@SindarS wrote:

Item: Season 8
Language: en-US
Type of Problem: Incorrect_content

Thanks for your report!

Extra Details: For some reason episode titles can't be corrected,

Moderators can lock certain data fields when they think the data is correct. Locked fields can't be corrected by you.

for episodes 1-5 of Season 8 they should be as follows (according to the official homepage of the show - https://www.hbo.com/last-week-tonight-with-john-oliver):

1. The Next Pandemic, 2. Meatpacking, 3. Raids, 4. Unemployment, 5. Tucker Carlson
   

Unfortunately, the website for the show on HBO is kind of a mess! That's why it's difficult to decide the correct official title - and I would prefer to use a compromise of the full episode number and the title of the main topic. I wrote about this in this thread:

https://www.themoviedb.org/talk/607bb6d07e3483002944ad33

It's not perfectly fine with our rules, and other moderators might object to it - but I like it. What do you think?

Well, I don't object to the suggestion per se, but there's also the question of uniformity - this is now a new type of title being introduced from Season 8, which can be a bit confusing. Also, adding "Episode ###" in every title makes the title longer which is not ideal when scraping this info and displaying it on screen in various media players - they are already organized by seasons, so adding this information becomes a little bit redundant.

There's also the official LWT YT channel (https://www.youtube.com/user/LastWeekTonight/videos) where videos have the episode titles and those are aligned with the ones I provided.

@SindarS wrote:

Well, I don't object to the suggestion per se, but there's also the question of uniformity - this is now a new type of title being introduced from Season 8, which can be a bit confusing.

When I find the time, and when no moderator objects, I'm going back to seasons 1 to 7 and change all the old episode titles to this different title format. After that, they will all have the same format.

Also, adding "Episode ###" in every title makes the title longer which is not ideal when scraping this info and displaying it on screen in various media players - they are already organized by seasons, so adding this information becomes a little bit redundant.

That might be true, but a) titles plus numbers are not that long, and b) adding this information is part of the compromise between "official" title and variability to - somehow - match the general TMDb rule.

On the other hand, if we all agree that we don't need the episode number in the title and if that's okay with the current TMDb rule for everyone, I'm more than fine without it. Because that would mean no extra work for me!

There's also the official LWT YT channel (https://www.youtube.com/user/LastWeekTonight/videos) where videos have the episode titles and those are aligned with the ones I provided.

No, it's a bit more complicated and the other way around! The videos on YouTube are clips (= smaller parts) of the full episodes that originally air on HBO. That's why those titles are - in fact - the titles of the clips/videos foremost! But that does not mean that those titles are also the titles of entire episodes! There is a difference! For example, you can see this difference here:

https://www.hbo.com/last-week-tonight-with-john-oliver/2020/150-episode-209

On this page, you can see 1 "Clip" and 2 "Extra" at the bottom. On YouTube, you can find those 3 here:

1.) Trump & Election Results: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cMz_sTgoydQ
2.) Season 7 Finale: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EzlCOg-37hI
3.) Pringles Update: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qIUb3bjh42Y

But the actual episode that aired on HBO was no. 1.) and no. 2.) combined with short interludes (while no 3.) was a YouTube exclusive a few weeks later and not part of the episode on HBO). So, here you have 2 YouTube clips with 2 different clip titles -> it's quite obvious those titles are not episode titles (on HBO's website the episode title is simply "November 15, 2020" - the url text is "episode 209"). It's the other way around -> the titles that you provided in your original post are in fact the titles of the clips that HBO puts online. Which means those are not official episode titles per se. Nevertheless, I think we can compromise and use those clip titles as TMDb episode titles, because those describe the main topic of the show and it's better than a simple episode number.

Okay, fair enough. Thank you for the detailed explanation of your reasoning!

Personally, I'd lean into direction of omitting the episode numbers and sticking with the title of the main topic which (for the most part) has been the approach so far universally. Which would in turn not require editing titles of old episodes retroactively. Honestly, during this lockdown HBO should have hired an intern to sort out the stuff on their website - I can't imagine it taking more than a few days, but I digress :)

@SindarS wrote:

HBO should have hired an intern to sort out the stuff on their website - I can't imagine it taking more than a few days, but I digress :)

Haha, I thought the same -> the website is such a big mess!

Personally, I'd lean into direction of omitting the episode numbers and sticking with the title of the main topic which (for the most part) has been the approach so far universally. Which would in turn not require editing titles of old episodes retroactively.

Yes, I think it's best we wait for another moderator to share their opinion on this matter and then make a decision. It can take some time, though - but it's better than changing it now and then changing it again because it was wrong. I'm personally fine with either of these two solutions.