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Hey everybody, before we get started, I

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And, okay, here's the thing. We are

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doing a special episode for robot or

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not this year, with Stephen Anerica from

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Lazy Doctor Who. It's a little bit

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of a crossover. We're going to have

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John watch the Doctor Who episode robot

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from 1975. Is it a robot or

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not? What does John think about 1970's

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Doctor Who? I guess we're going to

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find out and that will be available

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the incomparable. So check it out there

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are contribution levels at five, ten, and

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twenty dollars a month and you'll equivalents

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thanks for giving us

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your consideration. The incomparable.com/members.

1:36

Robert or not. John

1:38

Victor wrote into robot

1:41

at the incomparable.com is

1:43

all wonderful listeners are

1:45

welcome to do. And Victor

1:47

pointed us to a podcast called

1:49

Risky or Not. Now, Risky or Not

1:51

is not robot or not, but

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one of the hosts is Dr. Don

1:56

Shafner friend of the show. Dr.

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Don and Professor. Ben have

2:00

a disagreement about the definition of a

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story arc. Ben holds the two episodes

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with related topics comprises an arc. Well,

2:07

Dr. John exists that an arc must

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have at least three episodes, a beginning,

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a middle, and an end. This is

2:13

almost an architectural question, John. We're almost

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at the point where we're gonna start

2:18

thinking about the arches in churches. John

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are two podcast episodes or episodes of

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a TV show or whatever. Are they

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an arc? Can two? Make an arc.

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Interesting, because I don't know the origin

2:29

of that phrase. Obviously, mathematically, two points

2:31

make a line, but arc is a

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curve. And to define a curve, you

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need some more information than merely just

2:37

two points. But all that is kind

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of just, you know, oh, things that

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seem like they might be related because

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they use similar words or similar concepts.

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I would say. that anything that spans

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more than one episode could be considered

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an arc. I might call it a

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mini arc. If you were describing it

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in the modern parlance, you would say,

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do you remember the mini arc in

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episodes 14 and 15 of So and

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So Show? And people would understand what

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you meant. But I don't think you

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need three, especially since beginning middle and

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end, I mean, there's a beginning middle

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and end of any line, right? That's

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it. And I think that's the key

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here is story arc. Yeah, it's the

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arc is the arc is the shape

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of the story not the number of

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episodes So so the arc could take

3:24

art and the arc is not necessarily

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the entirety of the episode It could

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be a subplot in the episode that

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continues in the next episode That story

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as a whole assuming that it is

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not just two unrelated scenes Would be

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an arc of that story regardless of

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however many episodes. Like if those three

3:41

scenes that are four scenes that form

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an arc, are two scenes in episode

3:46

A and two scenes in episode B,

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versus one in A, two in B,

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and one in C, but the same

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scenes, the fact that it's two episodes

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or three episodes. does not change the

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trajectory of the arc of the arc,

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I think. Yeah, and there's, you know,

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again, culturally we tend to use that

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term for things that span more than

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one episode, but if you were in

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the process of writing a single episode,

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you might throw that phrase out there

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in discussing how you best accomplish your

4:14

single episode? Movies, a lot of times

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we end up talking about the arc

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of a character in a film in

4:21

a single film. Right. Because what you're

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trying to talk about is their journey

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of their story from beginning to beginning

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to beginning to end to end. it's

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it's yeah the arc is is more

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like it's about multiple steps along the

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way taking you from point A to

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point B through a whole sequence not

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as a straight line and and that's

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what the that metaphor means so I

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think it's like requiring three episodes is

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just as arbitrary as requiring some amount

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of screen time or something it's just

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it's really putting a constraint on that

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it's not that is not uh it's

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not intrinsically linked to the term and

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it is not clarifying in any way

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now to take Dr. Don's side here,

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I will say. If this is just

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a lazy way of talking about a

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series of episodes about a single subject

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on a podcast, and it's literally like,

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well, we did two episodes about the

5:11

French Revolution, you shouldn't call that an

5:14

arc. Right. Unless you came to a

5:16

new understanding of the French resolution and

5:18

you know, like thus it was actually

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a story. I mean, yeah, but that

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sounds like it's more like we did

5:25

a two episode series. A series can

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be two episodes, but I wouldn't call,

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I wouldn't start calling like things like

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that an arc. It's like a season

5:33

or a series or whatever. An arc

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is a different thing, I think. Is

5:37

it a robot?