Show mid-season specials inline

Feature Suggestions
61

Air date is not necessarily where they belong. Sometimes a special will come out on a DVD that fits in the middle of a season, things like that.

62

@AndrewD2 said:
Air date is not necessarily where they belong. Sometimes a special will come out on a DVD that fits in the middle of a season, things like that.

Just manually set the airdate to where you think it should be then what @jmckee mentioned will still work

63

Does not seem to work with Elfen Lied. Either the special episode isn’t listed in the playlist, or its placed as the first episode. Although it is listed as “Specials” in the overview.

Name of the special episode: elfen_lied_s00e01_Regenschauer.mkv
How it should be: ă‚šăƒ«ăƒ•ă‚§ăƒłăƒȘăƒŒăƒˆ - TheTVDB.com

Did I name it falsely?

Edit:
As you can see here: ă‚šăƒ«ăƒ•ă‚§ăƒłăƒȘăƒŒăƒˆ - 通り雚にお æˆ–ă„ăŻă€ć°‘ć„łăŻă„ă‹ă«ă—ăŠăăźćżƒæƒ…ă«è‡łăŁăŸă‹ïŒŸ - TheTVDB.com
there is a valid “Airs Before” value set


Edit2:
~~ Episode information are not fetched (wrong episode image, no episode name
)~~ seems to be fixed after I clicked once more on “update library”

64

I would really like to see Plex revisit the entire Extras system they have going

Not all TV extras show up on TVDB, Not all can be added due to locked series’
Movies should not require a naming convention limited to certain types of content


ALL Extras should be displayed as Extras if they are located in the Extras folder of the content item they are related to


65

by air date is great if you’re watching current stuff, but sucks if you’re rewatching a season from 5 years ago and want to ONLY see that seasons extras (or specials).

anything under specials should get special treatment and be joined to the parent folder’s meta data as a child of that.

aka:


/dr who/specials/ - attaches to the show meta

/dr who/Season 02/ - attaches to the episode meta

this should be a matter of adding the specials folder to the metadata above. I’d go as far as to say add a folder called specials at the top of the listing, however, I think stage one we could use the existing extras controls used for movies.

having a folder called specials would be the ultimate solution for me as then you can browse them and metadata (if found) the same way you browse seasons and episodes. Of course, I have no idea of the architecture and forethought or lack of in the metadata files.

I would have thought this was a far higher priority 5+ years on than DTV and other features
 especially now that the internet provides slews of webisodes, interviews and alike.

66

Did you ever finds a solution for this? I’m trying to sort the Thundercats Ho issue now and it’s annoying me!

67

The On Deck function does not work consistently - at least not for Doctor Who. It will start to play in order of air date, but then eventually just gives up and switches to the specials only or season only.

68

I would really love to see this feature. As mentioned, watching Doctor Who in order is a PAIN! in the 2005 reboot alone, there are 155 episodes in specials, that need to play at certain points during the seasons for continuity. It is one of my biggest frustrations with Plex and is one of the only reasons I have considered switching from it. If it can’t figure it out automatically based on air date, then at least give me an option to set it manually myself. I also don’t want to have to use the On Deck feature just to get this. If I click on Play Show, or Play Season, I want it to know that there are 13 specials that need to be integrated into that season.

For example, Season 2 of the 2005 reboot of Doctor Who had small, mini-episodes called “Tardisodes” that should play as an intro to each episode. Season 6 again had mini-episodes called “Prequels” that needed to be played before each episode. That doesn’t even include the Christmas Specials that are meant to be played between seasons.

Please, please provide us with a better way to ensure that episodes play in the correct order and factor in specials!!!

1 Like
69

There’s this problem about specials not being automatically injected when using autoplay. On Deck the specials appear in the right order but when autoplay is used, they are not being played at all.

There’s a lot of shows that have specials between seasons or even in-season. One of the most famous is probably Dr. Who. The X-mas and NYE specials between the seasons and a ton of other things in between. But Dr. Who isn’t the only one one.

For me it’s not clear why the specials appear On Deck but not during autoplay. Maybe it’s for some things not wanted to autoplay the specials. For that a I think a simple solution could be made:

According to the naming guide https://support.plex.tv/articles/naming-and-organizing-your-tv-show-files/#toc-3 :

“Shows sometimes air “specials” or other content that isn’t part of the standard season. “Specials” episodes are always part of season zero (i.e. season number “00”) and should be placed inside a folder named either Season 00 or Specials.”

So instead of having a Specials folder or a Season 00 folder both could be added with slight different behaviour:

Anything in the Season 00 folder will also autoplay (if first air date is available) while everything in the Specials folder will not be autoplayed.

That way users can easily determine which “out-of-season” content they want to play automatically and which one they don’t.

70

This needs to be fixed.

1 Like
71

I think it needs to be more complicated than that.

“On Deck” issues

I don’t like the On Deck part randomly playing episodes in whatever order it wants. Not every show has that, and I can never be sure what’s going to play next.

Also, I often go to the Shows library, click on the show and season, and click the next episode I haven’t watched.

If I wanted to use On Deck when I’m not marathoning, I’d have to click on the previous episode I watched, then scroll to the end, then hit “Play”.

Ideal fix

The best way to fix this is to have a native way of showing episodes that aren’t in numerical order. That way, you can see what’s supposed to play next.

Does it matter that a special episode appears in Season 1? It shouldn’t unless you mess with episode numbering. Plex’s numerical restriction on episodes is the cause of our grief. If we fixed that restriction, we could fix episode ordering. It’s a pain in the butt to change on their end though, I’m sure.

1 Like