Doctor Who 13x1 - Poll!

The small serialised mini series in Torchwood; Children of Earth worked so well. I hope this Flux miniseries is just as good! In future, with talks of a new doctor who marvel-esque universe, do you think it's possible we could have mini series featuring past doctors by jumping around in the timeline?

Starkiller100

A mixture is what I most prefer, where you utilize the episodic to feature either specific characters or locales or ideas while an undercurrent of something is hinted at throughout. Especially if it's a very subtle mystery with a good payoff, and not a blatantly obvious mystery shoved in your face.

Crystal Squirrel

This is not the first time Doctor Who is more serialized than episodic. The whole Impossible Girl story arc was more about figuring out Clara than the events of specific episodes. The same goes with other seasons or their parts in Steven Moffat era ("Silence will fall", "Hybrid" etc.). Given the current season has only 6 episodes, it stands to reason it would present one story and not try to squeeze the meta-plot in small fragments of 6 episodic stories. There wouldn't be any time to build it from those fragments properly and the overarching plot would end up being extremely flat.

Jan Popieluch

I have always liked the episodic format for Doctor Who, but i am intrested on how I will feel about this format when the season is over.

You guys should react to the movie sing street

Caleb

This kind of reminds me of Miracle Day for Torchwood.

Space Monkey Mafia

I like serialization of the seasons but like what they have done in the past. Start the serial....throw in a few episodic moments throughout the season but at the end come full circle back to dealing with the conclusion of the series. perfect Examples of this is Matt Smith's stint as the doctor. every season was a serial and it was fantastic. David Tennant's seasons were a little more episodic but still had some serialization to it. The big one was the story arc of River Song which spanned three different doctors which I thought was genius.

Aaron Sheppard

I prefer a mix. My priority is that the episodes are well written.

Victoria E (vickster5001)

In general I almost always prefer serialisation but "which time/place/universe/genre will the Tardis land next week " is central to the show for me, so a mixed/hybrid approach is best.

Obsidian

Of course, as a counterpoint, series 4 of Torchwood was also serialised and that was the *worst* series of the show, so it's not a 100% guarantee of success.

Katherine Jennings

Doctor Who, by design, is a show built for an episodic structure but I think there should definitely always be some continuous plotlines involved to keep the audience engaged in the long term. I feel like the RTD era had the perfect balance, being entirely episodic on the surface but with strong character development, recurring characters and plot points that weave in and out, plus his series finales would always tie in a bunch of elements from earlier that series in a satisfying way. I feel Moffat leaned a bit too heavily into his series' arcs, which made the diversions into episodic stuff feel more like a frustrating distraction (he even draws attention to it in Day of the Moon, where the Doctor explicitly acknowledges they're going to blow off the main arc for a bit for some episodic adventures. Annoying). As we all know, Chibnall went too far the other way in his first series and the lack of almost any major connective elements between the stories contributed to that series being more forgettable and unengaging than usual. Uh, yeah, so I guess my answer is "neither"...or "both". A healthy mixture gives you the best of both worlds. I recall RTD said he was influenced by Buffy in his run, that was a show that did that type of structure very well, I believe TV Tropes calls it the "Half-Arc Season".

Katherine Jennings

I think a mix of the two is best. Purely serialised works well provided there isn’t too many episodes, too many one and done episodes can get rather boring (unless you do something really different) and feels like there’s less stakes

Jordan Rice

I mean Torchwood did the whole monster of the week thing for the first two seasons then in season 3 they did the 5 part children of earth story and that was the best the show ever was so I think it could work for Doctor Who as well.

Definitely serialised overall but I also think an episodic hour here and there often helps. I can certainly appreciate a break every once in a while to try something new and fun.

Marvelous JJ

For doctor who definitely serialised just so i can hear Eric DAMN the sound at the end of every ep

Dip602

I prefer mostly serialized for all genres except comedies. For comedies I still prefer episodic.

It massively depends on the show I'm watching. Some series thrive with serialization, while other do better episodic. For Doctor Who I think I prefer episodic, because you can have an Episode covering a real historical event and the next you do something futuristic space stuff. But I love a connecting thread over all the Episodes, while not getting fully serialized.

Red Claw

A good Mixture between Serialised and Episodic. Some shows suit one better and other suit the other better and some shows like Doctor who are at their best when they mix the two. Take the Classic Era, a lot of their seasons only had 3-4 individual stories and were like episodic in that nature with only small little links to the previous story but each story was made up of up multiple episodes to created a very serialised whole. Doctor who is definitely a show that is at its best when it mixed serialised and episodic and I'm so glad DW:Flux/Series 13 is returning to that format slightly, even if it was because of COVID.

Episodic: serialised shows are all well and good, but occasionally you get something like the worst seasons of the Netflix Marvel shows (or most of Classic Who tbh) where you can just feel them padding the story to hell and back.

I generally prefer serialised but I’m not sure if it will 100% Doctor Who, interested going forward though to see how it pans out.

lewis is your patron

I feel like this era can feel a bit aimless at times. I feel a saturated way of story telling can help it out a bit.

Gavin Hardiman

Depends on the writer, Chibnall did Broadchurch which was one story every series serialised over a few episodes so I think serialised storytelling is his strength whereas I think episodic really worked for Russell T Davies.

Crazy4Comics

I think a mix can be welcome, some of my favourite doctor who episodes have been the more episodic, such as Blink or Midnight they can be refreshing. However, serialised creates more interest long-term, plus the stories can have a more epic feel to them. Like the 50th anniversary

Ethan Prendergast

Definitely episodic with just sprinklings of overaching plot/returning villains. RTD's run of the show had by far the strongest stories IMO and it meant even if an idea one week didn't work, then next week would be different; just fun adventures. We've had serialised Who from Moffat and Chibnall for the last decade, a break would be nice.

Tortoise Of Legends

I honestly prefer a mixture some of the best episodes in shows often have very little to do with the myth arc of the show I honestly think it depends on the story your telling. Stargate is a great example of a show that balances the overall story of the season with great one off episodes as is person of interest. One of episodes also allow you to get wacky in a way that might be tough to pull of in a heavy serialised story. but nothing can get more tense then a really tightly written serialized story where every episodes just draws you deeper and deeper into the story.

CommanderL

Prefer serialized, hence why I prefer the last two seasons of Torchwood more than the first. Also part of the reason why series 11 has been my least favorite who season since the revival.

Joel

I like the episodic with slightly serial elements like season 5/6