DAHMER - Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story (2022)
plex://show/606ef58bff5b43002ce0589a
imdb://tt13207736
tmdb://113988
tmdb://225634
tvdb://389492
tvdb://453544
tmdb://113988 is the correct one but tmdb://225634 is not and goes to this show Monsters (TV Series) — The Movie Database (TMDB) so should be cleaned up as it likely causes matching problems for that show.
Sure, for reference here are other examples of shows that do this and plex has no problems matching them …
The Haunting of Hill House (2018) {tmdb-72844}
The Haunting of Bly Manor (2020) {tmdb-109958}
Transformers: War for Cybertron: Siege (2020) {tmdb-100617}
Transformers: War for Cybertron: Kingdom (2021) {tmdb-128255}
Transformers: War for Cybertron: Earthrise (2020) {tmdb-117682}
The Great British Bake Off (2010) {tmdb-34549}
The Great British Bake Off (2017) {tmdb-87012}
… all of these have single show listing on tvdb where tmdb splits them.
Seems to me that Plex itself needs to decide if it wants to have a separate entry in their own watch.plex.tv database for each show, or a single one.
In the past, as referred to by Dokuro, Plex appears to have picked the option of having separate entries for each show on TMDB. But this time, it latched onto the “there is only ONE show!” entry by TVDB, and thus we can only match against that one show. Since there isn’t a Plex ID for the other show entries, we literally cannot select them in order to use their episode numbering.
I think that it would be best to always choose to “create multiple entries if they both disagree”, and let us choose which entry we want.
The argument could also be made that both tvdb and imdb are incorrectly combining these shows together.
Its a netflix production and they themselves have listed both Dahmer and Monsters separately as two shows. You can even see Monsters itself says via netflix 1 season and not a second season
This is why tmdb have done what they done. Anyhow, i’ll wait for common sense to prevail.
I can understand why TVDB might combine them. It sort of makes sense to me that these “series” of tv shows that focus on a particular “monster” are somewhat related to eachother and could be “seasons” of each other.
It seems like Netflix made the “Dahmer” show, then decided after they announced the title that it could be part of a “Monsters” series, which they didn’t label the next show with until the Lyle and Eric series.
I can SEE that they are related and could be together, but I can also see that someone that wants to hear about Dahmer but not Lyle and Erik would not care to have an “incomplete” series where only season 1 is watched/owned. Almost like there should be a third state of connectivity with shows:
A second/third/etc season of an existing show. Example: Simpsons, seasons 1-infinity.
A separate show/spinoff: Example: Family Guy and The Cleveland Show.
Semi-linked seasons that share a show title, but each season is independent and don’t require watching the rest of the show to enjoy. Example: Monster: Dahmer and Monster: Lyle and Eric.
I ran into this with long-ended series reboots, such as the new Ghost-In-The-Shell SAC_2045 series. With a new art style, new production company (but same cast), I feel it is a separate show, but some of the online DBs combine them to have SAC_2045 being a third season instead.
The response for TMDB was that regardless of what IMDB does, Netflix has them as separate entries, so TMDB is not combining them.
Either way Plex chooses to recognize it is fine, but if Plex is going to continue to combine them as one series, Plex needs to pull episode metadata, and particularly cast information from a source other than TMDB. How will Plex fix the cast issue, because currently season 2 has no cast (because it’s matching to TMDB for cast, which only lists one season)?
Manually separating them into individual series does not fix the issue because there is nothing to attach to within Plex to pull cast information for Monsters (2024). Please assist because the cast for season 2 is important. We have access to manually fix everything else. If Plex is determined that casts are not locally editable, then they need to solution things like this more urgently, manually if necessary.
Agreed, it’ll tricky for anyone who uses tvdb ordering regardless if plex decide to have a tmdb listing. This is due to tmdb having no external id links from tmdb to tvdb/imdb for this show. This is one of the ways plex uses to match up shows/episodes between online metadata providers.
You’d imagine they (plex) should be able to manually link the shows themselves on their back-end which would then pull the cast and other metadata but I’d say they really don’t want to do anything like that as it adds an overhead for them to manage, especially if things change.
And they are closing topics other people open and directing them to this thread…
I respect they are different teams, and trying to keep the forum clean. But it really does give off the impression that its more important that the metaphorical deck chairs be organized correctly than the pool be clean and functional.
Unsure if I’m adding or subtracting from the subject, but this all just hit my radar today. Is the argument that these should be considered as separate shows?
I originally had the show in Plex as “Monster The Jeffrey Dahmer Story.” I’m a fairly recent Sonarr convert, so I added the show “Monster (2022)” there and retitled my original folder to reflect before the new Season 2 stuff loaded in.
Plex kept the watch history of the original Dahmer stuff, and later, slotted the new material as Season 02.
Perhaps not the fix we’re looking for? But everything looks as I’d hope. Episode titles and descriptions are populated.
To summarise, yes within plex, we can add the new show “Monster” as the second season off the original “Dahmer” show which will give you metadata such as episode titles and summaries for what imdb and tvdb consider the second season. However, it will not pull other metadata such as cast and ratings.
Hi ! Has anyone managed to match the show with the default ‘Plex Series’ agent ?
A friend told me that he managed to match it by switching to another « legacy » agent, but I’m not a fan of this solution as it might not be supported in the future.
If you name your files to match this episode listing Monster (2022) - TheTVDB.comAND you change the episode ordering in plex to match tvdb then it should at least match for episode titles and summaries but other metadata will be missing …
This is an example of how metadata is a hard problem. This is why libraries have librarians. If you run a piece of software that deals with any kind of data archival, you have two options for metadata: (1) find a trusted and professional partner and defer to them; (2) employ people and empower them with the time and resources they need to do it right.
These forums are a really terrible and indirect way to handle reports about bad metadata. When there’s a metadata issue in any one of the sources, users can directly edit the metadata and large teams of people (some paid, some volunteer) make it their job to fix things. When there’s a metadata issue related to Plex’s downstream aggregation, users have to post things on forums to hope that forum moderators report the issues to staff members who will issue a ticket users can’t see that might eventually fix things or might not. That’s no way to operate. Here’s the proof: this post, about this show (a sequel/subsequent season of one of the most popular shows on the most popular streaming service in the world), is now two months old and people are still having trouble. Insane.
And the need to have a process to correct metadata at all is caused by the choice to slop together a bunch of disparate metadata sources. You can’t own the metadata without having to tend to it. No one with any education or experience in archival work would suggest trying to blend multiple different datasources with ongoing changes and not make it peoples full-time job to resolve the inevitable seams.
This is going to keep happening again and again and again.
