I’ve been using Plex for around a decade. I have used the Plex desktop client for Windows and Mac. The Plex HTPC client for Windows and Mac and the Xbox client. None of them play specials inline with episodes. So I get to the end of season 1 and the continue playing starts playing episode 1 of sea…

AFAIK Plex has always been like this - it’s not client specific, specials go into the Specials Season (0) at the beginning. You have to know before hand and manually go to the correct special if you want to watch them in order. I don’t see any real easy fix for this since Plex is just ordering cont…

I suppose this is about a slightly different aspect. If you watch an episode, Plex will add the next-aired episode to the Continue Watching hub. If there’s a special airing between two seasons, that special should be listed in Continue Watching once you finished the previous season (similarly for m…

My experience with air-date specials queue up next automatically is that it’s hit or miss depending on how you’re playing the next episode. Either hitting the “go to next” button during playback, using the “Up Next” screen after an episode ends, or going back to the Home Screen and using the Continu…

TVDB has some fields to choose where to place specials in-line with regular episodes (Airs After/Before Season & Airs Before Episode). Jellyfin uses it , and it seems pretty simple. There’s also a field ‘Critical for Show’s Storyline.’ That could be useful so that non-critical specials aren’t includ…

I think something that would help with this situation would be Plex finishing the build for the TMDB Episode Group feature . Jellyfin handles flipping TMDB Episode Groups really well and I’ve found it’s more seamless than flipping between TVDB\TMDB order. Emby is working to support it as well (it’s “ m…

It’s been my experience that specials always play in-line with normal episodes. As long as your show is marked as “UNWATCHED”, when you select “play” on the show (not S01E01). If you then rely on resuming your show watch via the “Continue Watching” menu, it always seems to queue up specials for me…

It a new show I’m watching. It has never been watched in Plex at all so that’s not a factor in this case. Plex has never played a special when the special air date falls between two normal episodes in any clients I’ve ever used.

Works for me with the new experience apps. I just completed re-watching s01 of the show I’ve mentioned above and instead of listing s02e01, Up Next is listing the special aired before s02. s00e05 → s01e01 → … → s01e13 → s00e06 → s02e01

I just did similar with Roku New Experience and the Up Next never offered the specials that were in air-date order. I finished the season and it then offered the next air-date episode in Up Next and Continue Watching but skipped the 4 unwatched specials that shoulda been offered up earlier. I had to…

[image] Insomnic_1: … they were specials included on the DVDs that added “extra scenes” for those episodes. Off topic: have you considered adding those as extras for the corresponding episodes (deleted scenes)?

Which clients play specials inline with episodes?

General Discussions

Insomnic_1 February 13, 2026, 7:42pm 15

It’d help if it was consistent too. Particularly since that was one of the stated goals.
iOS device New Experience puts TV Specials last instead of first in season display. And on Roku New Experience, they have a show\season card mixed into the episode row.

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Which clients play specials inline with episodes?

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