Why is Star Trek: Voyager locked and out of sync with TMDB?

Trakt Questions & Help
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Star Trek: Voyager - Trakt shows as “Locked”, so there’s no button to refresh the data from TMDB.

Also, the data in Trakt doesn’t match what’s currently in TMDB. The number of episodes that show on Trakt match what’s on TVDB, but not what’s on TMDB.

For example, in season 1, there were 15 episodes aired. The first was a two-hour special, but it was a single episode: that’s how it was originally aired (I remember it well. It was an exciting moment in my young life). TVDB and Trakt splits that first episode in two, despite airing as a single episode. TMDB follows how it was aired, and lists it as one episode.

This certainly makes it difficult to scrobble this series with apps that use TMDB data, since the episodes won’t match up to Trakt.

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I have never seen a show “Locked”. I am curious why this is a thing…how the admin will explain this.

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TMDB changed the listing of this show after a long time. In order to avoid messing the data we already had, we locked the page to match their original listing while we decide how we are going to handle those episodes they removed (they have a lot of data).
We might merge them or find a different solution. But for now, we still haven’t decided so the page is locked.

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Can I please vote for Trakt matching TMDB?

When it doesn’t, it really screws up apps that are expecting the two to be the same. There’s no easy way to tell Plex/Jellyfin which episode in TMDB is supposed to correspond to which episode in Trakt.

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There’s only a few changes that need to be made to get it in sync with TMDB.

  1. Remove S01E02
  2. Renumber S01E03 - E16 down one
  3. Remove S05E16
  4. Renumber S05E17 - E26 down one
  5. Remove S07E26

That’s 25 episodes total.

And if you’re worried about watches, and don’t simply want those episode deletes to cascade to watches, you could replace watches for the deleted episodes with an extra watch of the episode before them.

Personally, though, I’d just let the watches be deleted, since it’s unlikely people have watched half of one episode, marked it watched, and then the other half sometime later and mark it separately.

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I very much would like this fixed as well, please!

When I mark something as watched in Trakt, it automatically gets pulled into Plex. My Plex server follows TMDB. So tracking when I watch episodes of Star Trek: Voyager in Trakt increments a play of the wrong episode in Plex. It’s quite frustrating. I’ve had to keep a separate log for Star Trek: Voyager so that I can later go back into Trakt when it’s fixed (to match TMDB) and log it there, too.

Thank you for your consideration!

ATTN @Sonply

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Please forgive my persistence, but any update on this, @Sonply?

My Google Sheets log is starting to get long. Haha.

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Also in favor of matching TMDB.

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Paramount+, which is arguably an authoritative source on this, lists Caretaker as a two-parter (1x01 and 1x02), for 16 episodes in season 1 overall.

Wikipedia lists Caretaker with two episodes, with a note

Originally shown as a two-hour pilot movie on the UPN network, but in syndication is shown as two separate episodes.

Here’s the curious thing, though: Caretaker’s Production Code is listed as “101 and 102”, with 103 for Parallax and 116 for Learning Curve.
So terms of production, it was clearly treated like a two-parter.

Wikipedia has one page for Caretaker, but in the season 1 episode footer lists part 1 and part 2 - both leading to the same page.

The DVD sets seem to have 15 episodes, with Caretaker as one episode.
IMDB also has 15 episodes, Caretaker as one.

Memory Alpha describes the production process in detail and it’s clear Caretaker was filmed as one pilot.

So basically, both approaches are correct in some way: It’s one episode in the prime run and on DVD and by the way it was produced, it’s two episodes in syndication and on Paramount+, and it occupies two production codes.

So it’s really a classic matter of idealism vs. realism, prescriptivism vs. descriptivism: Do you want Trakt to match the ideal of the season, as it was broadcast 30 years ago, or do you want it to match the reality of the season, the way it is broadcast now?

Considering that the point of Trakt is to track what you watch, sticking with Caretaker as two episodes is the functionally better choice, because it allows those watching Voyager from primary sources today to track it as they watch it.

In addition, the “watch now” button isn’t really going to work if the organization of the season doesn’t match the way it’s actually organized in the world.
If you link people to watch 1x02 Parallax, but they end up at 1x02 Caretaker, Pt.2, that’s not helpful to them.

Moreso, Caretaker as two parts is the way it already is, so if that were a terrible solution, it would already have shown.

Going the other way would require a lot of shifting, dropping of data, etc., only to bring Trakt in line with a way of showing the episode that hasn’t happened for decades.

I understand the desire to reach the ideal and to achieve synchronicity with other services, but changing the way VOY is organized purely for synchronization’s sake comes with lots of drawbacks when it comes to the primary function of Trakt: The actual tracking.

I don’t think it’s worth it.
Especially since the production codes show that the whole “they are 15 episodes” position isn’t as clear-cut as one would think.

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@CarlMacLawrence: I really appreciate your thoughtful comment!

At root, I actually don’t care too much whether the two-parters are collapsed into a single episode or not. But I do care that Trakt matches TMDB, if they’re saying they’re going to use TMDB as the authoritative source. For those of us who use services like Plex to organize our media (which, by the way, we ripped from our DVDs, rather than watch “in syndication and on Paramount+”), we use TMDB for episode numbering and ordering.

Trakt made the decision to align with TMDB, so having one-offs creates difficulties for a non-trivial number of people.

And TMDB is notoriously inflexible when it comes to their “rules”, and they are going to follow the “prime run”, even when there’s a good argument (such as the one you offered) for splitting it into two episodes. Trying to get TMDB to fix episode numbering/ordering is like beating your head against a wall.

Al in all, I think it makes more sense to have Trakt match TMDB, however distasteful that might be in some respects, because it means wrestling with fewer one-off discrepancies between the platforms.

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Interestingly, there seems to be some contention about the ordering on TMDB as well.

Commenters point out that Paramount labels Parallax as episode 3 even when considering Caretaker as a whole broadcast.
i.e. just like the Production Numbers went 101 and 102 for Caretaker, then 103 for Parallax, multiple official sources seem to designate Parallax as episode 3, regardless of whether Caretaker was shown as one or two parts.

They point out that this is how it’s done on old VHS tapes, for example.

So maybe that’s the best solution?
Have 1x01 and 1x02 both refer to the same dataset and let Parallax remain 1x03, in line with official numbering and original production codes?

I get what you’re saying, but I’m afraid you’re going to have to go Kenobi on this: Who’s more foolish? The one screwing up the episode numbers, or the one knowingly copying the screwed up episode numbers out of convenience?

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@CarlMacLawrence: Hah, yeah, “some contention” always seems to follow the superboy97 moderator, who seems to be especially thick-headed. I offered my viewpoints once and then learned that I wasn’t going to get anywhere.

The problem is that we’re never going to get TMBD to do anything different, whether or not it’s right. And while I completely agree with this sentiment…

consistencydemotivator.jpeg
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(I even once had this posted up on my wall.)

The trouble is that there’s no way to get Plex to follow Trakt, and so I’m in a pickle where a technological limitation makes it impossible to do the “right” thing, and the “wrong” thing isn’t all that wrong (hey–it’s consistent with DVDs), and it would avoid the costs of Trakt maintaining one-off deviations from the source of truth they claim to follow.

So yeah, I dunno. I’m not going to die on this hill, but I hate that when I watch these episodes, it marks the wrong thing as watched in Plex because Plex follows TMDB.

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No decisions at the moment, but I’ll ask the team about this.

These cases are complicated because the data was changed after a long time. The problem is that sometimes TMDB ends up changing things back(they even changed a rule recently), and if we merge the episodes on our end, we can’t revert that.

Right now, since you are using Plex, I recommend you to go to the media and change the datasource of it. Plex allows you to choose a different one, even if it’s just for one show.

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Reminds me of a South Park episode! :rofl:

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Well, there’s also those of us who have it in Plex/Jellyfin/etc.

Personally, I watch Caretaker as a single episode, because it’s a single file on my hard drive, and because I prefer to watch it that way. Splitting it into two episodes requires me manually mark it as watched when I watch it, because the scrobbling won’t work right.

It kind of seems that no solution works for everybody.

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That is in the nature of the problem. We can only try to find the least disruptive solution.

I absolutely get that.

But it’s the same way both other ways around.
If somebody’s watching the season based on a source that followed the VHS-/production numbering, E2 should be skipped, but it won’t be.
If somebody’s watching the season based on syndication, and Trakt follows TMDB’s numbering, then Parallax will be marked as watched when they’ve barely finished watching Caretaker.

And since Caretaker-as-two is the system used by the official streaming source from the rights holders right now, we shouldn’t pretend that nobody’s going to watch it that way.

Nor should we ignore that dropping Caretaker, Part II might break the viewing experience for people who use Trakt’s “watch now” links. I don’t have the respective subscriptions, so I can’t see how Apple TV and Pluto show Caretaker.
But if they have it as two parts and part 2 is dropped from Trakt, people won’t find the link to part 2 through Trakt.
And depending on how the screwup manifests, Parallax might then link to Caretaker, Part 2, since it considers itself episode 2.

Like you said: No way will fit for everyone. It’s impossible.
But I would argue that today’s current broadcasting sources should have a higher priority than 20 year old DVDs…especially since those sources are linked on the episodes.

There is no solution that works for everybody. It’s just a matter of minimizing damage.

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Are people scrobbling from Paramount+? Aren’t most people watching from a streaming source manually marking as watched? If they’re manually marking as watched, then the numbering being off isn’t a big issue for them, as long they’re looking at the episode titles.

Of course, the “Watch Now” button is still broken, but that’s also a pretty minor issue, since it just takes them to the wrong episode in the browser, and they can just switch to the episode they want.

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Since those changes were made a long time ago on TMDB, we decided to follow them and match this show with their data.
Episodes 1x01 and 1x02 have been merged. After that, I moved all the episodes to match the listing on TMDB.
Episodes 5x15 and 5x16 have been merged and the following episodes were moved to match TMDB.
Episodes 7x25 and 7x26 have also been merged.
After I did those changes, I unlocked the page and refreshed.
I’m sorry for the delay, but now the show should fully match TMDB.

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@Sonply: I really, really appreciate your making the change! Having TMDB, Trakt, and Plex in sync with no one-offs makes things so much easier for me. Thank you!

I regret that this isn’t perfect and that we’re maybe being consistent with a bad decision made by TMDB, but for my own personal use case, this is the least bad solution.

As for absurdity in TMDB, I came across this recently, when I went to check in an episode of Pantheon in Trakt, and I had to search for it manually because it suddenly stopped coming up in my “Up Next” and then was told that I was checking into an episode in the future:

image
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superboy97 strikes again, with his rationalistic application of rigid rules that don’t serve practical needs.

So basically, because the US release of season 2 was on a different network than the original network, and the different network released it sooner in the US than the original network did, all the episodes in season 2 now show air dates that do not reflect reality.

It’s just absurd.

But even here, it’s probably better overall to be consistent with TMDB, just as I argued with them that they ought to be consistent with their data sources (by making adjustments to their precious rules).

@CarlMacLawrence: I thought you might appreciate the above…or perhaps it would also make your head spin.

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Well, that season 2 used to be listed in the specials(I recently merged them), because it didn’t air in the original country, so at least now it is a season, and hopefully there won’t be any more issues with it when it finishes airing in the original country.