Scream Halloween Special

I agree that the system with the "specials" needs some improvement :)

But I moved the episode from 3x01 to season 2 specials.
This is clearly a special and not season 3 episode one :)

It's not so confusing. The network itself calls it a special, so we list it as special too.

JuanArango wrote:
I agree that the system with the "specials" needs some improvement :)
But I moved the episode from 3x01 to season 2 specials.
This is clearly a special and not season 3 episode one :)

Good call since Season 3 wasn't announced yet.

Thomas wrote:
It's not so confusing. The network itself calls it a special, so we list it as special too.

The confusing part is that it doesn't show up in episodes lists, or next episode, when it is indeed an episode in addition to being a special.

This will be a neverending debate, but for me I don't want specials to be listed amongst regular episodes as I never watch them. (Many will agree and disagree with me), but the network classifies it as a special, so they do not consider it worth enough to be a regular episode, therefore it is very easy and will be listed in the special section. (It does appear in the calendar)

I'm not talking about listing all specials with episodes, just specials that are themselves episodes. In this case they hired actors and produced an all new 2-hour episode furthering the story, so this is one of those cases. Like I said a checkbox that allows you to select that a special is also an episode would be helpful. Then you can know that it also belongs in the episodes API queries, etc.

Thomas wrote:
(Many will agree and disagree with me), but the network classifies it as a special, so they do not consider it worth enough to be a regular episode,

The reason the network classifies it as a special is purely because it's airing at Halloween which makes it stand apart from the rest of the season and they want to bring special attention to it. If they had aired this episode in the summer they wouldn't have classified it that way as it was produced as an episode that furthers the story arc exactly as the rest of Season 2.

This argument isn't anything that anyone here hasn't heard before - it's a known issue, but there's no fix in place right now as different people want different things for the way special episodes are handled. The feature along with many other things will be worked on in due course.

Personally I think that only if there's no more normal episodes, then "next episode" should show the next special (replacing the "next episode" text with "next special" if you really want to).

This discussion is indeed one that's here for a long time.

I agree with dpratt that this 2-hour "special" is just another episode, but is 2 hours long instead of 1 hour.

But like TomSouthwell and Thomas said: a lot of people will also agree and a lot of people will totally disagree.
Since there's no better way (for the moment) we just need to mark it as a special (for now) I think.

Tvtome and by extension epguides dealt with it in a great way, it used the airdate to insert it as well as the lifetime number within the show. So it was never taken out of chronology and it was listed properly. But you're missing lifetime number (i have no idea what it would do to the system if you decided to include it now), i know Gadly said lifetime numbers can cause pain (and maybe some time it does), but it has 2 purposes, one it tells you how many episode a show has produced (including specials), it also marks milestones that are important for 2 reasons : anniversary for the fan and syndication (business) and a 3rd : marketing ;)

But if you look at epguides right now, it's pretty ugly because you guys don't have it (there's a lot of zeroes in that column).

For me, it's just an attribute.

Lifetime #s are fine, as long as you don't have contributors fill them in. If the system automatically computes them (however TVMaze decides to compute them), they're great.

Gadfly wrote:
Lifetime #s are fine, as long as you don't have contributors fill them in. If the system automatically computes them (however TVMaze decides to compute them), they're great.

I'm happy with that solution ;)

This is an ongoing discussion indeed.

It would seem that the only way to resolve it properly is a change in our system to allow differentiating between "significant special" and "insignificant special". That'd be quite a significant change that impacts a lot of different parts of the site, so it's not planned for the short term.

I would call them special episodes. Specials that meet the definition of an episode under the FAQ but are labeled as a special by the network. Usually in my experience these are Halloween episodes

The easiest way to do this is to allow specials to have Episode numbers. Make this column allow fractions so you can insert a special episode say between episode 1 and episode 2. Then sort on this column as you usually would and hide any episode numbers for episodes labeled as specials.

I agree, it's really confusing that promos, discussions and such are categorised the same as special occasion episodes, like Doctor Who's x-mas specials that are important for the storyline.

Thanks I'm glad that someone agrees with me.

Technically a "Halloween Special" that is just a regular episode that's only special because it airs at Halloween, isn't a special. It's an episode.