I had an idea recently while watching Chicago Fire. Now, a new trend these days, especially with the DC series and the venerable Richard Wolf (I know what he goes by, but the forum blocks his name) is for an in-universe crossover with another series in the same universe. What I would propose as a feature request is a couple of new metadata entries, “Crossover Before” and “Crossover After”. In those entries we would be able to select another episode in our Plex database that would be linked as a crossover episode. If possible, Plex would be able to see that metadata and automatically move from Series 1, to the next episode in the crossover in Series 2, to the next episode in the Series 3, and back to the original series to continue on with the next episode in the season.
If that is as clear as mud, lemme give an example. Say I am watching Chicago Fire. I’m going along in Season 3, letting Plex do its thing, when the credits roll I either click the Next button or allow the episode to end completely with Plex popping up a small synopsis of the next episode playing in 10 seconds (Love that feature by the way). After I watch s03e21, instead of Plex on-decking s03e22 of Chicago Fire, it will instead on-deck Chicago PD s02e20, the next episode in the crossover. This is because I set the “Crossover After” metadata on Chicago Fire s03e21 to link to Chicago PD s02e20. Then, Plex will on-deck Law & Order SVU s16e20 because I set the metadata on Chicago PD s02e20. After playing Law & Order SVU s16e20, it will automatically on-deck Chicago Fire s03e22, allowing me to finish the season of the series I was watching.
If the metadata for “Crossover” isn’t set, no harm no foul, just move to the next episode as-is. The only hitch I forsee is what could happen if I was watching Chicago PD s02e19. This is why I proposed both “Crossover before” and “Crossover after”. Plex would finish e19, read e20’s data, see the “crossover before” entry, and instead of on-decking Chicago PD s02e20, it would instead on-deck Chicago Fire s03e21, mebbe with a little pop-up message about it being a crossover, then follow the progression above, then move on to Chicago PD s02e21 after the crossover.
A simple option to “ignore crossover metadata” would prevent this behavior from executing. Also, an indicator and an entry in the episode synopsis page about the crossover would be nice.
Now, none of the metadata websites I know of have any indicator for crossovers, so this metadata would have to be set manually by the users. But I know I would have no problem doing that for easier viewing of multi-series crossovers.
Just my 2 cents, keep up the great work with Plex!!!
