Why don't episodes of TV shows include the titles?

Lurker Lee · 08-06-2009, 06:45 PM

(Not a major rant; just an annoyance) -

They obviously have titles; at least on the on screen guides there are titles. Some are actually fairly clever titles.

I tend to record shows and watch them at my leisure. Sometimes I'll discover a series halfway through the season, or even in a later season, so I'll try to collect all of the reruns until I have a full series, and then watch them.

So here's the problem - keeping track of which episodes I have on my hard drive. I usually use Wikipedia or IMDB to get a list of titles so I can check them off, but when I replay the episodes, there are no titles. (Comcast keeps track of the program info of what has been recorded, but the Panny doesn't). I swear there used to be titles displayed at the beginning of shows. They list the writers, directors and actors, and sometimes I can figure out which episode something is using that info. But it sure would be simpler if I could just playu the first few minutes and have it tell me the name! I find this consistently across networks, so I figure there must be some reason

O-O · 08-06-2009, 06:57 PM

That definitely sounds like a hardware or guide problem. I have title of show, length, and desc. information on my dvr.

Lurker Lee · 08-06-2009, 07:57 PM

Yeah the Comcast Motorola does. The Panasonic never has, so I assumed it's just not a feature since my brother has a slightly different model Panasonic and it doesn't either. (It has that info in the TVG, but doesn't seem to store the title or description with the actual program recording).

What I'm looking for though is "they" used to display the title name, back in the day even before DVRs. THey'd play a little intro scene, and then overlay a title, and them some writers, directors etc. At least I'm pretty sure I've seen shows do that at some point. Maybe I'm getting senile and thinking of movies I've seen on TV? The problem is that I end up with 10 episodes of "Bones" on the Pan or a dvd and no clue as to which is which, and if they are reruns I can't tell the sequence to watch them in because dates don't count.

Like I said, not a huge problem... it's more I've been wondering why the networks don't display the title as part of the actual show.

bicker · 08-07-2009, 02:22 AM

This might be one of those things where the need is running away from the provision: The folks who are so interested in television that they care about the titles are generally the same folks who have other means of access to that information (i.e., a good DVR program guide, or a listings service that the person uses to see what programming is coming up, or TV Guide for that matter).

Aries · 08-07-2009, 07:41 AM

I think most of the episodes are simply for references sake, for things like on the DVD collections and on-demand showings. It's usually only kids shows that have them (Spongebob, Dexter's Lab) or a handful of anime (Elfen Lied, Ghost in the Shell: SAC). Although, a few episodes of The Simpsons had the episode name and serial numbers on them, Bart Gets Hit By A Car being one of them.

It just depends entirely on the director. Some do it, some don't, and most don't.

DTVuser2009 · 08-07-2009, 01:40 PM

I would like dates myself, like on Dish Network you could see the date of any episode after the description. doesn't do that on even the DTVPal. that's how i found out there were two battlestar galacticas.


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