The Edge of Destruction is an example of a ‘bottle episode’ (a modern term that would have been unknown to the production team at the time).
Since then, Doctor Who hasn’t done a huge number of similar examples - arguably Midnight and Heaven Sent. Class has the episode ‘Detained’ all set in one classroom.
Do you like bottle episodes? What about in other shows? Are there examples in the expanded universe - Scherzo, for example?
What makes for a good bottle episode? What makes for a bad one?
What could Doctor Who do as a bottle episode in the future?
I’m a fan, Detained is a great character piece for Class, and there’s been a few bottle episodes in Torchwood audios that I’ve loved, SUV, A Kill to a View or most of the Billis ones tbh (Cuckoo especially), Tropical Beach Sounds and Other Relaxing Seascapes #4, etc
If done well with an original idea I really enjoy them. They can say so much about the characters in them. We are down to 8 episodes a season - so they are probably not very likely to appear in the immediate future of the main show.
Heaven Sent is just divine. I do not possess the vocabulary needed to do it justice.
Midnight is eerily creepy and a study of human nature.
Scherzo is all atmosphere - a fairly straightforward story when it comes down to it, but just utilises the audio format gorgeously.
I do not enjoy the levels of teen angst involved with Detained, I was bored stiff last time I saw it - then again I am not the target audience for that story. A Class story with next to no Miss Quill? That’s a pass from me, the following story was much more my speed
Don’t, whatever you do, use that link I posted in the opening post. It has Doctor Who stories listed and none of them are even close to being ‘bottle episodes’! Inferno? Carnival of Monsters? Underworld? The Horns of Nimon? Fear Her?
I don’t think Heaven Sent is really a bottle episode. Yes, it’s just Capaldi, but other than that I don’t get any sense that it was made to be a low budget episode.
I like a bottle episode. I think the ultimate one has to be the Community Bottle Episode, where they spend half the time arguing about whether they’re doing a bottle episode or not! I was going to apologise for this being so off topic and then I remembered Inspector SpaceTime, so (Toymaker voice) That’s Alright Then!
I love bottle episodes—one of my favourite structures DW can take. I find them most effective on audio where all you have are voices to guide you through a story. Off the top of my head, some favourites are We Always Get out Alive (inside a car), the Bookshop at the End of the World (two guesses!) and Scherzo (which is of course, literally inside a bottle). A lot of the Companion Chronicles have this kind of format too.
On a semi-related note, one of my favourite TV shows right now is Inside No. 9, which is practically all bottle episodes!
Another big Inside No 9 fan here - followed their work since the days of The League of Gentlemen.
Bottle episode-wise, my vote will always go to Midnight which is one my all-time favourite modern series episodes. It’s so simple yet so effective. How Tennant and Sharp managed those scenes is amazing. Didn’t it get adapted into a non-Doctor Who stage play?
For me a bottle episode should be in an enclosed location and the beginning, middle and end happen there. Fear Her has a climax (however cheesy) at the Olympic Stadium.
I think of them as including the regular cast only and recorded on existing standing sets. The Goodies often did a bottle episode each series because they spent most of the budget elsewhere. Most notably, they did a Christmas episode where the world was ending at midnight. The climax had the world not ending at midnight, then Graeme giggling because he’d set the clock two minutes fast as a joke. Then the world ended.
You’ve inspired me to finally listen to Tropical Beach Noises and Other Relaxing Seascapes #4, and I’m really enjoying it!! It reminds me very much of The Stanley Parable, and also has a similar meta vibe to one of my favorite audios from the same range, torchwood_cascade_CDRIP.tor
