I have a question that is partially brought on by the newly recovered episodes of Daleks’ Master Plan. So, I just watched Episode 1. I have no intention of watching/listening to the remaining 11 episodes and thus won’t be logging this story in my diary because then my stats will be off by four-and-a-half hours. Those thoughts then got me thinking.
In the modern series we log each episode separately including both parts of two-parters, whereas in Classic Who we log each serial as a single entity. This works fine if you’re watching it all in one go or over the course of a couple days, but if you’re watching it off and on over several weeks, or if you start a serial in late December and don’t finish it until early January, then it only counts for the new year or whenever you actually finish the story despite the fact that time-wise at least it should count for both.
Now, I understand that this could really screw up average ratings and the “Now Treading” page, but how feasible is it to at least log individual episodes of Classic separately? Could rating the individual episodes then just be averaged together automatically to create your rating for the whole serial? All just thoughts I had after only wanting to and then watching 1/12 (8%) of DMP combined with my slow rewatch of Classic that I started after The Reality War.
12 Likes
To your wider point – I’ve wondered about this too.
6 Likes
Oddly, I’m the opposite. I wonder why we consider things as complete stories for every other thing in Doctor Who except for modern series multi-parters which are considered individually. We don’t break classic stories by episode, audios by episode, novels by chapter, comics by issue, but new series 2-parters? Two entries.
15 Likes
This is something I have considered.
But also, something else I’m considering is an “In Progress” (like Currently Reading that Goodreads does) which lets you mark what you’re currently doing, be it a book or an episode of Classic or a long audio drama… and then you can track each step as a percentage or episode or runtime or page number.
I think that would cover your requirement above, plus be helpful for books and audios too.
More info about that here:
“In Progress” (Currently Reading) - on the roadmap
19 Likes
Ah, that’s an interesting idea. That could work for things one hasn’t completed yet nicely.
5 Likes
Yes, I remember that we have talked about this before. I think it could be really useful for projects that usually require multiple sittings.
The thing that I was thinking about after watching DMP today was that when I updated my review, it still says that I reviewed it in 2024, even though I’m talking about the new episodes. Which feels a bit weird. That got me thinking: what if the site worked like Letterboxd, where you can create individual reviews and ratings for every completion of a story? That way, you could preserve old reviews and ratings and see how your opinions have changed over time.
11 Likes
Definitely the In Progress thing would be great especially as it would cover all media.
But I still logged this as a rewatch, my stats be damned.
9 Likes
I don’t log my rewatches. I have too many historical ones that I’d have to somehow estimate if I did. If I rewatch, I’ll re-evaluate, maybe adjust a rating where needed, but I’ll stick with my estimated first watch dates, and that’s good enough for me.
9 Likes
I feel the same way because there’s no way I can tell how many times I rewatched The Time of Angels, but I still find it useful to log rewatches going forward, as I can at least get my stats for 2025 and 2026.
9 Likes
I’m not worried about logging historic rewatches (my classic era stuff would be insane) but I definitely log every rewatch or relisten (or the rare reread) now.
10 Likes
As for this. If it’s because different titles, then why not An Unearthly Child to The OK Corral? If it’s because there isn’t a unanimous agreement as to what counts as a single story in the modern series (Is Utopia part of a three-parter? Are Heaven Sent and Hell Bent two stories? Leave it to Who fans to even make this complicated), then I guess it makes some sense to just say all of them as separate for simplicity’s sake. Otherwise the admin team would have to decide on every one on a case-by-case basis which would probably be more trouble than it’s worth.
4 Likes
It’s just because there is a difference to how the modern series works versus the classic.
10 Likes
Could you elaborate on what that difference is? Because in my eyes, a story is a story, a narrative piece from beginning to middle to end, regardless of how many episodes it is, how it’s titled, or whatever. So I’m not sure what makes modern Who different in that regard. (This is simply just me trying to understand, not a criticism, I’m not asking for any change)
8 Likes
Yeah I’ve never thought about trying to do the dates of pre me finding the site when I watched something so my oct 2025 i completed 839 stories; 258 hours of audio; 609 hours of tv - and then some point later on when I discovered the repeat feature I tried to guesstimate how many times I’ve watched each story
Rewatches going forward I track when those repeats happened. but historic i probably couldn’t even do that apart from when Dr who was on Netflix to find those dates
5 Likes
For me it’s just that each part can be so different. Whereas with Classic, with only a handful of exceptions, each episode is just more of the same narrative (and can easily be put into an omnibus), I feel that so many two-parters in modern Who need to be considered separately because they can have huge changes in focus half way through.
Some examples are Bad Wolf / Parting of the ways, The Pandorica Opens / The Big Bang, Utopia and the other two, Under the Lake / Before the Flood, TLoRS / Empire of Death, Wish World / The Reality War. There are probably loads more.
Edit: oh yes and the series of two-parters! I forgot about The Girl Who Died / The Woman Who Lived, Heaven Sent / Hell Bent, etc. Totally different narratives
11 Likes
I think the difference is for the Classic series the majority are stories with one title split across multiple episodes. The naming of individual episodes up to the end of The Gunfighters is the exception to the rule. In the modern series, multi-part stories were given individual titles (and there was even an exception to that rule in The End of Time Parts One and Two).
With the modern series there are debatable/disputed examples. Do we count The Girl Who Died and The Woman Who Lived as one or two stories? The Pandorica Opens and The Big Bang entirely change location and narrative focus.
I think it makes sense to have the classic series episodes bundled as one story and for the modern series to be individual because it is a difference in how they work and how they are presented.
11 Likes
Ok, I can understand that perspective, even if it’s not one I’d personally agree with.
In my own rankings I do the case-by-case thing where I decide what is one story or not, and rate and rank as what I decide are complete stories, to me that’s more consistent in terms of how I compare stories to one another. But that also does introduce a subjectivity that just a blanket “call each episode a story always” eliminates.
6 Likes
Some people want to break An Unearthly Child into Episode 1, and then Episodes 2-4.
Those people must be stopped at all costs.
/lh
5 Likes
Light-hearted, but don’t think of it as a joke, or not a serious matter. Those people need help.
6 Likes
I tend to go with the story numbers on List of Doctor Who television stories - Tardis Wiki - which is what I used for my polls. Only deviation i did was trial of a time lord and flux separating those out but everything else i believe I kept as is
Even if I don’t understand why some of Capaldis are or aren’t two parters and the annoying fact that utopia is lumped in with the last 2 episodes of s3(?)
5 Likes
