Memory Alpha talk:Episode data project

Films as episodes of Star Trek
I see that movies are being considered as episodes now, per the new epboxes. Is this correct? -- StAkAr Karnak 18:51, 26 December 2006 (UTC)


 * Yes, in the sense that an episode is "An incident or event that is part of a progression or a larger sequence" and "A portion of a narrative that relates an event or a series of connected events and forms a coherent story in itself." It is an episode in the Star Trek universe, not a TV series episode. --Bp 18:55, 26 December 2006 (UTC)


 * That's nonsense - an "episode" is not defined like that anywhere around here, and the "common" definition of the term "episode" in the context of a TV/Movie franchise obviously is "one of the parts of a tv series". -- Cid Highwind 19:46, 26 December 2006 (UTC)


 * Nonsense? I copied those definitions from the dictionary. That's why they are in quotes. A TV episode is part of a TV series and an episode in general is part of a series of related events. If the series of evens is the Star Trek universe, a Trek film quilifies as an episode of the series. --Bp 20:35, 26 December 2006 (UTC)


 * Ummmm... I'm not real keen on using the term "episode" via that definition. Yes, it is one dictionary definition, but you're being disingenuous here, implying that it's the only dictionary definition. A quick search of any online dictionary will net you multiple definitions, as here on Dictionary.com. In this particular dictionary, the pertinent definition is "6. Movies, Radio, and Television. any one of the separate productions that constitute a serial." This is how we use the term episode here, and in most (if not all) TV-related contexts. Users of this site would expect "episode" to be used in the TV context. -- Renegade54 20:48, 26 December 2006 (UTC)


 * Edit conflict again...
 * Well, if you want go the "dictionary/semantics" route - obviously, as you say yourself, "episode" is something which is defined in the context of a definition of "series". If we define "series" as "everything that happened in the ST universe" then, yes, a definition of episode that includes movies would make sense. The problem is - we don't define "series" as that, anywhere, until now. We do define "episode" as "a part of a TV series"... -- Cid Highwind 20:57, 26 December 2006 (UTC)


 * They are not different definitions, one is specific to TV episodes and one is general. A TV episode is part of a TV series, in the context of a TV series "episode" is enough, I'm saying that in the episode and film sidebar where it says "X of 726 Episodes" that includes films. That is 716 TV episodes + 10 films = 726 episodes of Star Trek, each one "A portion of a narrative that relates an event or a series of connected events and forms a coherent story in itself," "...a progression or a larger sequence." What alternate term would you propose that would include TV episodes and films? --Bp 21:41, 26 December 2006 (UTC)


 * "Productions". --OuroborosCobra talk 21:43, 26 December 2006 (UTC)


 * Well, "productions produced" or "productions in production order" sounds bad, but anwyay this isn't really that big of a deal because I changed the sidebar to say just "...released in all" without a label. That was the reason why I originally thought to consider everything an episode. Anyway, I'll just take out the line. --Bp 21:51, 26 December 2006 (UTC)

The template refers to episode x of 726. Since this is how many episodes Wikipedia says there are, I would not have noticed anything to ask about, were it not a movie article that it appeared on. Wikipedia says: The infoboxes MA for each series echo these figures. How are the episodes counted for the new infobox format? If films are included, that would seem to be 736 'episodes'. Also, how can one assign a number to episodes of series that were in production simultaneously and aired the same week? TNG/DS9 & DS9/VOY. Wouldn't the sequence be arbitrary? -- StAkAr Karnak 22:25, 26 December 2006 (UTC)
 * TOS · 80 episodes
 * TAS · 22 episodes
 * TNG · 178 episodes
 * DS9 · 176 episodes
 * VOY · 172 episodes
 * ENT · 98 episodes


 * Good question. There are 10 feature-length episodes which memory alpha counts as only one episode, while other resources count them as two because they are split up for reruns. The DVDs contain the original fature-length versions and also count them as one episode. So it seems to work out when they relpace the 10 films with the 10 feature-length episodes. You can also see the values for MA's episode counts at Template:Const. Those are the numbers placed after the "of" (x of ) in the sidebar. --Bp 12:20, 27 December 2006 (UTC)


 * I see the info-boxes you mentioned. Those need to be fixed. --Bp 12:24, 27 December 2006 (UTC)
 * And done. --Bp 12:30, 27 December 2006 (UTC)


 * And the second question: If 2 are on the same day then DS9 before VOY, because it was in production first and there needed to be a consistent rule. --Bp 12:32, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

I was going by production numbers to count episodes, but I just checked StarTrek.com. They have feature lengths counted as one, and since they're knitted together as one on the DVDs also, MA's policy looks to be solid. -- StAkAr Karnak 13:38, 27 December 2006 (UTC)