New FanFare TV Post Types

November 16, 2015 2:23 PM

In FanFare we've always discussed TV shows episode by episode. We just added two new ways to discuss a series: full-season and season-independent.

Not every show that people want to discuss has enough interest to discuss the ins and outs of each episode. We've had many requests for full-season posts over the life of FanFare, most recently in the books announcement thread and a request about Grey's Anatomy.

Grey's Anatomy is a good example. It's a popular show but not necessarily a blockbuster these days. There's some interest in discussing the most recent season, but not enough people want a detailed discussion of each episode.

To post about an entire season of a show, you can now select the season number and then "All" from the Episode list. These posts will be marked as "Full Season" next to the title so folks know that discussion could cover every episode in that season.

The other new option is to create a post about an entire series rather than a particular season. To do that you can choose "All" from the Season list. These posts won't be marked as being about any particular season or episode.

We hope these additions open up some new opportunities for discussion at FanFare. Let us know here if you run into trouble.

posted by pb (staff) to Feature Requests at 2:23 PM (38 comments total)

Also, we finally updated the tagline and the note by the comment box in threads, to make them no longer the TV-specific things that made sense when FanFare first launched.
posted by cortex (staff) at 2:25 PM on November 16, 2015

Boom! It works. (Grey's Anatomy, Season 12)

Thanks, y'all!
posted by DirtyOldTown at 2:33 PM on November 16, 2015 [1 favorite]

NICE! Thanks, pb.
posted by zarq at 2:39 PM on November 16, 2015

Kewl beans. I think I will take up this option for a couple of shows. Thanks!
posted by Atreides at 2:40 PM on November 16, 2015

Would one be able to post individual episodes after a full season/series has been posted (if discussion is more robust than originally anticipated), or would that be considered a "double"?
posted by Rock Steady at 2:49 PM on November 16, 2015

Nope, fine to do both if that's how it makes sense to proceed. Discussion in a series/season-level post might help establish that there's a real interest in a more fine-grained episodic discussion.
posted by cortex (staff) at 2:50 PM on November 16, 2015

I believe there are Game of Thrones episodes that have three different posts on Fanfare: Show Only, Books Included and First Watch with Books.
posted by zarq at 2:54 PM on November 16, 2015

Neat!
posted by cashman at 3:37 PM on November 16, 2015

Eagerly awaiting UK Mefites complaining "It's not a Season, it's a Series".
That said, I never particularly liked either term, but have never been able to convince anybody to use "Year". It fits better for 99% of the shows running out there, and the rare cases where they have two "Seasons/Series" per Year (I'm looking at you, Survivor) Of course, for shows like that, I would suggest "Year 16.1" and "Year 16.2"...
posted by oneswellfoop at 3:38 PM on November 16, 2015

These are excellent improvements to FanFare, hooray.
posted by joseph conrad is fully awesome at 4:08 PM on November 16, 2015 [1 favorite]

Off to manufacture some outrage about Americans misnaming TV series as seasons. I have one weird trick which will show you how to tell the difference....
posted by marienbad at 4:44 PM on November 16, 2015

This hasn't been specified, but I am assuming that a season post for an in-progress season is always presumed to be open for discussion of the latest-aired material, spoiler warnings be damned?
posted by DirtyOldTown at 4:48 PM on November 16, 2015

Yep, basically inclusive of everything up to the end of that season for season-level posts, everything in the entire show run for series-level posts.
posted by cortex (staff) at 4:54 PM on November 16, 2015

I like the idea of full-season threads in theory, but if the show in question is currently broadcasting new episodes, I can't see how this can be reconciled with the Recent Activity function. Unless you just don't care at all about reading the latest episode discussion before you've watched it yourself, you'd have to stop using RA if you're not caught up, or remember to manually remove the thread from RA ahead of time and add it back when you're ready.
posted by oh yeah! at 5:23 PM on November 16, 2015

Huh, I never knew the British called a season a series. Does that mean they'd refer to "series 1, series 2, series 3" of a show? That sounds super weird to me. And what do they call what I call a "series", i.e. an entire show? E.g. I'd say, "I've started watching this great new TV series", vs "I didn't like season one of that series, but season two is great". Would a speaker of British English say "I've started watching this great new TV show" and "I didn't like series 1 of that show, but series 2 is great"?
posted by lollusc at 7:37 PM on November 16, 2015

Neat! Who is up for a series thread of "Don't Trust the B?"
posted by drezdn at 7:48 PM on November 16, 2015 [2 favorites]

(For some reason now, I can't post the latest episode of MBMBAM (#277))

Also, this feature might be great for some podcast discussion.
posted by drezdn at 7:53 PM on November 16, 2015

Thanks drezdn, I think I found the problem there and fixed it up. But let me know if you still can't post that episode.
posted by pb (staff) at 10:08 PM on November 16, 2015 [1 favorite]

pb you're the best! Thank you so much!
posted by ellieBOA at 10:34 PM on November 16, 2015

Thanks drezdn, I think I found the problem there and fixed it up. But let me know if you still can't post that episode.

Works now! Thanks, pb!
posted by drezdn at 4:32 AM on November 17, 2015

This is a good move, thanks.
posted by Dip Flash at 5:12 AM on November 17, 2015

I like the idea of full-season threads in theory, but if the show in question is currently broadcasting new episodes, I can't see how this can be reconciled with the Recent Activity function.

OTOH, some people still watch shows live, and it would be just fine for them.
posted by smackfu at 5:53 AM on November 17, 2015

I realize you're giving us a nice juicy steak and I'm asking for sauce here, but... Can we get this for (some) podcasts as well? I'm particularly thinking of The Message, which is an eight-episode podcast with single episodes that are averaging less than 15 minutes each. I haven't bothered asking for it on FanFare because the single-episode format doesn't lend itself to such small bites, but a whole-season post would be very useful.
posted by Etrigan at 8:48 AM on November 17, 2015 [1 favorite]

Yeah, we can definitely think about adding it for podcasts. I'm wondering how a FanFare full season post would differ from the MetaFilter post about it though.
posted by pb (staff) at 9:13 AM on November 17, 2015

The MetaFilter post is going to close in nine days. The last ep will just barely be out by then.
posted by Etrigan at 9:22 AM on November 17, 2015 [1 favorite]

OTOH, some people still watch shows live, and it would be just fine for them.

There are a lot of shows I watch live, or, delayed just enough that fast-forwarding through the commercial breaks gets me to the end of the show at the end of the broadcast. It just seems inevitable that there will come an evening where I'm not home in time for a show, click on RA forgetting what time/day it is, and stumble into spoilers. Time will tell, I suppose.
posted by oh yeah! at 9:34 AM on November 17, 2015

It just seems inevitable that there will come an evening where I'm not home in time for a show, click on RA forgetting what time/day it is, and stumble into spoilers.

I feel like if I'm emotionally invested enough in a show that spoilers would matter, probably enough other people are emotionally invested enough in that show that they're posting single-episode threads and I don't have to worry about spoilers. Quantico in particular is an enjoyable way to spend an hour staring at beautiful people and laughing at stupid plots -- I'm glad there's an open thread for it, but trying to care enough to bother with individual episode posts? Ugh.
posted by Etrigan at 9:37 AM on November 17, 2015

Sorry, forgot to add -- I'm not saying oh yeah! doesn't have a good point. Just providing another data point.
posted by Etrigan at 9:42 AM on November 17, 2015

Yay! I think this will be way better than episode-by-episode posts.
posted by holborne at 10:50 AM on November 17, 2015

I think this will be great for some less Mefi-popular sitcoms like "The Goldbergs." When I've posted it before, it didn't generate much interest, but a season long post might get some comments.
posted by drezdn at 11:14 AM on November 17, 2015

Since we're talking about TV, the WWE hasn't been the WWF for over a decade. Is the title of the show for this post just grabbed from IMDB (or elsewhere) regardless of what the show is currently called?
posted by ODiV at 11:33 AM on November 17, 2015

Yep.
posted by Etrigan at 11:37 AM on November 17, 2015

We use IMDb as the definitive source for the names of things but we can update here if it's just wrong. Should it be "WWE Raw"?
posted by pb (staff) at 11:42 AM on November 17, 2015

Thanks Etrigan. In that case, I have to say that I'm a little disappointed SNL doesn't show up as NBC's Saturday Night. Actually, looking at other shows that have changed names, IMDB seems to list them with the most current names except for WWE stuff (which has what looks like the current title listed as "original"?).

I couldn't say, pb, sorry. I don't follow it, I just know that the name change was a long time ago and found it curious.
posted by ODiV at 11:45 AM on November 17, 2015

That's the current title, yes. They've changed it a few times, but it's been "WWE Raw" for a while now, so that will probably stick.
posted by Etrigan at 11:45 AM on November 17, 2015

Thanks, updated.
posted by pb (staff) at 11:50 AM on November 17, 2015

I think someone screwed up that entry in IMDB, and swapped the original title and the current title. WWE Smackdown seems to have the correct setup, with WWE as current and WWF as original.
posted by smackfu at 1:44 PM on November 17, 2015

We just added full-podcast posts—now you can choose "All" from the episode drop-down just like you can with TV posts.
posted by pb (staff) at 2:11 PM on November 19, 2015 [2 favorites]