As season the Doctor Who series fnarg finale kicks off in around an hour, we’ll soon be able to declare a winner in the Doctor Who Tournament: which Doctor has had the best season overall (and if it’s Tennant, which one)?
Which episode goes up against which is (just as with the football or tennis) a key factor. Classifying the episodes has become harder now it is necessary to find something in common across all five episodes, but these are the categories I’ve come up with…
The new person is usually the season opener, this features either a new regeneration of the Doctor, a new companion, or both.
Humanity’s future (previously the Boe Trilogy) is set in the far future but takes place early in the season.
The celebrity historical features a figure from the past, often a writer.
The, ummm… mid-season story about the present day, or imagined (alternate) present day.
The classic enemy revives a monster from Old Who.
The space station/ship episode features a space station, or ship, and/or possibly an alien planet.
The timey wimey episode is the one that plays with time loops, or dual or alternate timelines.
The pseudo historical is set in Earth’s past but does not feature a celebrity. It does, however, invariably involve an alien threat (hence “pseudo”).
The domestic episode is a low-key story one or two episodes before the finale, which usually features a limited number of characters, confined in some way. (There wasn’t one in the Ten/Martha season).
The finale is obviously the finale.
That leaves a couple of episodes spare (mostly specials) and there’s no contender for the domestic episode in series 29/3. There are some episodes that might fit into more than one category but I’m not revealing the titles of the contender episodes in each class just yet, in order to try to generate just a modicum of suspense…
Funny how they’ve just fallen into this pattern, isn’t it?
I’m sure the dynamic of each series is designed and that there is a formula which Moffatt has adopted. Not, perhaps totally rigid (I’ve had to bend a few things to make them fit) but never-the-less a sense that there are ingredients and sequences (eg. a historical and a future story sandwiched between present day stories) that presumably are held as being essential.