It was released as a regular season 1 episode so it should be listed as part of season 1.

@raze464 said:

It was released as a regular season 1 episode so it should be listed as part of season 1.

It literally is called a special.

@vreelb said:

It literally is called a special.

It isn't. It's called "Episode 5" and it's numbered as such on the Netflix website.

Episodes officially released as "Episode 0," episodes released as "Episode 0.5," as well as any other odd-numbered or unnumbered episodes are added to the Specials season, none of which are the case here.

When it says it is a special, you do not consider it a special purely based on episode numbers? It is not a part of the narrative of the show and is explicitly called a special. "Go behind the scenes in this hour-long special where Bob and David reveal what it takes to put on a sketch show in their own special way."

@vreelb said:

When it says it is a special, you do not consider it a special purely based on episode numbers? It is not a part of the narrative of the show and is explicitly called a special.

If, narratively, it's a special episode but it's released as a regular numbered episode that follows existing numbering, i.e. it's released as episode #5 when the previous episode was episode #4, TMDB does not consider that to be a special episode, it's a regular episode.

@raze464 said:

@vreelb said:

When it says it is a special, you do not consider it a special purely based on episode numbers? It is not a part of the narrative of the show and is explicitly called a special.

If, narratively, it's a special episode but it's released as a regular numbered episode that follows existing numbering, i.e. it's released as episode #5 when the previous episode was episode #4, TMDB does not consider that to be a special episode, it's a regular episode.

...so by that definition this would be a special. It is not narratively an episode at all, it is a meta-narrative episode. A "making of" episode is by definition set within the real world not within a fictional narrative. Regardless of how Netflix choses to put it in playlists to get their "play next" functionality to work seamlessly, it is a special episode as it says so itself in its synopsis.

The production/distribution company literally calls it a special, why is this so hard to understand?

@vreelb said:

...so by that definition this would be a special.

No, it's listed as episode 5 on the Netflix website so it should also be episode 5 on TMDB. If it would have been released as episode 101 or episode 0, then yeah, it should be moved to the Specials season, but it wasn't so it shouldn't.

"making of" episode is by definition set within the real world not within a fictional narrative.

It doesn't matter that it's a making of episode; Netflix released it as the fifth episode of season 1 so it should be the fifth episode of season 1, not a special.

This is the same reason why Pretty Little Liars' "We Love You to DeAth" episode is S05E13 and not a special, and why The Big Bang Theory's "Unraveling the Mystery: A Big Bang Farewell" episode is S13E24 and not a special; they are clearly not normal episodes of the show but they were released as regular, numbered episodes so they should be added to TMDB as regular, numbered episodes to their respective seasons.

Regardless of how Netflix choses to put it in playlists to get their "play next" functionality to work seamlessly, it is a special episode as it says so itself in its synopsis.

TMDB tries to follow the show's official page on the network's website as much as possible. If Netflix says it's episode 5, then it's episode 5 on TMDB as well. It doesn't matter that the overview says it's a special episode.

@raze464 said: TMDB tries to follow the show's official page on the network's website as much as possible. If Netflix says it's episode 5, then it's episode 5 on TMDB as well. It doesn't matter that the overview says it's a special episode.

Why would you do that when it makes you wrong? Does TMDb not want to be a trusted source of information?

@vreelb said:

@raze464 said: TMDB tries to follow the show's official page on the network's website as much as possible. If Netflix says it's episode 5, then it's episode 5 on TMDB as well. It doesn't matter that the overview says it's a special episode.

Why would you do that when it makes you wrong?

How can it be wrong if that's how the network has it, too?

Does TMDb not want to be a trusted source of information?

Yes, and it does that by following a show's official page on its network's website as much as possible.

@raze464 said:

@vreelb said: Does TMDb not want to be a trusted source of information?

Yes, and it does that by following a show's official page on its network's website as much as possible.

Except the part where the network says it is a special but you refuse to call it a special?

@vreelb said:

@raze464 said:

@vreelb said: Does TMDb not want to be a trusted source of information?

Yes, and it does that by following a show's official page on its network's website as much as possible.

Except the part where the network says it is a special but you refuse to call it a special?

Please show me where it meets TMDB's criteria for it to be a special because I see it numbered as episode 5 on the Netflix website.

The criteria:

Special episodes are any episodes that did not originally air as part of a regular, usually numbered season. Sometimes a network will call an episode a "special" episode—as an example, "in this special holiday themed episode"—but still assign it a season and episode number; in those cases, it should not be added to the special season here but, instead, to the season assigned to it by the network. (https://www.themoviedb.org/bible/tv/59f73eb49251416e71000026#59f7445c9251416e71000039)

and

Episodes officially released as "Episode 0" are added in the Specials. This is also true for episodes released as "Episode 0.5" as well as any other odd-numbered or unnumbered episodes. (https://www.themoviedb.org/bible/tv/59f743289251416e71000037#59f7445c9251416e71000038)

Why does TMDb stick to criteria that makes it an unreliable source of information?