MovieChat Forums > Tatort (1997) Discussion > Seasons wont apply here, confusing episo...

Seasons wont apply here, confusing episode list

posted 14 years ago by mick_row
6 replies | jump to latest

Rename season to investigation team + location + producing channel and resort the episodes? - Or just add investigation team + location + producing channel to the episode list? - Or completely split this set of series into different ones for each investigating team? - Or else?

If below text is confusing or too much, just refer to wikipedia's table "List of Tatort investigators".

This series or better set of TV movies, cannot be put together in one season. It is not easy to fit "Tatort" in the usual database pattern we have here for usual tv series.

Some examples/facts:
There are several teams of investigators playing in different regions. Each is produced by a seperate channel independently. (Some channels even produces more than one investigator team in different cities / regions the same time, but independently from the others.
Exception: Some crossovers are made also between different channels but those are extremly rare and there always is the main leading team; and there is again one exceptional episode, a crossover made between former GDR series 'Polizeiruf' and both teams act cooperatively.

One could say each team would represent a different series, just aired under the label of Tatort. But some investigator teams even have one episode only, others made it several seasons even above 10 years. It could be bit compared to CSI although the Tatort idea was invented 1970. Different to CSI would be the shared broadcast time of the different teams and difficult for this database to handle would be the airdate will set the episode number, and it would not say anything about which team is investigating.

And there lies the big problem in this episode list here.
The location and producing channel needs to be added and / or at least the names of the investigators. Or each team need a seperate entry here, like CSI, but this would be highly confusing as some teams made one episode only, sometimes planned, sometimes they had no public support.

[–] liondancer 14 years ago

In this special case it would make much more sense to sort the series by the investigating team or at least the city.

In Germany, many talk of sub-series like "Münster-Tatort" (by city), "Schimanski-Tatort" (by investigator), "WDR-Tatort" (by producing broadcaster). Since some broadcasters produce parallel sub-series with different teams, places, and atmosphere, eg. a WDR Tatort can be a Münster Tatort or a Cologne Tatort, but as well in Munich, eg., a series with one investigating team ended and a completely different new team came up at the same place, IMHO the most appropriate naming would include the producing broadcaster and the central protagonist(s), eg. "Tatort (WDR, Schimanski)", "Tatort (WDR, Ballauf/Schenk)", "Tatort (WDR, Thiel/Boerne)", etc., resp. -including the cities- "Tatort (WDR, Duisburg, Schimanski)", "Tatort (WDR, Köln, Ballauf/Schenk)", "Tatort (WDR, Münster, Thiel/Boerne)", etc.

Divided into sub-series, the series page(s) finally would make sense: Basic information on the contents (place, team, recurrent subjects, running gags) could finally be placed, and a user could easily find out, eg., that the 21 Schimanski Tatorts consumed 7 camera directors or all Münster Tatorts were cut by the same cutter (examples fictitious). Currently, one can merely find out which episodes belong together through the character page of the main investigator (but even this is not perfect).

How can a simple dummy like me propose this to the IMDb team? Being unemployed recently, I would even be willing to work through (at least a part of) all 763+ episodes to change them - as soon as there would be a consensus.

I would really appreciate a solution to this.

[–] ajfax 13 years ago

Very good idea!

But what non-German Tatort episodes made in Austria or Switzerland (1990-2001, 2011-)?

I guess it could be handley like you suggested, liondancer.

Have you tried to contact IMDB directly at http://www.imdb.com/helpdesk/contact ?

[–] laza74 13 years ago

This is also impossible cause of the Spin-Offs from some investigation teams, not officially as a Tatort and so on..
Example:
Schimanski - 29 official episodes - 16 Spin-offs
Hirth - 3 official episodes - 6 non-offical episodes
Lutinsky - 0 offical episodes - 1 non-offical epsiodes
and so on... (most of the austrian episodes where planned as Tatort episode but where NOT officially ones)

Sometimes, the unoffical are also mentioned in the Tatort-Series and this makes the confusion complete!

In my opinion:
Divide in offical (one season) and non-offical series/TV play.

Other suggestions?

[–] E-Kartoffel 12 years ago

The Austrian Tatort is not unofficial. Tatort was an Austrian-German co-production. Additionally Austria produced its own series of films.

A spin-off is not unofficial (!?)

Where are unofficial episodes "mentioned" in this series?

[–] E-Kartoffel 12 years ago

You get a very good overview of the characters (not teams though) in the "characters" section.

For example 'Inspektor Hirth':
http://www.imdb.com/character/ch0288824/

It is technically possible, for anyone, to write a description for each major character. Just use what's available.

The "unofficial" Austrian Tatort (1985-1989) is already listed seperately, have you noticed that? --->

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1087545/combined

Important: Please do not change the character names in the cast list, for example from "Schimanski" to "Oberinspektor Horst Schimanski"- the character names in the cast list should be *as they appear on screen*. Further description has room in the character descriptions.

[–] llothar 10 years ago

Nice idea but IMDB can't handle it.