Should episode titles be added?

Our information is only based on the world premiere of the series and it's designated channel, therefore an AKA of a different channel would make our information invalid and incorrect as it was not that channel that did name it, so please never add an aka as episode title if it wasn't from the channel that premiered it.

For the "Death in Paradise" there's at least two sets of episode titles exists (some episodes have even more options). One set is from the Netflix, the other one is from some TV channel I suppose. Some titles are the same, other are completely different. E.g. S01E01 is either "Death in Paradise" or "From England to Saint Marie" or even "The Sheriff is Dead", if you translate official French title (the closest to be called official title, since the show is a UK-France co-production).

So which one we should consider "official"?

Allowing to use those half-official titles will only lead to endless edit war. That's why we stick to the titles, given by the owning / premiering TV channel, which is BBC One in this case.

I think the only reasonable solution is to add AKA field not only for show name, but for the episode title as well.

tnt wrote:
For the "Death in Paradise" there's at least two sets of episode titles exists (some episodes have even more options). One set is from the Netflix, the other one is from some TV channel I suppose. Some titles are the same, other are completely different. E.g. S01E01 is either "Death in Paradise" or "From England to Saint Marie" or even "The Sheriff is Dead", if you translate official French title (the closest to be called official title, since the show is a UK-France co-production).
So which one we should consider "official"?
Allowing to use those half-official titles will only lead to endless edit war. That's why we stick to the titles, given by the owning / premiering TV channel, which is BBC One in this case.
I think the only reasonable solution is to add AKA field not only for show name, but for the episode title as well.

With a lot of shows from Japan, there is an English title directly translated from the original Japanese title on the subtitled version, and then there is a somewhat different title that is created directly for the English-language dub. How are these handled?

Regarding "Death in Paradise", I would use the titles used in the U.S. by TV Guide, Amazon Prime Instant Video, and Netflix, as these are the most prevalent.

GeorgeFergus wrote:
A number of shows, particularly those from Britain, do not have episode titles. The "official" titles are simply Episode 1, Episode 2, etc. This is a fine for the chapters of a serial, but becomes problematic when trying to figure out which episode is which for a long-running show like Spooks or Death in Paradise. So when these shows are packaged for syndication in America, episode titles are typically added. These titles are not made up by fans, but as I understand it are typically derived by looking at the original scripts or consulting with original authors. Sometimes the authors have come up with clever titles for their stories, and are glad to see these restored.
The policy here at TVMaze has been to ignore these new titles completely, and to delete them if someone tries to add them. I think this is wrong, and that these semi-official titles provide useful information that should not be discarded. We already know that they are Episode 1, Episode 2, etc. because we have them numbered. No information is lost by adding these AKA titles in place of the generic ones.

I know that some of you are perfectly happy to refer to an episode as S06E05, but whenever there is confusion, it is helpful to have an actual episode title. It also makes the episode list a lot less dull.

I also like a "normal title" better than "Episode 1", but the first rule is as you said, to go with the on-screen credits or the official site that broadcasts the show first.

I have to admit I have no clue how those epiosdes get titles when they are reaired on different channels or countries. Does the station choose a fitting one or do they get it from the creators of the show?

For movie titles its up to the local distributor to come up with a name so I imagine it's the same for tv, meaning the creators of the show have nothing to do with it.

JuanArango wrote:
I have to admit I have no clue how those epiosdes get titles when they are reaired on different channels or countries. Does the station choose a fitting one or do they get it from the creators of the show?

I can't speak for all the Death in Paradise "titles" with certainty, but I remember when these "titles" first started appearing online (prior to Netflix, etc.), people had taken one of the sub-titles of the 2/3 minute clips they use as sneak peaks every week from the BBC website and decided that title was what the episode was called. There (to the best of my knowledge) has never any suggestion from the creators, in UK TV listings, or on official DVD sets that the official titles are anything beyond Episode 1, Episode 2, etc. It would seem that some distributors just can't get behind the BBCs way of not titling some shows and thus there's now a proliferation of arbitarily assigned titles depending on whatever the distributor fancies. The problem then, if you decide to divert from the official Episode 1 etc., becomes, which distributors titles are more valid than another distributors titles?

After all your insights I agree that we should stay with the official titles from the premier broadcaster, if no on-screen title is to be seen.

I also think we should stick with whatever the original network or web channel decides. That's the cornerstone of all of our policy, so why shouldn't it be here?

If we don't, it's a slippery slope. When would another network's titles be valid and when wouldn't they be? If a show from a major UK network like the BBC is reran on a much smaller US network, should we use the episodes titles that the US network slapped on? Even if the original network or creators specifically indicate that the show doesn't have episode titles? What if a Canadian or Australian network creates a set of episode titles? What if a non-English network creates titles for them in a foreign language? What if two or more non-original networks have created different sets of episode titles?

That said, if we ever decide to implement support for rerun ("alternate") airdates, it'd make sense to also allow setting an alternate episode name for a specific country.

GeorgeFergus wrote:
With a lot of shows from Japan, there is an English title directly translated from the original Japanese title on the subtitled version, and then there is a somewhat different title that is created directly for the English-language dub. How are these handled?

That's indicated at http://www.tvmaze.com/faq/13/shows under "Name"; those rules can be applied to episode names as well.

Normally, the name's original language and character set should be used, no translations or transliterations. However, some shows are known by multiple names, all of which can be considered official. This mainly happens with - Japanese - anime shows, which can have a name in the Chinese/Kanji character set (like "進撃の巨人"), a transliterated Latin version (like "Shingeki no Kyojin") and sometimes even an English version ("One Piece"). Such a name is only considered official when it's actively used by the Show's original network or producers.

GeorgeFergus wrote:
Regarding "Death in Paradise", I would use the titles used in the U.S. by TV Guide, Amazon Prime Instant Video, and Netflix, as these are the most prevalent.

That's what I was talking about. All of the sources you mentioned are using different titles.

S01E01:
TVGuide – From England to Saint Marie
Amazon – Episode 1
Netflix – Death in Paradise

So, which one is prevalent? )))

david wrote:
That said, if we ever decide to implement support for rerun ("alternate") airdates, it'd make sense to also allow setting an alternate episode name for a specific country.

Is it possible to add AKA field to the episodes, as a quick fix? It will also help with the occasions, when networks changes a name of the episode at some point, which usually leads to edit war :)

The only title origins that I know for sure are for "Sapphire and Steel". The original titles are Assignment 1, Assignment 2, etc., but an interview in a fan magazine with the creator produced the episode titles we have today, which appear on the U.S. DVD set.

GeorgeFergus wrote:
The only title origins that I know for sure are for "Sapphire and Steel". The original titles are Assignment 1, Assignment 2, etc., but an interview in a fan magazine with the creator produced the episode titles we have today, which appear on the U.S. DVD set.

According to whoever posted on Wikipedia (although I wouldn't consider it authoritative): there's no footnoted citation, there were no "original titles" and the creator said he never gave them titles.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sapphire_%26_Steel#Television_stories

And saying an interview "produced" them isn't quite the same as saying that the creator created them.

tnt wrote:
That's what I was talking about. All of the sources you mentioned are using different titles.
S01E01:
TVGuide – From England to Saint Marie
Amazon – Episode 1
Netflix – Death in Paradise
So, which one is prevalent? )))

The official site would be prevalent - the BBC

As far as Sapphire & Steel, I don't know which source is "more" right. Just that there's so much apocrypha around some shows that it's difficult to tell. One source says that the creator came up with titles that weren't on-screen: another source says that he says that he didn't do that.

I imagine that's a good part of why TVMaze has the system it has.

tnt wrote:
Is it possible to add AKA field to the episodes, as a quick fix? It will also help with the occasions, when networks changes a name of the episode at some point, which usually leads to edit war :)

AKA's are useful for shows and characters because the search function takes them into account. There's no such thing as episode search, so episode AKA's wouldn't have much value. I don't think that would happen except for as part of the alternate airdates functionality.