I think there's actually a happy middle ground that can be achieved, and they've done it a few times. Series 8's arc was minimal for the most part and so not an infringement on the stories retrospectively... whether or not you like Missy is down to personal preference, and her storyline wasn't so intrusive that her debut in Deep Breath ruins that episode at all.

Series 6 is at the other end of the spectrum, with a massive extended two-part opening story, a huge mid-series story spanning multiple episodes and then a limp one-part finale that tries to cram in its own plot as it goes as well. When the resolution lacked it did bounce back retrospectively and you saw how intrusive the arc was. Series 7 was similar though not as bad - mainly because the biggest victim was Clara, who would have to wait a year before getting a personality. Series 5's arc was intrusive in places - the crack in the wall robbing the Weeping Angels of a decent story, and basically undermining them.

I feel Series 9's was a lot better. True, I didn't care much for the resolution, but again feel that that is down to my personal preference. I still think Heaven Sent is a fantastic piece of television, not cheapened by what followed but simply not lived up to. There's a difference I think. Hell Bent was never as good, but then Heaven Sent never tried to tease me that there was something cleverer or better coming. With The Impossible Astronaut/Day of the Moon it was basically saying there's some huge stuff coming... and then it never really did. I felt shortchanged with Series 6, but not with Series 9.

I think an arc can make a series more interesting, an ongoing story or a threat building in the background makes the show a bit less disposable. But given the Series 1 arc remains my favourite, I would agree that something needs to be done differently. I wouldn't say the show doesn't suit arcs, I just think they need to write better ones than they do.

The big problem with NOT having an arc is that pretty much every episode becomes miss-able. You can tune in and out and not miss anything. There is no consequence to anything that happens. An arc maintains a sense of urgency and eventuality in the show. After all, how can a season finale feel like a momentous occasion when nothing has built up to it? What are people discussing about the show at work and on social media and in school if there is no ongoing intrigue? It doesn't encourage an active, keen audience.

In this day and age there simply has to be some sort of overarching storyline, sub-plot, arc. Don't forget that in the past Doctor Who was episodic: people could discuss the ongoing storyline as it happened week by week. That is not the case now. Save for two-part episodes the story is over and done in 45 minutes and there is no space for the audience to interject their own imagination into the ongoing storyline, to discuss it, to be involved with it in an ongoing way, save for through arcs / sub-plots.

Pitching the depth of the arc correctly has proven tricky, I agree. RTD did it more consistently than Moffat, but then his great genius is to write quality drama for a mass audience, whereas Moffat's monumental talent is a little more scintillating but not quite so widely accessible. Nonetheless, it's not a solution to simply say 'do away with arcs'. The show would simply be too shallow for a contemporary audience without them. The audience today is involved, not passive.

A major issue was having a headline and time consuming 50th anniversary special in November, plus all the associated PR and other events,

Without it, I dare say S8 filming could have started much sooner, as S7b filming was 99% finished by November 2012, and transmission could have been much earlier too. Maybe some of the events of DOTD and TOTD could have been incorporated into S8 , assuming Matt was prepared to stay a bit longer.

If the stories are great though it won't matter.

When I watched Tom Bakers second series (the 13th) I thought it was brilliant, bar the android story, there was five well told well made atmospheric stories, connected by the characters but the stories are random giving a true sense of two people bouncing about time and space, it gives a sense anything could happen and they can go anywhere, you never know what's going to happen.

Its a fulfilling and highly entertaining series, I don't feel it needs an arc in it to make it better, if there were things popping up in each episode to say hey this is going to play into a later story, I don't think that would be an improvement to these excellent stories, the opposite in fact, I would think why are you spoiling the atmosphere of this story by shoe horning in something from a later story, just keep it to that story. When listening to a song on an album I don't need snippets of songs to come later on to interrupt the song I'm listening too, just in-order to tease what's coming up.

I do think arcs work for some shows, but for others and especially DW I don't think they do.. or more they are not needed, if they were done rarely and done well like Bad Wolf then that would be cool.. but every series is really not needed, arcs shouldn't be the norm in DW imo....

I think the art of just producing fantastic fulfilling standalone stories is becoming less prevalent, and instead arcs are being used as a crutch to prompt up shows/DW and keep people interested, ooh look this hints at something big please stay around...

If writers just tell fantastic stories then the audience will tune in because they want to see fantastic stories, and they would want to see more of them, they don't need to be connected, the audience will want to see the characters in another entertaining story like they saw those characters in the previous entertaining story... they don't need to be hooked by ooh what's the deal with Clara how come there are a few of here through time that we are teasing about but not really doing much about (other than to take you out of the episode that your watching to shoe horn this arc plot in).

The arc bits that pop's up in earlier episode are never that meaningful and all they do is distract, I mean really what was the point of having the only water in the river thing in the episode The Doctors Wife, what did this serve/achieve other than to try and get people go ooh what's that about must keep watching, well if you were telling good stories they will keep watching anyway, but what was the point, did we get some great pay-off, was River mentioning that line a few episodes later a form of great satisfaction to us viewers, ooh look she said something that was mentioned a few eps earlier... So bloddy what, does it make the story better, No.. all it does is take you out of TDW when watching/re-watching, if you want to watch that episode as a standalone (because you wouldn't watch a lot of S6 because it convoluted nonsense of an arc) you are reminded of the rubbish arc, its shoe horned in and spoils the enjoyment of just watching that self contained story... its like having a painting done by someone and then another painter comes along and puts a red circle in the corner to go hey remember my painting.

Arcs lesson the sense that anything could happen because its limiting the series into following a certain story and we have to follow that, we know we are going to return, instead of feeling like we are bouncing about time and space it instead feels we are on a linear straight road as we have to meet up with that thing that was teased.

It makes the who-universe small and belittles the very concept of DW, by making everything connected and limiting the scope of what the concept of the show allows.

A program set in a town or city or even a planet can have connections, arcs where stories run and run.. but when you have a Tardis that can travel anywhere in time and space, the scope is massive, the places and the time are diverse, so making everything connected just feels wrong/odd to me, it should be random and disconnected.

Again back to Tom Baker second and third series, they are considered highly because it goes about the business of making/telling great stories.. no gimmicks no tricks, it doesn't need it because the quality of what's produced speaks for itself and that quality will make people come back for more. It doesn't need an arc and works better without one. So I don't believe DW needs to have an arc in-order to get people interested in the show.

(apologise for what is probably a terribly written mess of a post that makes no sense, I'm writing fast)

I respectively disagree.

If you tell great stories then people will talk about them, and wish to see the next story that the characters will involve themselves in... and of-course there would be the arc of the characters, how they grow change how they are effected by the things they face etc.

Also this is why I think a series should be all two-parters, so you would have that oh what's going to happen next week thing often, but you would also have the refreshing quality of starting a new story often as-well, I think that works perfectly, its the best of both worlds.

I love arcs especially The Bad Wolf Theme and Planets being taken out of space aswell as time, I probanly would skip most past era Doctor Who episodes and its just thrilling hearing something relating to it, it feels good seeing us progress further through. My favourite thing was in The Uniquet dead, when Gwenyth was talking about Her dad being dead and the subject changed to Rose and how strange she acts and suddenly she gets all creepy talking half naked people, and metal boxes and then utters the words Bad Wolf.

To me an arc is just fun to progress through other than just aimless adventures after adventure, I think it exists to keep you from turning off,. The RTD era felt like one great storybook and universe.

But then that latter arc is in the main a few throwaway lines to tee up the finale, planets missing, no bees etc. It's not as if 10 did anything about it.

In reality the S8 and S9 arcs have barely been any more complicated, Missy appeared at the end of many S8 episodes but had no effect on them.

In both S8 and S9 the main arcs were about the development of the main characters, rather than anything complicated like the Matt Smith era crack/River/Trenzalore arcs.

I don't particularly rate RTD's or SM's arcs. Too thin. Too random. Too "shoe horned-in" with no particular connection to the episode at hand. SM's Amy/River/Kovarian arc and RTD's Bad Wolf arc are similar in that respect.

The resolution to the Bad Wolf arc, right up till the reveal, could have been anything. In that way series 9's Hybrid arc was similar.

A good arc needs more than the odd can of spray paint or a few random "puzzled Doctor rubbing his chin" looks to link things up and move the arc along.

When done well "arc bits" do not seem wedged in. They flow naturally as part of the current episode.

I've plugged it here before, but Babylon 5 had almost perfect series-by-series arcs and a full-run, 5 year arc. It worked because it was planned that way by its creator, JMS, from the outset.

Much as now love Doctor Who, its arcs seem very thin indeed in comparison.

The thing is though, things have moved on since then. To produce five distinct and convincing worlds in a row now is a hell of a lot more of an ask. Consider working to a budget, cast availability when the show draws in some massive names, and location availability which is a lot more difficult than it ever used to be, and you can quickly see how random stories are more difficult to work with.

On top of that, it's about balancing quality and quantity - the show needs to be of a high quality, but equally there needs to be enough substantial content to put out. If you want less episodes, then ideally those episodes are more likely to be all linked together to make an 'event' of them. As a similar means of comparison, 2009 offers a good look - Torchwood and Doctor Who both put out five episodes in and around that period. Torchwood opted for a five-parter which was an award winning and revered piece of sci-fi. The largely unrelated Specials that ended RTD and Tennant's time in Doctor Who are considered one of the lowest points of the last decade.


And that's where the balance I was talking about in my previous post comes into play.
Series 1 has a non-intrusive arc. It works because it builds something tiny, and subtle and then no matter how convenient the eventual resolution is at the end it hasn't delivered false promises and it hasn't intruded upon all the other stories to get there. That's why Bad Wolf worked so well.
As a comparison Series 6 hits the ground running by upfront saying in its second episode that there's this big shiny event unfolding, but we're going to have "some adventures" first instead. It undermines the monster-of-the-week and takes it to the opposite extreme in that it taints the run of episodes.
Series 7 snatched all identity from Clara, but for the most part the series was a long run of unrelated stories. It's currently the only of the nine series that doesn't allude to the events of the finale in its penultimate episode as a form of build up, its arc largely unintrusive and completely non-existent for four episodes as well as Amy and Rory lingered about. And for me personally, it was the weakest series as a result. It felt like a long run of inconsequential "specials" - beautifully done, the actors giving it their all but absolutely nothing of substance. Beyond a quick 'it was good this week' it was hard to really care about what was unfolding... because nothing was unfolding.
And to use your music analogy, true that you don't want later songs interrupting those your listening to right now, it's sometimes awesome to hear familiar cues and sounds in an album or a soundtrack - something for those more invested. It actually adds to proceedings rather than interfering with them or necessarily cheapening them.


"Fantastic" is surely subjective though, and can only be considered possible when there's lesser things to measure it up to. You'll never get a full series where every single episode is a massive hit. Even the biggest and most successful shows in history either have their fair share of poor episodes, or rely on a regular formula in that their episodes are seldom ever sublime or awful, rather than of a consistently high quality. In the case of Doctor Who we'd get, say, ten to fifteen episodes a year. And if all of those stories were unconnected, if all of them were for lack of a better word disposable (as in you really could get rid of one and it makes no impact on watching the others) then what's the point in investing in the show? Many stories work well being self-contained, granted, but for every Mummy on the Orient Express or The Doctor's Wife that goes down well with the vast majority you also get your Fear Her and Sleep No More episodes which are standalone and poorly received by most. Eradicating an arc does nothing for the overall quality. It just means that when all's done at the end, I've got much less to say as there wasn't any real sense of a journey. All those consequences just went out the window, and there was absolutely no sense of direction at all.



The thing is does that particular example spoil the whole episode? Not remotely. I think the line is delivered poorly by Arthur Darvill, and I'll agree it was a case of shoehorning in the arc. But it's a small offender compared to other examples, and again doesn't actually say much about the need for an arc. It just says that you didn't enjoy that particular arc. Neither did I, but that's the way it works.


Surely this is more a problem with the writers than the concept of an arc, no? So far we've had eight out of nine finales feature threats that have appeared in Doctor Who before. And the one attempt at something different, Series 6, was botched entirely. An arc doesn't need to be a return to somewhere, or involve the reprisal of an old villain. In the right hands it can look forward, be full of intrigue, can be completely subtle and non-intrusive. I would argue that the Doctor always turning up out of the blue without an arc, only to have a need to save the day every time is every bit as belittling of the shows concept.


Again, I think this is down to the writers rather than the concept of an arc. The arcs have been fairly formulaic, but similarly when we're given next to nothing of one (Series 7) the very idea of land somewhere-save the day-take off again becomes formulaic. And again it denies us any sense of a journey. Understandably you can face bigger threats without alluding to them the whole series, but there's nothing to suggest the arc has to always lead up to that. As an example from another show, Buffy spent the entirety of its fourth season building up a very obvious arc that was less interesting than those of the three seasons before it. And yet the series managed to take everyone by surprise, resolving the arc an episode early and having an episode still to go where absolutely anything was possible (and that happens to be my favourite episode).
An arc is only as formulaic as the writers who draft them, and regardless of quality of the show or indeed my own enjoyment (I liked Series 9 a lot) the show as a whole has been a nostalgia fest since 2013 - Zygons, The Master, Daleks, Davros, Cybermen, Ice Warriors, Time Lords, Rassilon, Zygons again, River Song and so on. Whether that's a lack of imagination, or a lack of budget I don't put that formulaic nature down to the arcs themselves...which in between all of these returnees offer a small glimpse of hope that something original is coming and keep things exciting and fresh.

An arc for the sake of one isn't by an means a direction the show should take, but equally the two least arc heavy periods in the past ten years - the Specials and Series 7, are often regarded as the weakest times the show has had. That may be coincidence, but I personally believe the lack of a need to invest in the show at those points because the stories were disposable, no matter how well-written, all contributed to the slightly higher than usual mixed perception that the show had.

I am not the biggest fans of arcs myself for a show like Doctor Who.

Arcs in my opinion, actually can lesser the duration and quality of a show over time as every year you try and outdo what you did previously till eventually it becomes a mess with the universe ending every season.

And to make it worse the arcs for Doctor Who generally haven't been that good, The Bad Wolf one was subtle and decent but it didn't take over the season, same with season 3. Season 5 imo was the best Moffat arc as everything did fit well together and reached a good climax.

Anyway you can still have an overarching theme, but for a show like Doctor Who it is probably better to save the arcs sporadically than every season.

The sooner Moff goes the better. His arcs every year have just been tiresome. Looking forward to having a writer who wont use them.

Hear, Hear!

Modern TV has come a long way since days of episodic, standalone TV, where each story was self contained and had to be wrapped up in the space of its 1 hour time slot. There were never ever any references to events in past episodes or consequences for "our heroes". At the end of each story the central characters were exactly as they were at the beginning. What drama there was came from that week's guest star character.

Commercial, not artistic, requirements drove this. It was thought that being able to show a series in any order, with individual episodes that new viewers could find and "get" without having to know complex backstories was best. A show succeeded simply because of the likeability of the central characters.

That kind of storytelling is the exact opposite of true drama. A truly dramatic story focuses on major events in a character's life which either changes the character or have some kind of longer term consequence for the characters.

Many shows today are more like novels written for TV with long term arcs and character development spread over one or more seasons. With the longer time available you (can) get richer, more complex stories with multiple threads and fully fleshed out, 3 dimensional, believable characters.

Doctor Who sits, for me, somewhat uncomfortably, between the two types of show. Yes, classic DW had serialised stories, but references to the Doctor's past and his backstory were few and far between and most stories were self contained within that serial. For the most part you could watch any story without reference to any other. The scope was literally infinite so the characters would never have to revisit anything. And later they cleverly redesigned the Doctor himself so the actor could be changed and the show still continue.

There are, according to some, "filler" episodes and "arc" episodes. I don't agree. What we have had is mostly filler episodes with bits of that season's arc rammed in.

In the early days of C21 DW a few cans of spray paint (Bad Wolf) was enough to be considered an arc. Series 8, for all its faults, was at least an attempt to introduce some proper character development which made a bit of an arc in itself. Unfortunately, the execution of that was clumsy and the mystery of who Missy was was the more traditional type of arc for DW.

We more or less returned to that with the Hybrid arc this season.

For me, a random, throwaway phrase and a thoughtful rubbed chin or worried eyebrow whenever it's mentioned doesn't cut it. It doesn't make it an arc. And sometimes the payoff for even the slightly more involving "arcs" we've had have been underwhelming and left unresolved questions.

I love richer, more complex, more involving stories and characters in general, so I am in favour of arcs for Doctor Who, but without going full-on mini series. When they are done, each element of it needs to be a seamless part of the story at hand.

1. You have the journey of the characters, how travelling with the Doctor and living the Tardis life effects the companion, that's the arc, how the characters grow by the adventures.

Are people unsatisfied by watching standalone movies, do people not talk about them, we don't look down on the Indiana Jones or Bond series because they are a series of standalone adventures without a story arc linking them all. Movie series that set out from the start to be tied work well like (book based) Lord of the Rings because ultimately that's one movies split up into 3 parts, or stuff like Star Wars that's dealing with a set thing (empire/family drama)

Personally I think DW suits that standalone serial nature that stuff like Indiana Jones has, you come back for more because you want to see what the character(s) are going to get themselves caught up in this time, and that the series has proven to be enjoyable. The stories are not throw away or meaningless, you can say the same thing about arcs, if they fail then they are throw away and meaningless too, but hopefully the stories should be good, if they are not then that's a failure of the writers not the concept of a series of two-part standalone stories that can work.

People want to watch good stories they don't need an arc to draw them in they just need good stories.

2. I think its a problem with both the writers and the concept of arcs within a show like DW. The makers of DW have felt like they have to put a arc into every series which has led to some poorly thought out stories and shoe horned-in arc moments into episodes that have nothing to do with the arc.

Because of the nature of the show trying to have an arc (especially every year) will likely always be/feel convoluted, the characters are bouncing about time and space (ideally anyway) so to try and make connections and have things turn up to tease arcs in diverse places that shouldn't really have anything to do with each others is going to be contrived.

There's only so many times you can do a Bad Wolf type arc. The Saxon arc worked because it was limited to only being in modern day earth, it never showed up in other places, to keep doing arcs the show will get ever more convenient and diminished, it forces them to have more characters or races that also bounce about time and follow the Doctor which just lesson's the allure of the Tardis because apparently everyone else can do what it does making it less special.

Look at the character ME from series 9, her be alive for billions of years in-order to make the arc work makes the Doctors age feel like nothing, where as before it was wow he's lived for 900 hundred years, how alien how extraordinary, well no because a human with a chip in her body has lived for a billion years so the Doctors age is not extraordinary at all... oh, great... (how someone can survive billion's years with out accident is a conversation, about badly thought out ideas, for another thread)

3. Off topic I know but that's a great Buffy episode, one of the best for sure. I liked the series 4 arc I know some dislike it but I thought it was good... but then I also like the series 6 arc which is another people seem to dislike. I thought all the arcs were at the very least good and at best fantastic, Buffy is a program that's a prime example of where arcs work perfectly.. and personally I think DW is the opposite where its a prime example of a program that arcs don't fit... or at best are not needed......

TV really needs another Joss Whedon show on air..

Anyway, your full post was very good at making counter arguments to what I think and I do see where you are coming from and can understand why you and others prefer a arc led DW, I just don't agree and would prefer the opposite... I think this will be a case of agree to disagree.

I was hoping anyone who got DWM early might have had some potential Series 10 information.

S7 had a single part finale, so you have to look at the episode before the 2 part finales in other series for a fair comparison. In S8 ITFOTN had no connection to the finale, Fear Her had nothing to do with the S2 finale. S3, S4 and S9 to an extent had 3 part finales.

S7b had a different format, it has various mini arcs, 11 figuring out The Impossible Girl, the GI and even Trenzalore from S6 referenced. In every episode of S7b, the former was referenced, indeed the inconsequential JTTCOTD turned into an important precursor for the finale after Clara remembered some of the events

They're leading with stories about new Big Finish adventures. Which may or may not be because there's no news about S10.

Ugh, thanks though.

Hopefully by the february issue we'll have some Series 10 news.

Not really too bothered about Big Finish. I like it but not too fussed though.

To be honest though your views have to be considered in light of your other obsessions, e.g. Peter Davison in a multi Doctor story.

I loved the 2 parters

I think contradicting yourself a bit here: Do you believe the journey of the companion is not an arc? An arc isn't all about running around and defeating alien monsters through extreme cleverness. Characters have arcs too. So when a new companion goes from "OMG! It's bigger on the inside!" to "Oh. Not Cybermen again. Boring. I was kinda hoping for Daleks or at least something new" that is also an arc.

The Doctor isn't allowed to develop much, even in principle, once he's regenerated. And through all persona and regenerations, he's always the smartest person in the room. This is why SM says that Doctor Who is really about the companions and not the Doctor himself. Companions have a beginning, middle and end, so there can be true drama through them. This is why both RTD and SM tried new ideas with new companions and they tried to develop their characters as each story moves along.

Arcs don't always have to have an "end of level - biggest threat evah!! - monster" to deal with in the two part season finale.

As I said in my earlier post, the one thing that isn't allowed to change is:

The Doctor in the TARDIS having adventures.

It may seem obvious but because Doctor Who is episodic and without an end, the Doctor and the TARDIS must end each story exactly as they began it. Change that and you change the basic premise of the show. Despite all the different actors playing various forms of the Doctor over the years that has remained unchanged*.

SM has changed that a bit by revealing the most about the Doctor's background since The War Games. And he's given us fans so many more nods and references and used things only us fans would care about than anybody else.

"Different planet each week" stories don't work any more. The audience, and especially us fans, need more to invest in than that.

(*) Well, except for the third Doctor, and the range of his stories suffered as a result being stuck on Earth for budgetary reasons. .

I'm not contradicting myself at all, I've always said that the characters (specifically the companions, but the doc as-well) would have arcs, that's only natural and should be an important part of the show, we would see how they change/develop through their adventures.

But the adventures, the individual stories about where they are that week and then the next place they are next week, don't need to be connected in-order to get people invested, I think that's a simple way of looking at it, the characters are the connection, that's who we are following, the individual stories are just the fun/horror that they get up too, and the fact we keep going on new adventures all the time is exciting and has a refreshing quality about it, rather than being stuck on some linear arc. A season finale could be the emotional climax of a series (such as a companion leaving) or just simply the episode that has the biggest stakes or biggest scope (budget) and pushes the characters like no other.

If the stories are not connected, some people just write them off as simply "filler" episodes. Not important. Disposable. Which is one of the points Abomination was making.

It's a real dilemma for writers of episodic TV shows: How to keep things dramatic and interesting week on week, but without really changing anything that would fundamentally alter the basic premise of the show.

Multi-threaded, season spanning stories with ensemble casts is the way many current shows have tackled the issue.

TV has moved on from the seventies and eighties.

I don't agree with this thinking.. it seems that this could be coming from a place of well the rest of TV is doing long story arcs so DW has to as-well, well no it doesn't and that's shameless sheep thinking, it can quite easily do its own thing if the writers were willing to do it rather than pander to a perceived notion of what modern audiences expect.

DW should play to its own strengths and those don't include arcs, its completely against the nature of DW, DW screams a random diverse standalone story format not a continuous plot, its why the arcs in DW for the most part are so rubbish, they are trying to fit something that doesn't suit its nature. A series of two-part stories that are self contained is the perfect format for DW imo.

People don't complain that CSI or other detective shows don't have a plot that takes up the whole series, because a detective series suits the idea that they will have different cases that have nothing to do with each other, a series will be filled of standalone cases linked of course by the characters doing the investigations. DW is the same but instead of murder cases they show up in random locations through time and space and have a adventure, they are effected by it and then move on to the next one, their future actions could be influenced by what happened in previous adventures but there's no need to link the plots... the link is natural through the characters, where you could say that character acted that way because of what she learned or experienced in a previous story.

I'm not talking about re-setting everything after each week, the story/adventure would be new but crucially the characters would continue to evolve, that's the through line, the characters, not some convoluted plot that doesn't really do anything for most of the series other than to go "hey i'm here to tease the finale ok bye" next episode "hey me again something is going to happen in the finale, ok bye"

Also I was born right at the end of the 80s and grew up on 90s and 00s TV, this isn't a nostalgia thing, I'm a huge fan of stuff like Buffy that's driven by arcs and brilliantly so.. but DW by its very concept/nature doesn't suit arcs IMO, and I really don't think it needs them.... though obviously other disagree, and your lucky in that you get the series doing the arc root that you enjoy.