oh, i get it now, that makes more sense
so the issue is the requirement for thetvdb, and uploaders, to be able to differentiate between series of the same name. so they add the year onto the name of all the non first series, to do that, even though technically thats not part of its name, and sonarr has to follow that convention or end up downloading the wrong series.
so we need a way to cover both series name variants, not screw up the user in the process, and not be overly complex for the devs to code and maintain.
you could store the actual series name (minus any year), store the year separately (you may already do this), add a boolean value to let you know if the year was stripped and should be included when searching (if you strip it from the name then it would be set to true)
you then add a checkbox option in media management for ‘remove year from series names’ (disabled by default). that wau you can use the existing tokens without any other UI changes, just some small backend changes, basically checking to see if the year needs to be added back onto the title wherever its used
its a lot of what look like small code changes (although may not be) that let you simplify the title tags and allows for selecting a display option for the series title (no year / title + year if its there / force add year) as well (if you wanted to).
you could also just do the above and instead of the checkbox create those without tag variants and with the title already broken down into its components (actual title, year, year stripped flag) you should be able to build it back up into any format you can think of without too much bother.
i dont know if its actually viable but its an alternative to adding new tags (if you didnt want to do that), and as all the title parts are broken down you can build them back up into any format you, or the users, require, and not be stuck with a single format you have to build around.
