I watched this show back in 1992 and have just bought the Channel4 DVD. Both the TVDB and IMDB list 5 episodes or roughly equal length, and where it is streamed, e.g. Channel4.com, it is also in 5 equal episodes. However, the DVD has 4 episodes: a feature length (1h 42m) first episode and 3 others around 53m. Screenonline shows it as being 4 episodes and I believe that IMDB at one time said the same because I came across a post complaining that it should be 5.
My suspicion is that it was originally aired as 4 episodes as per the DVD, but that it has subsequently been edited to 5 for convenience (my memory isn’t good enough to be certain). The problem is that some of the content has been moved around to accomodate the changes, and the episode numbers etc are overlayed on the video, so it isn’t just a case of using MKVtoolnix or similar to split up the long episode 1.
I don’t think it was incorrectly ripped. Elements within the content have been quite precisely moved to accommodate reordered episodes. For example, the opening sequence of episode 2 from the DVD has been repositioned in the shorter version to form a new episode 2 opening with different content either side. There is no split point because the creation of two short episodes instead of one long one has included a great deal of editing. In addition the opening titles overrun the action in places, so even if I split the long episode and edited in some opening and closing titles at the split, the episode numbers which are in the titles would be problematic. There are no opening titles with an “episode 5” for instance.
I’ll have a look at the double-episode feature, but I still assume that the chapter descriptions and so on will be wrong.
I may actually have to try and confirm with Channel 4 just how the show was actually aired and if necessary see whether TVDB can be corrected.
It is not unheard of that shows are getting re-formatted for different release forms.
I’d look at TheTVDB if they have an alternative episode ordering available. Plex is able to use the “DVD” and the “Absolute” orderings.
You select this in the properties of the show, on the Advanced tab.
Unfortunately that is not the case for this show. It was looking at the TVDB to see whether there was an alternative episode ordering that alerted me to the problem. I suspect that there SHOULD be an alternative ordering OR a separate DVD ordering,
This reminds me of the When Calls the Heart DVDs. Simple DVD reordering doesn’t quite work.
For every season they have a TV episode collection and a movie collection where they have seamlessly edited together 12 or so TV episodes to make 6 or so movies.
I haven’t found a good work around for the movies except to manually type in all the information directly into Plex. I tried adding it to TVDB and MovieDB as a parallel entry (because if I’m going to write it all out why not let others benefit and also have a backup), but it got deleted for being a duplicate of an existing show. And, my attempts to appeal the decision got ignored.
Yes, that sounds very similar. I imagine a 1hr 40m episode in front of 3 shorter episodes didn’t look very sexy when Channel 4 started checking the value of their inventory for sale to streamers like Netflix etc. On the other hand, it was probably too costly to re-issue the DVD which was all done and selling one copy every 6 months to sad-acts like me. Unfortunately, for me, it looks like they edited so much to create the 5 episode version that there’s no easy way to get there from the 4 episode version.
I was thinking about setting all my own Plex stuff up, but I was hoping not to.
Based on what I understand from your posts, you can still do plex for this. Plex does support multi-episode files (2 or more episodes in one physical file. Otto linked the article in his second bullet point, up above). Using the number scheme of S01E01E02 or S01E01-02 on your filename will have Plex pick it up as a double-episode file and pull the metadata for these episodes. In Plex, it will look like you have 5 episodes, but both episode 1 and 2 in the UI will play the exact same file.
Thanks for that. I’m certainly going to give it a go. I haven’t done a detailed comparison of the first two episodes as they appear on streamed sources with the longer single episode on the DVD, but I suspect they cover the same material.
To satisfy my curiosity, I’ll still follow up the issue of how the series was first aired
The S01E01-02 format worked on my setup, and I’ll leave it like that for now. It isn’t perfect because the episode numbers displayed in Plex don’t match those in the video titles. I pick episode 3 and near the start of the video the titles tell me it’s episode 2. Similarly, the episode 1 and 2 thing with different descriptions when it’s actually a single episode is awkward. That said, it’s not a big deal in the scheme of things, and not a problem with Plex.
Hm, I thought you said that the first DVD episode had episode 1 and 2 built-in, with a mid-episode “Episode 2” mini credit. Ouch, so the 4 files are labeled as episodes 1-4 in text inside? That sucks, and I agree should be supported as an alternate DVD-sort method on TVDB (which Plex would then be able to support).
Well, another alternative will be to - for this one show - manually edit the metadata for the episodes. Basically, set your files as episode 1 2 3 4, but take the metadata from 1&2 3 4 5. Use Notepad (or similar) to take down the important details of each episode (title, description, AIRDATE), then add each file as episodes 1-4. Plex will pull in the wrong metadata, but you can then Edit each entry to fix the info. When you edit, the fields auto-lock (orange lock icon) so they won’t change back in the future. This way, the numbers match the content of the files, and you don’t have a double-episode entry like with S01E01E02.
Yes, the opening titles have the episode number a couple of minutes into each episode.
Channel 4 have now told me that, as I suspected, it was originally aired as set out on the DVD*. The first episode was split and the opening of the original episode 2 was transplanted back to a convenient point to be the opening of the new episode 2. That means that material was also moved elsewhere to make a new opening for the new episode 3. The long and short is that there is no convenient split point to make a match with the new layout and in any case, the opening credits/titles won’t ever match.
The correct route would be to see if an alternative layout can be added to TVDB/IMDB. If I can’t do that, or if I can’t be bothered, I’ll edit the metadata. I’ve done this a few times for other obscure productions (I’m a fan of some old and very old films and tv shows that sometimes lack full details online).
Thanks for posting SwiftPanda16. I think that might be more than I need for a 4 episode series though.
“We can advise that the programme was originally broadcast as four episodes on Channel 4 in 1992. What you will see as the first episode and second episode on the Channel 4 Streaming Service was broadcast as a feature length episode at 9:00pm on 5th March 1992. This was done in the hopes of drawing in an audience by giving more of the story and making it much more of a TV event. The following three episodes were broadcast on 12th, 19th and 26th March on Channel 4 at 9:00pm each time.”
Well, there’s a surprise. A bit of persistance paid off. This arrived from the TVDB:
"Hello William,
*The aired order has been corrected to 4 episodes.
*An Alternate “5 episodes streaming order” has been added (air dates corrected).
Your TheTVDB.com Team,
Thank you for your interest in supporting and improving TheTVDB!
TheTVDB Moderation Team"
