Doctor Who returning to two-part adventures
“I think you can tell different types of stories within a Doctor Who two-parter," says showrunner Chris Chibnall.
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Doctor Who is bringing back its trademark two-part episodes for its 2020 season with episode cliffhangers.
“I love a two-parter. And our two-parters are epic this year,” showrunner Chris Chibnall recently told Radio Times.
“We always knew last year would be those 10 standalone stories, and this year we wanted to weave things in a bit more.”
When Chibnall took over for the 2018 series every episode was a standalone story, but not necessarily a permanent move.
“I think you can tell different types of stories within a Doctor Who two-parter. I love a Doctor Who cliffhanger,” he said.
“Obviously even though we didn’t officially do two-parters last year, you could argue that first one [Jodie Whittaker debut episode The Woman Who Fell to Earth] has a cliffhanger into the second. A two-parter that wasn’t a two-parter!”
Chibnall hasn’t revealed exactly how many episodes will be stretched over multiple weeks.
ABC will air the upcoming annual special in coming weeks.
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12 Responses
It looks like that the weekly schedule will retain the Sunday timeslot in the UK, which means (probably) a 6pm timeslot here in Australia- and if Whovians returns, a 7pm showing on ABC2. (Source- internet search on Doctor Who Series 12 news)
Hopefully they will be good…crossing my fingers that they’ll be doing a Christmas/Boxing Day episode this year instead of the New Year’s Day one.
Kicking off the season with a New Year’s Day 2-parter. Rest of the season to follow ~Easter
Can’t wait! Really looking forward to it. Season 12 looks awesome from the two trailers i’ve seen. I do love a good two parter. Also think there is going to be a series long story arc too which will be good. Also hoping ABC brings back Whovians for 2020 too.
Gawd no! Whovians was awful pap and gfenerally an insult to Dr Who fans.
Yes but the old series episodes were 22 mins long with a lot of unnecessary scenes, these days it’s start, get to the point and finished in 40 odd minutes
Pretty sure there is no ‘special’ this year, it’s actually the first episode of the next series that is airing in the UK on New Year’s Day.
A two-parter only works if the story is strong enough to support it, otherwise it’s just dragged out to fill air time – a lot like MKR and The Block.
Not sure I would compare Doctor Who to those!
Worth remembering that earlier seasons featured 6 ep stories-the glory years of Tom Baker Talons of Weng Chiang’, for example.
Even earlier the during the Hartnell years included a 12 episode story, Troughton years his swan song was a 10 episode story and the Pertwee years included a few 7 episode stories.
Yes but these were 30 minute eps don’t forget…