my shows | preferences

FAQ


Question: What’s with the strange change in the format of your pages? Why not keep the same look you have been successful with for the last 20+ years?
Answer: Our pages have been re-designed with a responsive format that changes according to the width of the screen on which they are being viewed. This is to assure that everything fits, expanding to fill a widescreen desktop but narrowing to accommodate the display of a mobile phone or tablet without requiring excessive horizontal scrolling or pinching by the user. To copy from our pages into a word processor, you should use the special unformatted copy and paste option for the episode list, while using standard formatted copy and paste for the rest. If there is something that you find particularly annoying about the new layout, feel free to call our attention to it and maybe we can fix it. We appreciate your feedback.

Question: What’s with these new lists with links to TVmaze instead of TVRage?
Answer: Our lists have typically provided links from each episode title to summaries at TV.com or TVRage. However, when continuing problems developed with TVRage, we replaced it with TVmaze, which is currently our default list supplier. When nothing is available from them for a show, then the list is provided instead from TV.com. We have also added the capability for users to easily switch back and forth between those lists which are available, by clicking on the appropriate word in the line "Episode list & details from: TVmaze * TV.com". So if you do not find the information you are looking for in the TVmaze list or at the TVmaze site for a particular show, you can try the other site. Alternatively, your preference among the sites can be changed on a global basis for all of our shows by clicking on the link in the top right corner of most of our pages that says "change your list <preferences>."

Question: I can’t find a particular show on TV any more. Is it coming back, or is it cancelled?
Answer: If it is a U.S. show that was running new episodes, it may currently be on hiatus. Go to our current U.S. schedule grid page at epguides.com/grid and scroll down past the current weekly grid to the alphabetical list of shows on hiatus, which will indicate a return date in red, if we know it. Following this is a list of those shows from the current season that have definitely been cancelled, followed by a list of those shows from last season that have been cancelled. An epguides.com/fallgrid schedule grid is also available, which shows the starting dates and times of the new fall U.S. shows. We also sometimes have links to grids showing significant forthcoming winter and spring schedule changes.

Question: How do I use the My Shows feature seen on many of the guides on your site?
Answer: On many of our guides, mostly the Current US shows, you’ll see a link for “my shows”. It takes you to a list of shows you’ve marked as favorite. How did you mark them as favorite, merely by selecting the “like” link next to the “my shows” link. It‘s that simple. If you decide you no longer like a show, you can just as easily select the “unlike” link. Caveat for use: the information is stored only on the computer you are accessing our site from, if you go to another computer, you’ll need to make your selections again. At this time we have no plans to support a method that would allow you to save your selections across multiple machines.

Question: I’m writing an app. Can I use your data?
Answer: Yes. We can’t really offer much programming advice, but you are welcome to use our data. We provide some basic info on all the shows in our database at epguides.com/common/allshows.txt, in comma separated values format. We also provide an episode list for each show via the "list as .csv" button on each show’s page. If you create an app and want to share it with our users, please let us know and we’ll add it to this page.

Question: What’s up with TV Tome, TV.com, and TV Rage and how does it affect you?
Answer: Our original partner, the webmaster at TV Tome, took the contents of his site and moved it over to a site called TV.com, which is owned by CBS Interactive, the same folks that give you gamespot.com and mp3.com. Since our site contained numerous links to TV Tome, we reassigned those links to TV.com, and continued to build our future episode guides at TV.com and to maintain epguides.com as a simplified means of accessing the data there.

We persuaded the people at TV.com to provide a searchable and “printer friendly” guide for us to link to for each show, containing in one place all the major items of episodic information that are typically of interest to researchers, such as writers and directors. This arrangement worked well for several years, but eventually TV.com decided to abandon the printable guide, and since then we have switched our major allegiance to TVRage, a site which was founded by disgruntled former TV.com contributors.

And now our primary partner to link to is TVMaze.

Question: Why did you move your guides to TV Tome/TV.com/TV Rage/TVMaze?
Answer: Originally, we had only a few authors who created all our episode lists and guides, but we were adding new shows all the time, and many new people volunteered to turn our Titles and Air Dates listings into more complete guides. Unfortunately this created a bottleneck, which delayed the updating of guides on the site. Because of the way our site is presently set up, we only have a couple of editors who can actually upload new information to the site. We never had time to develop a capability for our contributors to directly update their shows on our site. So when the opportunity to partner with TV Tome appeared, we worked with its Webmaster to make the display of information in the fully editable guides at that site look similar to what people were used to seeing at our site, and simply created links to them. Over time that turned out pretty well. The recent changes to TV.com and then TV Rage have created some problems, but unless we get the ability to create something like a TV Tome on our own, the differences are just something we’ve had to get used to. If you have any comments or suggestions, please contact us here

Question: Can you sell me copies of the show?
Answer: No, we are not authorized to do that. Your best bet if it is not commercially available is try the various merchants listed on our TV Related Merchants page. Otherwise there are always traders, video collectors and other readers of these newsgroups might be able to help you out: alt.video.tape-trading, rec.arts.tv or rec.arts.tv.uk for UK series. Some series also have a newsgroup(s) dedicated to discussion about that particular series, check your news reader for availability; typically the show will be found under the header of alt.tv.(series name). If you don’t have access to the newsgroups from your ISP (Internet Service Provider), try the Google Usenet Archive. They offer access to the newsgroups through their site.

Suzanne Lanoue’s TV MegaSite has a list of numerous individuals with something to trade and/or something to trade for. Or try Eldon Russell’s Classic TV Trading Post.

Question: Why isn’t there a guide for my favorite series?
Answer: We try to add new shows as we have time. If you have any suggestions for shows you would like to see included, please send them here.

Question: When I click on the “Theme Tune” button, why do I sometimes get sent to another site instead of hearing the tune?
Answer: If this happens, just re-visit our main page. This sets a cookie that allows you access to the tunes.

Question: When is the show on? Where can I find it?
Answer: If your local newspaper is online, they might have a link to an online TV listing. Otherwise, try Titan TV or TV Guide.

Question: Is “actor” going to do another show? Will “show” or this “episode” ever get repeated?
Answer: Sorry, generally we have no advance knowledge of people’s plans, network’s schedules, syndication plans, etc.

Question: What is the best place to find Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror Television Series episode guides?
Answer: Our friend and fellow contributing editor, Alan Morton, has taken all his information for those types of series and placed it into one comprehensive self-published volume. Check here for availability of a new edition.

Question: Where did you get all your information?
Answer: From various locations: newspapers, magazines, Radio Times, TV Guide, TV Magazine, TV Times, Variety, other TV listings, copyright records, and of course the episodes themselves.

Question: Why don’t you list the episodes in the right order?
Answer: We always list the episodes in the order they were originally shown in the country of origin. This may be different from the order in which they were originally filmed, which is given by the production number. For people trying to label their recordings, the order in which they aired is usually more useful, particularly if no titles are given on-screen on the episodes themselves.

When they are repeated in syndication or shown in other countries, the production number is often the only information available about what order the episodes should be in, so it is the order in which they are generally shown. This may or may not be the order in which they are best viewed, but we give the numbers (where available) so that people can use the production order if they want to.

Question: What does it mean when an episode says UNAIRED?
Answer: It means that the episode was not broadcast during the original run of the series, so we have no broadcast date for it. There are 4 possible reasons for this:
  1. It was a first attempt, called a “pilot”, that was not good enough to broadcast, but was considered promising. They changed some things and made a different version that was successful.
  2. It was thought that something in the episode would be offensive to some people, and television executives decided not to show it. However, this is rare.
  3. The show was cancelled before all the episodes were broadcast. However, these episodes may be seen when the series is shown in other countries, or if the series is repeated later on a different network.
  4. An episode was announced, but then postponed to some future date that is not yet known.

Question: What are Spoilers?
Answer: Spoilers are things often found in Internet newsgroups (or perhaps this web site) where you read about plot details or twists in an episode that you would rather have been surprised about. Such as, if you read about the ending of Seinfeld, before you saw the ending of Seinfeld, then it would have been “spoiled” for you.

Question: Do you work for any of the shows listed on your site? Or the networks upon which they run?
Answer: No, we’re just fans of television. Occasionally, producers and actors have contacted us with additional information.

Question: Why did you cancel my favorite show?
Answer: We didn’t. As mentioned above, we’re just fans of television. Depending on the show, we may be just as disappointed as you are.

Question: How do I contact a show’s star?
Answer: We do not have any information in this regard, but these web sites offer ways to get celebrity addresses: Star Tiger or Contact a Celebrity.

Question: Where can I find scripts, etc?
Answer: Try some of the script merchants listed on our TV Merchants page.

Question: I have a home page with an episode guide(s). Would you link your page to mine?
Answer: No. There are thousands of home pages on the web. You’d never get to our episode guides, as you’d still be waiting for a page full of links to be loaded.

Question: whay hope no all the men hope you taki my friend you stop choice then the all
coming on demand you
Answer: Certainly! Not the most frequent question we’ve ever gotten, but certainly the most bizarre!

Question: How do I send you email?
Answer:
  1. Questions, corrections, updates or other comments about specific episodes should be submitted to the site linked from the appropriate episode. Refer to each site for how to do this.
  2. General questions about a specific show are best directed to the author or contributors to the guide for that show at TV.com or TVMaze, as they are in a better position to know the answer. We are not affiliated with these shows in any way and do no have special access. We are just fans of TV, like you.
  3. Please INCLUDE the name of the show you are asking about, along with any other information that might help us in finding the answer to your query. We do not track you, so we have no idea which episode list or guide you may have been visiting before you landed on this page. You can consult our menu to check if the show in question is covered on our site.
  4. Any general questions about this site may be sent to this link: General Question.

Thanks for taking the time to view our FAQ!

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If you have any general questions, please read our FAQ, which also includes instructions on how to send us e-mail for corrections to menus or general show info. For corrections and additions to episode details for specific shows, click through to the episode and submit corrections via the specific list provider: TVmaze.com or TV.com.