Doctor Who (2023) and tvdb

There are three Doctor Who series:
Doctor Who 1963-1986 listed in thetvdb as Doctor Who
Doctor Who 2005-2022 listed in thetvdb as Doctor Who (2005)
Doctor Who 2023

The new series already has some specials and season 1 starts in May. This is listed by the BBC as Doctor Who (2023). It is also listed on the BBC programme pages, within the BBC iPlayer and BBC Doctor Who Twitter page as Doctor Who (2023). Both imdb and tmdb are referring to it as Doctor Who (2023).

The tvdb however has this as Season 14 of the 2005 series.

I did raise a ticket with them about this and was told that the new episodes coming in May will not be 2023 season 1 but 2005 season 14. They said that the BBC was calling it a new season and a return. I have replied to them with more evidence but don’t hold out much hope.

Doing an internet search I found comments by other people saying that had had no luck with thetvdb. One person had created a record for Doctor Who (2023) but it was deleted.

I’m sure this will all cause lots of chaos come May and trying to cope with this situation in Plex will be a nightmare.

I have no idea what the TVDB’s rules are now, since they closed their user forums where the rules were listed, but it used to be that the original broadcaster was considered the ultimate authority when it came to season/episode numbers. In this case this could arguably be the BBC or Disney+, but both are listing it as a new series, i.e., starting from season 1. So the TVDB have either changed their rules, or they aren’t following them (which wouldn’t be anything new).

Based on past experience, I fully expect that they will wait until the most disruptive moment to change their data and then suddenly do so without giving a reason. Then they will probably change it back a few days later, then switch back and forth a few times, then end up locking the series so no new episodes get added at all until they can be bothered to get around to it, some time after broadcast.

The forums were closed to stop any discussion of anything.

I also believe that their policy is to do what they want and never do anything that would be sensible or useful for those people using their stuff.

When I originally raised Doctor Who (2023) with them and they replied the BBC was calling it a new season and a return; the linked web page they sent me to did say that but nowhere did it say “season 14” just basically back for a new season.

I guess for now; we wait.

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With the new series starting on Friday at midnight; I checked to see if thetvdb had responded to my request they reconsider their decision in the ticket I raised in March.

No response at all. The notes within the page for the 2005 series has various comments about the issue as well as complaints about comments being deleted.

The result is that they will do what they want and that’s it; let chaos reign.

Let’s not make up stories about what’s going through the minds of the team of TheTVDB and let’s leave some room for nuance.

Check out this reddit comment by TheTVDB on the matter.

Their reasonings are fair and their heart is in the right place as far as I can tell. Once the show actually comes out and it’s official on the EIDR record that Doctor Who (2023) is now an actual thing, I’m sure they’ll create a new show, but until Friday when the episode airs, things are still up in the air.

fyi, I created a reddit post on /r/TheTVDB to ask them to update their records for Doctor Who. We’ll see what they see, if they say anything: https://www.reddit.com/r/TheTVDB/comments/1cpmju8/should_season_14_of_doctor_who_2005_be_season_1/

Well it’s now here. It got processed as a new season of Docror Who (2005).

I faced this problem when the first specials came out and i was using my own cobbled together code to sort things out. In order to get Plex work I renamed the folder and episodes with “ Doctor Who (2023) {tmdb-239770}” Back then tmdb had the new series and imdb didn’t. I see now that it’s now in both.

Doing a search for Doctor Who in Sonarrs add new doesn’t find it.

Now that the first two episodes have appeared, i had to rename and move the. Episodes manually.

At the least i’d like to have a way to do the renaming and move in a callback from Sonarr

It’s Doctor Who (2024) NOT (2023). Bad enough the torrent scene fucked up and followed the TVDB in naming instead of the BBC aka the producers, TMDB, AND IMDB in naming.

It is now there https://www.thetvdb.com/series/doctor-who-2023

They have deleted Season 14 of the 2005 series.

The three David Tennant specials and 2023 Christmas special are in both series.

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GEE miricles do happen. Thanks just fixed my Sonarr.

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