Currently, when getting a series’ Up Next episode (be it on the series own page, or on the progress pages etc.), and the series has no watched episodes (or progress has been reset), the “first” episode is the first episode in numbering order, meaning either the “first” special, or the first episode of the first season, if there is no “Specials” season. Especially when there is a “Specials” season though, this Up Next episode is often (although not always) not the first episode that should be watched.
As such, it would be awesome if, either by user option or site-wide, the Up Next episode of unwatched series could be set to the first episode in Release Date Order.
For some reason I had thought that once an episode has been watched, “Up Next” is the next aired episode, but now I realized that is not the case. As such, my feature requests really is for an option that changes “Up Next” to the next episode aired after the last one watched, logically the first aired if no episode is watched.
From what I can tell, it is already the way you are describing, at least for shows that you have marked at least one episode as watched. See the pic of my Dashboard below - the “Up Next” section is displaying the next episode after the last one I watched (for example, The Boys, I last watched S1 finale, so S2E1 is “Up Next”), and below that in the “Upcoming Schedule,” it shows the currently next airing episode of The Boys, which is S2E4. (The Progress page displays the same way as the “Up Next” section, when sorted by “Recently Aired.”)
With shows that you haven’t watched any episodes at all, but have added to your Watchlist, they will only show up (as far as I can tell) in the “Upcoming Schedule” section and the Calendar page, since these areas display currently airing episodes. But that is only if they are currently airing - otherwise they won’t show up in these places, only on your Watchlist. For shows to appear in your “Up Next” section and Progress page, you have to have at least one episode marked as watched. (Again, as far as I can tell 
)
So to summarize:
Calendar page & “Upcoming Schedule” section of dashboard: shows that are currently airing that you’ve either Watchlisted and/or marked at least one episode as watched. (And by “currently airing” I mean shows that are actively airing episodes, not an ongoing show that is between seasons.) If they’re not currently airing, they don’t show up here. Displays the next currently airing episode, regardless of what episode you have/haven’t watched prior.
Progress page: shows that you’ve marked at least one episode as watched, regardless of whether you’ve Watchlisted it or not, or whether it is currently airing, between seasons, cancelled, ended, etc. All shows that you have any watch history with. Lots of versatility in sort options to easily see at a glance all the shows you have any watch history with, including the “Recently Aired” view which will sort by shows that are currently airing, but will display the next episode to watch as the one after whichever one you previously watched.
“Up Next” section of dashboard: shows that you have any watch history with, AND are currently airing. Same view as the “Recently Aired” sort view on the Progress page, just immediately visible on your Dashboard. Only shows the 6 most recently aired shows, so for more/older shows, you’d need to view the full “Recently Aired” sort on the Progress page. (Which is where the “See More” link in the top right of this section takes you.)
So for shows that you’ve Watchlisted, but haven’t started watching yet, they will only show up (if they’re currently airing) on your Calendar page and the “Upcoming Schedule” section of your dashboard. If they’re not currently airing, then they’ll only show up on your Watchlist (and any other lists you may have added them to.)
To see these shows on the Progress page, you could try marking just the first episode as watched, that way it will show up there, though it will show the 2nd episode as the next one to watch. And when you watch the 1st episode for real, you could un-mark it and then re-mark it as watched, so you’re not unnecessarily duplicating your watch history. Not a perfect workaround, but something that would at least get those shows “on the board” for you for now. And if the show is currently airing and is in the top 6 of the most recently aired shows that you have a watch history with, then it will show up in your “Up Next” section as well.
Maybe the feature you’re really trying to request is for shows that are Watchlisted, but you haven’t marked any episodes as watched yet, to have them show up in the Progress page? (And therefore in the “Up Next” section of the Dashboard, if they’re currently airing and among the top 6 most recently aired.)
I don’t know that I would necessarily be for this idea, as that could really clutter up the Progress page, but I’m just trying to articulate what it sounds like you’re wanting to see.
This is actually a feature already, just change this setting to “Last Episode Aired”…
https://trakt.tv/settings#progress
Here is some documentation of this feature…
Hope this helps! 
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Good catch, @arcreactor! I obviously have my settings this way (from my post above), but it’s been so long I completely forgot this was an option that we set. 
So, that should solve it for you, @MxFlix, for any shows with at least one episode marked as watched. But you were also talking about shows with no watched history, which I think is your primary concern?
If that’s so, then I repeat the bottom part of my earlier post:
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…and, in digging around in settings just to see what else I may have missed/forgotten, I noticed this in the options under “Watched Progress”:
It’s also visible in the screenschot from @arcreactor, I just didn’t notice it then 
So now, @MxFlix, it looks like you just need to change those two features in your settings under the “Watched Progress” section:
- what arcreactor pointed out, for “Calculate Up Next Using,” select “Last Episode Watched”
- make sure to check the box for “Include Watchlisted”
Then all of your shows on your Progress page will start with the next episode to be watched, including the shows for which you haven’t seen any episodes yet. 
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@belovedjg I’m sorry, but what you described has nothing to do with my initial posts. The shows already show up in all the desired places (the Dashboard and the Watched Progress page), as I have all the “Include x” settings in the “Watched Progress” settings activated. The issue is only with the specific episode that is shown as the next one to watch.
@arcreactor Ah, yes, I did find that setting, and thought it would do what I wanted, but sadly, it doesn’t.
Luckily, my current watch state allows me to showcase three real-life examples. I assure you that during all these, “Calculate Up Next Using” was set to “Last episode aired”:
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I have watched no episodes of Battlestar Galactica. As such, the next episode to watch is shown as Special 1 (i.e. the very first episode in numerical order):
However, this should actually show Special 8, as that was aired earlier:
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I have watched all “regular” episodes of Kino’s Journey, so now, trakt shows the first special as the next episode to watch:
However, by airing order, Special 2 should be Up Next, as it aired first:
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Lastly the probably most common case, a special that aired in between “regular” episodes. For Detective Conan, my last watched episode was #356, so it shows #357 as the Next Up.
However, between those episodes, the eighth movie, special 12, aired, and should as such be shown as Up Next in airing order:
I hope these examples showcase properly what I mean 
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Strange… it only does this with special episodes? I have never seen this before.
I don’t know exactly if it only does this with specials, but I don’t know of a show to test it with where it wouldn’t be specials, as usually, aired order and numerical order for “regular” episodes are the same.
That said, if there is a show that has a special with an air date, but the first “regular” episode aired before that, it will still show the first special as the very first episode to watch.
Ah, yes… Specials. I discovered similar air date/special # ordering conflicts when I started watching Dr. Who.
You’ll see that for Dr. Who: Confidential, the Specials 5-7 are not in air date order. Special 7, Designs on Dr. Who, used to have an air date of December 2007, but it was actually 2006, and therefore should come after Special 5 and be renumbered itself to Special 6. I successfully got the air date corrected on TVDB, and it updated in Trakt to the correct air date, but the Special # and the order remains unchanged.
To my understanding, specials get numbered as they get created, and once they are numbered, it would cause quite a mess to renumber them - because of other services that get their info from TVDB, and would need to change all their file names… or something like this. I don’t know all the technical details! 
@justin is there a reason the Specials are ordered by Special # rather than the air date? If so, is my understanding correct that the Specials cannot be renumbered?
@belovedjg You can sort episodes by Air Date on the “All Episodes” page, for example for Doctor Who here: https://trakt.tv/shows/doctor-who-2005/seasons/all
I realize that my examples of Battlestar and Kino might be badly chosen in that regard, but the messed up correlation between numbering and air date are not technically the problem here.
Let’s say there’s a show with a special that aired in the middle of 2006 (0x1), one that aired 2007 (0x2), and a season that aired throughout 2006 (1x1-13). Let’s say the 2006 special aired between episodes 6 and 7. The specials are all neatly numbered in chronological order. Even then:
- If the series is not started, the “Up Next” episode would be the 2006 special, but it should be episode 1x1.
- After watching episode 6, “Up Next” would be episode 7, even though the 2006 special aired before episode 7.
- After watching the whole season, only then would the 2006 special be “Up Next”, even though now the next aired episode would be the 2007 special.
Or, to put it another way, the watch order one would get when strictly following the “Up Next” episode, except for deliberately watching the first episode first:
(0x1) 1x1, 1x2, 1x3, 1x4, 1x5, 1x6, 1x7, 1x8, 1x9, 1x10, 1x11, 1x12, 1x13, 0x1, 0x2
(The (0x1) is the “Up Next” when nothing has been watched, in this case the watcher ignores this and watches 1x1 instead)
When it should be
1x1, 1x2, 1x3, 1x4, 1x5, 1x6, 0x1, 1x7, 1x8, 1x9, 1x10, 1x11, 1x12, 1x13, 0x2
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Interesting issue. I have specials disabled from the progress page. Simply because TVDb often lists the most bizarre things and duplicated stuff that’s already in the movie section. I’ll just look them up manually and add them as watched if I deem it neccessairy.
I hope it gets sorted out though!
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Same 
and then sometimes TVDB conflicts with TMDB making matters even worse. 
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I have now found a show with which I can prove that it’s not just the specials that are causing this: https://trakt.tv/shows/goof-troop
Here, the episode numbering and the air dates don’t match up at all, with some “Season 2” episodes airing during “Season 1”. Nonetheless, “Up Next” insists on following the numbering order and nothing else.
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I thought it might be because “airs before episode” and/or “airs before season” are both not filled out for the specials.
But for example for Marvel Agents of Shield those specials don’t have it filled out on tvdb either, and they display properly in between episodes:
I doubt the “airs before episode” and “airs before season” fields matter here. The “All Episodes” list is simply sorted by Air Date (on a side note, why do those aforementioned fields even exist, as that can usually be seen via the air date anyway?).
In any case, as I mentioned above, this isn’t about specials, but simply air date order in general.
Got it! Amazing endurance, @MxFlix, going through all that to really clarify what is going on! Kudos 
In essence, I did understand what you were saying when I posted about the Doctor Who specials, but I thought it was a problem only relegated to specials, because I thought that they were the only types of episodes getting sorted by number rather than air date, due to the funky nature of specials in general.
But I do get that the problem is that Up Next is looking at the episode number rather than the air date, even for regular episodes. The example of Goof Troop was a great one illustrating this! Excellent find.
I also dug back through settings, now fully understanding the issue, to see if there was anywhere I’d overlooked where this was an option to change. I couldn’t find anything.
It almost seems like this is a needed fix rather than a feature request. @justin, is this something that could be ~easily (lol) changed in the backend, by having the system look at air date for sort order, rather than episode number? Are there any situations/reasons we’re unaware of why it is important for sort order to be based on episode number rather than air date?
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I can think of one… shows that where aired out of order. Like Firefly for instance…
Although from what I understand it is out of order on Trakt anyway.
EDIT: Added following 
Here is a reddit thread covering some more examples.
Warning Potential Spoilers!
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Yes, after I posted my question, I thought of these types of situations. Good find on the Reddit thread! 
Even with all those examples, I would say this type of situation is still far and away an exception rather than a common occurrence. Seems like it would be better to make the default sort order consistent with how most shows happen.
Or at the very least, as in the original suggestion, have the option to change the sort order. But it really seems like default sort method should be air date, since that is what is correct for most shows.
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Perhaps support for intended order(episode groups) should be added as well.
Firefly intended order TMDB:
Agreed!
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