Hi Augustin,

We've actually been discussing this internally and are planning to remove support for mini-series and the limited run series content in the movie section. I've tentatively put a deadline of Aug. 1 for the content removal. There will be some discussions about some content that needs to happen. For Abominable Bride, I suspect that maybe it will always be allowed because like you said, it had an actual limited theatrical release. But for content that aired together in the medium's usual format, ie. a TV show, I'd lean towards saying it's a TV show.

For something like the finale of Avatar, given how we categorize content, I'd say it should only belong to the TV series. The issue we're facing right now is too much duplicated content. We end up with too many records to keep updated, you have things like translations, ratings and reviews all separated. It's just no good. These are the main drivers to consolidating the content.

Alright, makes sense. Thanks very much for the reply.

I must admit to being surprised to see episodes of Sherlock (that did not receive cinematic release) keep appearing in the film section and over on Letterboxd. If it's episodes of an ongoing recurring drama series then I feel it should rightly be placed in the TV section, rather than the film section. However, I would ask that mini-series, one off TV movies and plays and documentary films made for TV be kept in the film section. When reporting a 'film' such as a Sherlock episode on LB to be taken down, the guideline on the site clearly states that it is to be taken down because it is not a film, TV movie or mini-series ie TV movies and mini-series should be allowed.

However, I would ask that mini-series, one off TV movies and plays and documentary films made for TV be kept in the film section

This is what will be changing on Aug. 1. One off movies (TV movies) and documentaries will be fine for the movie section if they aired as a single entity. Mini-series and limited run series however, are going to be removed. Some easy examples off the top of my head are The OA and Gilmore Girls: A Day in the Life. Those will be no longer supported in the movie section.

It would definitely be very disappointing to see mini-series removed from the movie section. I'm sure a lot of Letterboxd users would be sad to see them go.

Letterboxd is aware of our plans and will be figuring something out.

We will probably add a flag on TV shows to indicate if it's been screened theatrically. This will help some items survive the culling, but not all. I think it's the best way to handle it.

We can't sustain and scale this any longer, as I stated above, there's way too much duplicated data. I only left support for these in because originally we didn't have a TV section (pre 2013). Now that we do, it just doesn't make sense for us to keep duplicates around.

I for one am disappointed to see Sherlock episodes keep getting removed from Letterboxd and the movie section here. They are considered TV movies by the Emmys and the Golden Globes and many rank and review them as such. I understand it's a gray area but something think about perhaps.

see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_awards_and_nominations_received_by_Sherlock#Emmys

Emmys are for television programming though ;-)
And the one Golden Globe award also says; "Best Actor in a Mini-series or Motion Picture Made for Television" (Note the television part)

Anyway, as Travis stated, Letterbox is aware of the change and will think of something!

"Emmys are for television programming though ;-) And the one Golden Globe award also says; "Best Actor in a Mini-series or Motion Picture Made for Television" (Note the television part)"

To be fair though Marr, the policy is that a TV movie should still be included. It's only mini-series that are going, which I do feel is a shame but it's by the by. As Travis said,

"One off movies (TV movies) and documentaries will be fine for the movie section if they aired as a single entity."

So TV movies ARE ok - as they should be. Especially when you consider some that are made for TV get theatrical releases in other territories. Look at HBO, look at Play for Today or Screen One/Screen Two.

It's the single entity line that is a grey area though. I've had this with Lineker a couple of years ago; the BBC's Play for Today and Screen One/Screen Two were all single entity productions under an umbrella season of one-off TV films in that name. To that end, Lineker agreed that these would remain. To lose them would be a grave mistake and would alienate a lot of people who use this site and LB, including myself, as Iain S says.

Oh, just a misunderstanding on my part! Of course TV movies are fine in the movie database (and not existing in the TV show database, as it is a movie, just released for TV). The statement confused me with the word "episode", I'm not familiar with the show, and it seems like something for the TV database. But I now figure a movie in between seasons/episodes is meant. Those are fine indeed.

I don't know about the specific Sherlock ones though, I haven't been deleting any of those that is. I'm curious as to the reasoning behind it though, as it seems to have even got a cinematic release (limited though, the most recent one, Abominable Bride). But it is on TMDb for a year, so don't know what Sherlock "episodes" are meant exactly?

I'm hazy on Sherlock too, but to my knowledge only Abominable Bride and The Final Problem received a theatrical release. To my mind then, all the other Sherlock episodes are just that, episodes in a recurring, long running series. From that, I'd say they belong on the TV database, but I can appreciate the confusion when all of those get deleted/transferred to TV whilst two can legitimately stay on the movie database. It's kind of, 'if some can, why can't they all?' I guess.

Yeah, I think, if it's really a movie it's fine to add it in the movie section too, but if it's just a series with the runtime of a movie (or one episode in that series), or like a two part episodes aired back to back it should just be TV.

I think the thing with Sherlock is a case of episodes that have the runtime of a movie (90 mins), according to my limited research at the BBC site (http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b018ttws/episodes/guide) all episodes should just be in TV, with the exception of abominable one, that one can stay in movie too, as it had a theatrical limited release [selected theatres in USA bla bla bla]. I don't know about that last episode. Because it only had a one-time-only screening.

https://www.themoviedb.org/talk/588c6dc3c3a3680ffe0042f

I think the problem will be not to get all miniseries added back in the moviesection set as videos as we have the situation now with many tv episodes added as tv-series, added as single movies set as videos and sometimes as mini series at all, in my opinion this is simply too much

I think the problem will be not to get all miniseries added back in the moviesection set as videos

With the mini-series exception going away eventually, no mini-series can be added to the movie section. So that should not be a problem. But we will see what happens when the change is final.