I was quite happy to see die.

I'm a huge fan of 60's Who which is so slow it's almost glacial but it (almost!) always has an interesting story to tell so I'm happy to see slower paced stories with more mystery and more to investigate but I don't think New Who has ever really got there.

I think the two parters are almost always the stronger stories, for me; a two parter in the current format amounts to about the same amount of screen time as a four parter in the classic series, around 90 minutes, and I think that's probably the optimum length for a Who story; anything less, unless it's a very good script (Blink, Vincent & the Doctor and The Doctor's Wife being obvious examples of that) doesn't allow a story long enough to develop. Most of the single parters seem rushed, to me. Action and explosions are no substitute for good storytelling which draws you in slowly as the story unfolds at its own pace. For preference, I'd have six two parters and one single parter per series.

I generally prefer two-parters, and ideally would have a whole series of them, but the ones in New Who are surprisingly hit-and-miss.

Often I'm baffled by the choice of two-parters. In Series 6, for instance, we had The Doctor's Wife followed by The Rebel Flesh.

The first was an excellent episode with a brilliant idea behind it, but I though it could have done with being a two-parter. We'd only just got to know Idris before we had to be whisked away to the climax, and then she was gone. This meant we didn't have as many quiet character moments between the Doctor and his old girl as we should have had.

Then next week we got a two-parter that really should have been a one-parter! It's idea was interesting but not enough to fill 90 minutes, and while I enjoyed it I couldn't help feeling that it was a waste of the slot.

What I like about the longer stories of old is that they had time to set up an entire world, society, cast of characters, without having to immediately drag us into the action. Imagine how weak Inferno would have been if we only got to know the cast for 5 minutes before being shown their paralell counterparts and their fates. Or, in the New Series, think how much harder it would have been to empathise with John Smith's decision if we'd only met him for a couple of scenes before the Family of Blood turned up.

But most of the ones we get (including the ones mentioned in the OP), seem to be more like a single 45 minute episode, but just with lots of padding. The Silurian story is a good example: we spent 45 minutes pissing about in the Welsh countryside, running about doing nothing with a bunch of boring miners. Because we had to wait for the cliffhanger to reveal the Silurian city, we had barely any time to set up their society, making the moral dilemma just seem meaningless.