Specials episodes in the appropriate order in story line
A poster on the AVSForums website just posed an interesting question about how MediaBrowser will handle TV Series ‘Specials’ and how they would be displayed within MB. It seems that with some series' the specials are part of the overall story line and need to be viewed at the appropriate place interwoven with the regular series. Thetvdb has an ‘Airs after Season …’ and Airs Before Episode' field, presumably for the puropse of ensuring that the ‘Special’ is placed in the correct running order.
I hadn’t noticed this before as my Specials are just that – to be seperately viewed and displayed episodes. This is apparently how ‘other’ front-ends handle ‘Specials’ and thought It might be worthwhile gauging interest for the incluison of such a method of listing, or are the Community happy with the listing as is – ie a totally seperate entry for Specials?
Would you have a design for this? Or perhaps some shots from another app? How much of an edge case is this?
I watch a fair bit of TV and most of the “Specials” stuff seems to fit into season 0 (eg. family guy / simpsons / extras )
Firefly is a bit of a mess … but its not due to specials.
I posted this on AVS Forums. A case example would be Doctor Who (2005). Every year they have had at least one special at Christmas. This special will frequently wrap up the end of the previous season and/or set the stage for the next season. The main actor had conflicting commitments last year, so the entire 2009 series was nothing but ‘specials’. If you want to sit down and (re)watch the show in order, you need the specials in the right place for the storyline to always make sense.
If you have a chance, look at the MP-TV Series plug in for MediaPortal. When you import a new series to that, it asks if you want to view by air date or release date (which I assume is to accommodate Firefly or other series that the networks butcher). When browsing the list of seasons, it breaks the specials out as their own ‘season’, but when looking at the list of episodes for the seasons it includes the specials in the appropriate order.
Nice to see you made your way over from AVS – welcome.
Hurray! another Doctor Who fan ;)
I would imagine that whether Specials can be viewed in a season other than 0, is dependant on the thetvdb’s API. I would love to get rid of my Season 0 folder and place the episodes in the other season folders instead.
I think the topic should renamed to more informative like “Specials in the appropriate order in story line”. And people, please support the proposal of steelman1991 & bartman01!
I like this idea too. Specials are always part of a specific season in my view. An extra to be watched as part of that season. Regardless if the storyline distakes or requires it I would love to get rid of season 0 and integrate the specials into the season in the correct order. If there is no specific order required then have an “extras” within the season itself.
I second this but have no wish free at the moment..I find there are quite a lot of times I would like the specials in a particular place within a season..the “Lost” catchup episodes would be an example or Christmas specials that fit in between 2 seasons.
