The response you’re referring to was an answer to a user who asked for dvd order… which is indeed available on TVDB and can be used from within Plex. That’s not disputing the suggestion or this thread.
That being said (and I believe this has been raised by others in this thread before as well)… the different alternative orders getting more flexible and changing names is certainly adding more complexity to supporting them for Plex.
There’s certainly a few shows for which I’d like to have that additional flexibility too
yeah, I can understand why this would be a particularly difficult feature to add. One thought I had was an “Other TVDB Order” option with a URL bar for users to manually copy/paste the URL to that order. I know it’s easier said than done, but I was thinking of how they could even go about it, and that was the best I could think of.
Pretty frustrating that this isn’t implemented in Plex - it seems like it’d be a 1-line change to add support for TVDB’s new sortings, and then that would fix my Season 11 (2023) Futurama episodes:
Bumping for all the reasons mentioned: it’s a Brave New World with Brave New (and Old ) Orders; the v4 TVDB API should make this implement-able with minimal difficulty; Futurama; Most shows before ~1980; ANIMANIACS; Firefly, et al
Navigating to TVDB’s Futurama page. It clearly lists how a particular order can be “Usable in API-connected systems” - is that not what Plex is?
(It seems as if the quoted words should be the {season-type} that @jimi4121 mentions in their post above explaining what should be a “simple change in Plex server code”)
Would be nice if an Officially Licensed Agent (of Plex) could comment here to give a quick “maybe” or “never happening”, but alas!
Let’s keep fighting that good fight and bumping this topic every 89 days, I guess!
PS: I love the idea of script/workarounds posted by @LostOnTheLine (wayyy up here); would consider using the .plexmatch solution if it was actually available.
Please Plex team… implement this feature. I have problems with shows like DuckTales (2017). DusckTales has different order in Disney+. On this case, there are splitted episodes that weren’t splitted on Disney Channel.
Disney+ order is the Alternate Order:
Please implement this! For some shows this is extremely frustrating. I am currently not able to properly sort Money Heist because of the Netflix recut, as other people have already pointed out in this thread
TMDB Episode Groups would be amazing, if usable within Plex. I want my “custom” anime shows’ seasons based on the disc releases instead of 200+ episode single season shows. While I can do that all manually, I’ll be locked out on so many features exclusive to the (once) new “Plex TV Series” scanner/“Plex Series” agent – cast & crew (apart from director/writer), Discover (Together) watch status/activity, as well as access to both studios and networks – to name a few. Most of all, it would enable support for local TV show extras without the need for a “Specials” season.
Darn new services creating their own unique ordering! Why can’t it just be simple??? I get it - this is something that I have dealt with myself as the rip of Berenstain Bears from dvd does not match the episode ordering and descriptions which drives my niece totally crazy. While I have a bit of insight into what we have available from a metadata perspective, I do not know how complex it would be to expose possible alternate ordering and then get the scanner to use those alternate orderings. If implemented, we would also be limited to what is available in existing metadata, which probably would help shows like Money Heist, but my guess is might be more challenging for some anime and some less popular series.
So what is next? I will add this to our internal review list to take a look at what might be possible and achievable, then we would have to slot it into the roadmap somewhere. I wouldn’t hold my breath on seeing this anytime soon, but this thread will definitely stay open for additional feedback and comment. We also have some other features on the roadmap for next year that won’t solve this directly, but may provide some workarounds that some of you may be able to use to solve this problem for your own use case. Stay tuned!
Please add this… I have come across so many cartoons that have an intro, 2 or more segments, and then credits. In my eyes, this is a single episode. All the databases show each segment as an individual episode, and it shouldn’t. I have so many of these shows on my hard drive and I have no motivation whatsoever to manually split these files and rename them etc. I shouldn’t have to anyway, because that’s not how the episodes were aired. And even if you went to all the effort to do this, one file would have an intro and the next one would have credits which makes no sense. This feature is a must have.
For anyone who wants to have the Futurama movies in the series section so it’s all in one place and in order (TVDB alternate order), I suggest adding the movies to the end of season 4 instead of carving out a whole new season for them and having to shift/rename seasons 5-8 up by 1.
) Orders; the v4 TVDB API should make this 
