On the new Roku 8.1 version that was released today, there now is an extra “episode” called “Show” with the shows background as thumbnail, before Episode 1.
I’m not sure if this is intended to be there, but at the top aswel where it lists all seasons, it also has an extra “show” season before Season 01.
Its very confusing, and doesn’t really make a lot of sense as to what these extra buttons/epidoes are for.
Neither of these exist on the Android or iOS versions.
Could it be this is related to this new feature?
Potentially, but what does this new feature do? What’s the point of it. It makes no sense and is very much out of place. Its also very confusing when starting a new show from the start because of this “Show” episode instead of Ep 1.
Not only that, it only exists on Roku, which makes it all the more odd.
I am away from my Roku (and AppleTV) to validate, but I know we were working on ways to give better access on Roku/TVs to Shows and Seasons, which is something that has been challenging to do in the past. I am mainly commenting so that I can check this out tomorrow and hopefully provide more context.
Thanks.
Once you have checked this out, can you please help me understand how this helps me? I’m really confused by it.
When clicking the “extra” episode at the start, what does this actually play, for example.
I posted in the Preview thread if you want more detail from me (probably tired of it 
) but I also found this choice baffling particularly since it mixes the hierarchy of show\season\episode together and all the card does is play the next unplayed episode in the episode list I’m already in. It doesn’t do anything for navigating or accessing Shows\Seasons.
Personally I’ve not found it challenging to access shows\seasons\episodes on Roku. I can just click “up” on the remote to go to the Show\Season navigation at the top of the details page. Just make sure that’s on every TV based detail page and I think it’ll be fine?
Apologies as the original text here was intended for a different forum thread. I have responded to this thread below. Please ignore this one as I removed the previous response.
I don’t think we’re talking about the same thing. It sounds like you’re referring to the new row on the Home Screen showing the Libraries and that’s not what we’re talking about here (though that did come up in that other thread as something people would like to be able to turn off - for exactly as you said, for many it’ll be redundant).
This is what we’re talking about that has been added to the episode row of TV details pages:
Depending on how your episode display is set that’ll either say a Season or a Show. If you click on it, it plays the next unplayed episode. This seems really unnecessary and conflicting.
Edit: Just another example for when it’s a show with the “don’t show seasons for single season” setting enabled:
I’m really hoping it’s a bug from tweaking Show\Season navigation at the top of the details screens - which I like. 
I had multiple forum threads that I was responding to and got them confused. Nice catch. Let me address this first “show” card.
This is an area that we have been looking to make a change for a while, so this isn’t directly related to the preview experience. Note that I will drop some watch.plex links here for context (using watch.plex so that we can all see the same thing as opposed to a server where we can’t). The problem we are trying to solve for here is that we have metadata for three levels of a tv show:
Now we have always had this hierarchy available on web, but we haven’t had it available on TV and we wanted to solve for that. The reasons for wanting to show all 3 level include being able to show descriptions for all three levels and also we have specific actions that are available at each level (example: mark show as watched, mark season as watched, mark episode as watched). Without having a page that only shows a season, we lose out on that spot for these.
@Insomnic_1 also caught the other addition, which is the addition of the “Show” at the top left of the Seasons list which was another idea to navigate to one of these different levels.
So this is something we are trying out but I expected the cursor to land on episode 1 when you go to see the data for episodes (meaning you would have to nav left to select the “season” tile) and the season tile is also starting playback of episode one so I need to take this feedback back to the team and confirm my understanding of what is going on here.
@McWanke Thanks for getting back; I can imagine there’s many topics to juggle since the forums are the only way for users to report anything to Plex and Forums aren’t a very efficient means of tracking things compared to systems more geared towards it. I realize you’re answering a lot of stuff these days so I can empathize.
I’m still not sure we’re talking about the same thing though? Or maybe not with the same context?
The tabs along the top of the Roku TV Details pages including Show now is great. I think that’s an improvement for navigating Show\Season\Episode level on Roku. That is a nice improvement over just seasons there. It feels intuitive.
Adding the show\season card at the front of the episode list - the UI elements I highlighted in green on my pictures - doesn’t impact navigating Show\Seasons on Roku though. It just plays the next unplayed episode; which is actually already highlighted when I go to that screen so I’d have to click back to that first show\season card. And I don’t think I’d do that over clicking up to the navigation menu or just hit “back” a couple times to go to the show\season level to manage the show or season functions like marking as watched. Particularly if I started from my library level I’d have passed the Show or Season level to get to that UI element already so it feels weird. Clunky? And look at all that blank space on the Murderbot example…
Looking at your example for Mad Men on Plex Movies and TV - which I haven’t actually used that service so maybe I’m missing something - it looks like there’s no season\show hierarchy navigation or management at all. Like I couldn’t figure out how to go between seasons\shows or back to the list of episodes for that season to pick a different episode after clicking into an episode. Not even the steps I’d use in Plex Web for local media works - no clicking on Show title or Season label did anything.
If the intention is for these new cards in the episode row to solve the lack of navigation\management of show\season\episode there then I guess that makes a kinda sense? I think making elements clickable like they are on Web or iOS would work better but maybe it’s not as easy to do for Plex Movies and TV and if those cards actually navigate, rather than just playing the next unplayed episode like the do on Roku, that’d work out?
What I don’t understand is how this new UI feature improves Plex on Roku? What does this fix or address? I don’t see an answer to that in your explanation and that’s why I’m confused and think maybe we’re still not talking about the same thing or not quite connecting on it.
Edit: I had a different wall of text but I don’t think it was worded right so I re-wrote a bunch of this to try to be more concise. It might help to re-read some of the previous posts for some details. I don’t mean for this to sound confrontational either… just trying to provide constructive feedback.
Another oddity that’s jarring with this setup…
I selected episode 3 of a show from the continue watching row and when it opened the details page I thought I had the wrong episode because the highlighted episode was the 4th tile, not the third one, because of the show/season tile being first now.
Episode 3 is the fourth tile out of 4 displayed.
Totally incongruous to have episode one be the second item in the episode row. Feels so off.
Edit: Forgot to mention the other thing. If the “don’t show seasons if only one season” setting is enable then the Show\Season navigation is missing on the detail page. Probably because that messes with the show\season level with that setting enabled. It might be useful or more consistent if it was enabled there too?
Just more feedback for @McWanke to report back to the devs.
Found another oddity with this new show\season card. It’s inconsistent in function.
It’s in the screenshots above but hadn’t really noticed it at first - depending on how you get to the show\card card via navigation you can either have blank info or show\season summary info and the buttons and options are different in those cases.
You can see in Murderbot screenshot there are 3 buttons and no summary and the Poker Face screenshot there are 4 buttons and summary info. So you can have different buttons and different overflow menu depending on the situation. I realize this a SHOW vs SEASON comparison but I noticed it in multiple situations and show\season didn’t seem to make a difference.
This extra card really feels so out of place - particularly since it’s not on any other platform’s Experience either.
Yep, I agree. This “feature” is not only pointless in my eyes but its badly implemented anyway.
Might aswel revert the change.
With each update I keep hoping this card will disappear but since
it’s probably not something Plex is looking for feedback on since the Roku Preview has such tiny participation and it’s not a Roku test but a broader TV Library UI\UX change. If they wanted feedback from users they would have used a beta with more participation so probably was just easier to test with the Roku Preview where it won’t get much notice. Who knows. shrug
It’s just so awkward and kinda ugly and doesn’t really solve a problem users were having outside of Plex’s own Movie\TV streaming service; which matches with Plex’s other business incentives so probably is the explanation which is pretty much what McWanke indicated in their post above.
Anyways, like I said earlier, I think adding the new Show level navigation at the top of the detail pages was a good thing and helpful. I think additionally, setting it up so the Show\Season navigation row shows up at all times, not just when there’s multiple seasons, solves the hierarchy navigation in a clean, consistent and intuitive way. This would work for Plex’s streaming service too and it seems odd that creating this card is easier than adding a navigation row for Watch Plex show\season pages.
It also seems counterintuitive to add an entire new larger element only accessible at the front of the episode list for where to put season\show controls for “mark as watched” and “add to watchlist” just to cut down on a few button elements in the detail pages or the sidecar that Preview uses now? Plus it’s inconsistent to have TV show\season management be done by a card with special buttons in the episode list instead of buttons on the detail page while the same management for movie titles will continue to be done by buttons on the detail page. 
Anyways, mostly just saying this to satisfy my sunk cost on Plex and trying to make an impact in favor of my own preferences while Plex is still nominally requesting input so this is just my last try on this topic. 
can you please remove this bizarre “Season #” at the beginning of each season episode list/thumbnails. It confusing, unwanted, and I want to be able to have the option to remove it. It’s also buggy, as anytime I highlight it and then either click on it or move the highlight off it, the arrow keys stop responding. 8.6.4 roku app on a streaming stick 4k with the latest version of PMS on windows at time of reply. This is very problematic bug and the entire presence of this is unwanted and confusing. Either remove it or give up the option to remove it. Also fix this bug please. ty
hey, you have a serious bug involved with the “Season #” thumbnail at the start of each season episode list. if you highlight it and then either click on it or move the highlight off it, the arrow buttons stop responding. you have to use the back button to get out of the show and return to the home screen for the arrow keys to start responding again within the app. It’s also utterly pointless to even exist and needs to either be removed or give us the option to disable it. That after you fix this very obvious and problematic bug.
No offense, but where was the QA on this update? I’ve found so many bugs in just 24 hours. and I’m one person spending very little time on it.
This is regarding the Roku app update 8.6.4 on a Streaming Stick 4K with the latest PMS version for windows at time of reply.
Mentioned in first post: Roku New Experience Release Update
Another poorly implemented waste of space which forces yet more button presses before being able to play media. Wonderfully redundant. Even if it didn’t frequently cause softlocking of the app, as mentioned by many users.
I just don’t know why they didn’t use the new sidecar pop-out menu to do it. I know it’s less intuitive hitting “star” in the new interface which is a common Roku function but not common for Plex on Roku but coulda been used for this situation since they’re using it now. At Show level, highlight a season, hit the “star” button to get a pop-out for season level management like watched\unwatched or delete or refresh metadata. Show level could be done by doing the same at library level or just leave the overflow button for Show level since there’s less detail to manage there.
I’ve made all my other arguments against it ad naseum of course but hopefully providing alternatives us users would prefer might get them thinking about it more? Supposedly this will be coming to Apple and Android too if this is the “new way”… Roku is just the start.
UPDATE: I’ve found one use for the new Season thumbnail at the beginning of every TV show season. When you select that thumbnail, you can quickly toggle between Watched and Unwatched. In the past, if you wanted to change an entire series you had to do it one season at a time. I’m not sure that’s worth the extra icon, but at least it is a single advantage over the previous versions of the app.
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I’ve been a Lifetime Plex Pass holder for years… trust me, it’s there (only on Roku). Example. The show High Potential it has one full season (Season 1/13 episodes). Season 2 just started and there’s only been a single episode. On the Series screen you see the two seasons and the correct number of episodes are listed. You click the first season to and open it, and there are FOURTEEN thumbnails. The first is labeled Season 1 in the top right corner. The rest are named E1 through E13. If you open Season 2 there are TWO thumbnails. Season and E1. There’s absolutely NO logical reason that there should be an extra thumbnail in the same season it’s located in (from a user’s point of view). Dealing only with season 1, all 13 episodes had been watched, and when I clicked the Season thumbnail it started playing E1. I thought MAYBE it was a shortcut to the first unwatched episode for the season, so I marked E4 as unwatched, clicked on the Season thumbnail and it still played the E1 episode. It serves absolutely no purpose to the user other than confusing the hell out of them and screwing up what was once a very simple/clear format.
I hope that the leadership at Plex have not lost touch with their core users… and trust me when I tell you, it’s not people watching your content. It’s people watching their own content and hosting their own server. I can’t speak for all of them, but this isn’t a feature that I want on my server.
On a side note, I get that Plex wanted to update their user interface to look and feel more modern, like Apple TV or HBO Max, but it should’ve come with clear instructions on how to direct it back to the personal library. I figured it out, but it frustrating along the way—and there’s no figuring out this extra Season thumbnail on every TV season… it’s there and there’s no way to get rid of it.
