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Do story arcs work?

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1Do story arcs work? Empty Do story arcs work? 26th December 2017, 10:12 am

Mott1

Mott1

This was another topic I think I raised on the old hive, but do we think shows - whether Tru Who, Nu Who or otherwise - work better or less well with story arcs, and why?

2Do story arcs work? Empty Re: Do story arcs work? 26th December 2017, 1:08 pm

Rick Deckard 2.0

Rick Deckard 2.0

Mott1 wrote:This was another topic I think I raised on the old hive, but do we think shows - whether Tru Who, Nu Who or otherwise - work better or less well with story arcs, and why?

Story arcs work in Doctor Who now only becasue the formula of the show has been cheapened.

Before, when the Doctor had no real control over Tardis flight or even any real guarantee of returning his companions back to their points of origin, the idea of a story arc where locations or characters could be revisited multiple times was counter-intuitive to the whole 'timeless wanderer' vibe.

In this sense the casual viewer had no problem missing a few stories, confident of being able to return without a means of 'catch-up'. Stories would play out in full, longer could be spent developing the individual characters, and every so often we might glean another small insight into the hero we were never really allowed to know.

Now, the story arc concept allows for so much complexity and relies on so much backtracking that the writers, with the added bonus of being able to move their characters around in both space and time, often end up developing nonsensical climaxes, simply because they've tied themselves in too many knots. This in turn results in them either having to cheat the rules of the universe the show resides in - crossing time streams ect. Hence we are left with a show that doesn't take itself seriously. A show that has invented its own 'get out of plot holes quickly devices' (sonic screwdriver) to suit the running time and a main protagonist who no longer has any real weighty mystery about him - something that was being felt as far back as McCoy, who for better or worse was keen to return some of the mystery to the role after realising he didn't want to play the clown.


* Trial of a Timelord, The Key to time, except maybe the Doctor being exiled to Earth, story arcs never really worked well in the original series. The show suits, self contained individual stories, which prove to be far more entertaining.

3Do story arcs work? Empty Re: Do story arcs work? 26th December 2017, 1:22 pm

Rawkuss

Rawkuss

Story Arcs worked quite well under RTD. One of Moffat's biggest faults is that his are awful, messy and disappointing letdowns. Seasons 6 and 7 were particularly bad.

4Do story arcs work? Empty Re: Do story arcs work? 26th December 2017, 2:21 pm

Mott1

Mott1

Yes - I thought the RTD arcs were a classic case of his reach exceeding his grasp, and the Moffat ones were pretentious and unfashionable.

The Trial Of A Time Lord one could have worked better if the different writing teams had been more joined up and there had been more time, in my opinion. I prefer thematically linked stories with a looser link between them personally, such as s7 or s18.

5Do story arcs work? Empty Re: Do story arcs work? 27th December 2017, 1:34 am

Genkimonk

Genkimonk

They worked ok in the classic series. The exiled on Earth arc was interesting. The trying to get Ian and Babara home arc worked well for characterisation. The Master arc would have worked great had Delgado not died before hand.

The Key to Time arc was pretty enjoyable, and I did rather like the Fenric arc. Heck, even TOATL is kinda an interesting arc.

6Do story arcs work? Empty Re: Do story arcs work? 27th December 2017, 2:42 am

Plain Old Dave

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Key to Time and the earth exile work so well because the story arc is strictly secondary to the individual stories. You didn't have to watch a year's worth of shows to figure out what was going on. I'm watching an ur-arc right now; Genesis of the Daleks, Ark In Space, Revenge of the Cybermen, and Contaran Experiment are part of the Transmat story arc, but work wonderfully as individual stories.

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