# TVShows > TV Shows is the content type for the series on your site. This page explains how a series, its seasons and its episodes fit together, how episodes are imported, and what each part of the editor and the list does. Source: https://doothemes.com/docs/dbmovies/post-types/tvshows --- ## Overview A TV show is the main record of a series. Unlike a movie, it is not a single piece of content: it sits at the top of a structure with its seasons and its episodes. - **The TV show** is the parent record. It holds the general information: name, poster, synopsis, cast, images, status and the list of its seasons. - **The seasons** are stored inside the TV show. They are not separate content. - **The episodes** are separate content, and each one is linked to its TV show. You can create TV shows in two ways: - **By importing them from TMDb.** This fills in the general information and the list of seasons. Use the importer in the **Dbmovies** menu (the **Shows** tab), or **Quick import** from the TV shows list. See [Importers](https://doothemes.com/docs/dbmovies/modules/importers). - **By hand**, with the add button at the top of the **TV Shows** list. You find **TV Shows** in your admin sidebar. The episodes list, **TV Episodes**, is in the same menu. ## The TV shows list Besides the title and the date, the list has its own columns: | Column | What it shows | |---|---| | **Ratings** | The rating of your visitors and its number of votes | | **View count** | How many times the TV show was viewed | | **Badges** | The quality and language badges | | **Seasons** | The episodes of the TV show: a button to import them, and their state in the Automatic episodes queue | | **Meta Updater** | An **Update** button that refreshes the TV show from TMDb and IMDb right away | | **Featured Content** | **Add** or **Remove** the TV show from your featured content | **Quick import**, next to the add button at the top of the list, opens a field where you paste a TMDb or IMDb link or ID, for example `https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/1399` or `tt0944947`. Dbmovies imports the TV show and opens it in the editor. ### Quick Edit Hover a TV show in the list and click **Quick Edit** to change it without opening the editor. Besides the WordPress fields, such as the title, the slug, the date and the status, you can change: - its badges, in **Quality** and **Language**, which open with its current badges. The options come from your lists in [Custom badges](https://doothemes.com/docs/dbmovies/settings/custom-badges#quick-edit); - its **Genres**, **Releases** and **Countries**, and its **Tags**. The cast and crew are not in Quick Edit: edit them in the **Persons** field of the editor, so the credits and the person pages stay in sync. To add genres, release years, countries or tags to several TV shows at once, select them and choose **Edit** in **Bulk actions**. Badges are changed one TV show at a time. ![Quick Edit of a TV show in the list, with the Quality and Language selectors and the Genres, Releases and Countries lists](https://cdn.wupdater.com/dbmovies/docs/53102c912991e5fe.webp) ### The Seasons column The button of the **Seasons** column says **Import** while the TV show has no imported seasons, and **Imported (N)** once N seasons were imported. Click it to open the seasons manager (see [Import episodes by hand](#import-episodes-by-hand)). Below the button, a line shows the state of the TV show in the Automatic episodes queue: - **Episodes queued**: it is waiting for its turn. - **Importing episodes · S2**: its episodes are being created, here season 2. - **Episodes failed**: something went wrong. Hover over it to see the error. - **Skipped · 240 episodes**: it has more episodes than the limit you set, so the queue left it out. You can still import its episodes with the button. When the queue finishes a TV show, the line disappears. ![V Shows list with the Seasons column, showing a TV show with Imported (5), one with Episodes queued and one with Importing episodes · S2](https://cdn.wupdater.com/dbmovies/docs/f299341d0dfab9c7.webp) ## Permalinks Every TV show and every episode has its own address. You choose the words in **Settings › Permalinks**, in the **Dbmovies: Post Type** section: - **Type: TVShows**, by default `tvshows`. - **Type: Episodes**, by default `episodes`. With the default values, the addresses look like this: ```permalink https://your-website.com/tvshows/ahsoka/ https://your-website.com/episodes/ahsoka-season-1-episode-1/ ``` The episode name in the address follows the title pattern of your import settings. See [Titles and content](https://doothemes.com/docs/dbmovies/settings/titles-and-content). Dbmovies also adds addresses for a season or an episode inside the TV show. Your theme can use them to open the TV show at that season or episode: ```permalink https://your-website.com/tvshows/ahsoka/season1/ https://your-website.com/tvshows/ahsoka/season1/episode1/ ``` If you leave a field empty, Dbmovies uses the default. Dbmovies refreshes your site addresses on its own when you save. :::info Changing a word changes the address of every TV show or episode you already published. Choose them before you open your site. ::: ## Editing a TV show The TV show editor has the standard WordPress fields and two Dbmovies boxes: **Metadata** and **Advanced**. TV shows have no **Sources** box: the links go in each episode. ### Standard WordPress fields - **Title**: the name of the series on your site. - **Editor**: the synopsis or description. - **Featured image**: the poster. - **Comments**: turn comments on or off for this TV show. - **Author**: the user who published it. Episodes created by the Automatic episodes queue take the same author. ### Classifications TV shows use the same classifications as movies, so your catalog stays consistent: **Genres**, **Releases** (the first air year), **Countries**, **Persons** (creators and cast) and **Tags**. ### Metadata The **Metadata** box holds the details of the series, in tabs: - **Main data**: **Status**, series name, original name, tagline, poster path, first and last air dates, runtime, and the number of seasons and episodes. - **Identifiers**: the TMDb ID, the IMDb ID and the YouTube ID of the trailer. - **External Metric**: the age rating (**Rated**, for example TV-14 or TV-MA), and the rating and votes of TMDb and IMDb. - **Persons**: the creators and the cast, with the character each actor plays. When you import a TV show, the cast is the main cast of all its seasons, ordered by the number of episodes each actor appears in. - **Images**: the main logo and backdrop, plus more logos and backdrops. - **Seasons**: the list of seasons, explained below. The **Status** can be **Returning Series**, **Planned**, **In Production**, **Ended**, **Canceled**, **Pilot** or **Unknown status**, so your site can show whether a series is still on the air. ### Advanced The **Advanced** box works as in [movies](https://doothemes.com/docs/dbmovies/post-types/movies#advanced): badges, featured content, adult content, collections and platforms. On a TV show, the **Auto-Embed** switch leaves out the TV show and all its episodes. ## How seasons and episodes fit together A series has three levels: the TV show, its seasons and its episodes. ### Seasons live inside the TV show The seasons are part of the TV show record. In the **Seasons** tab of the Metadata box, each season has: - **Season Name** - **Poster Path** - **Overview**: a short summary of the season. - **Season Number**: it sets the order of the seasons. - **Episodes count**: how many episodes the season has. - **Air Date**: when the season started. When you import a TV show from TMDb, this list is filled in for you. To add a season by hand, click **New season** below the list. ![The Seasons tab of a TV show, with two or three seasons listed](https://cdn.wupdater.com/dbmovies/docs/299b0d5928dfd656.webp) ### Episodes are linked to the TV show Episodes are separate content. In the **Main data** tab of an episode: - **TV Show**: the series the episode belongs to. Start typing its name and choose it from the list. - **Season Number** and **Episode Number**: its place in the series. With these three fields, the episode is connected and ordered inside its TV show. Each episode also has a TMDb ID, a quality badge, its name, air date, runtime, images and links. See [Episodes](https://doothemes.com/docs/dbmovies/post-types/episodes). ## Importing the episodes You can bring in the episodes of a TV show in two ways. ### Automatic episodes With **Automatic episodes** on, every TV show you import joins a queue, and its aired episodes are created in the background, one season at a time. You do not need to open anything: you import the TV show and the episodes arrive on their own. - **Turn it on** in **Dbmovies › Settings › Data Importer › Automatic episodes**. There you also choose the season order, the latest seasons only, and a limit of episodes per TV show. - **Follow it** in the importer: open the menu next to **Meta updater** and choose **Automatic episodes**. The panel shows the TV shows in the queue, the season in progress and how many episodes were created, and refreshes on its own. - **Add your existing TV shows** to the queue with **Queue TV shows with missing episodes**, in the same panel. The queue only creates episodes. Episodes that already exist are skipped and not changed, and episodes that have not aired yet are not created. It uses one TMDb request per season, and it needs your scheduled tasks to run: see [Cron Jobs](https://doothemes.com/docs/dbmovies/tools/cron-jobs). ![The Automatic episodes panel in the importer, with the counters and the list of TV shows in the queue](https://cdn.wupdater.com/dbmovies/docs/c7095082b6ed817c.webp) ### Import episodes by hand Click the button of the **Seasons** column in the TV shows list to open the seasons manager. It lists the seasons of the TV show from TMDb: - Import the episodes of one season at a time. - Or click **Start bulk import** to import every season in a row. Here, an episode that already exists is updated with the data from TMDb instead of being created again. ![The seasons manager of a TV show, with its seasons listed and the Start bulk import button](https://cdn.wupdater.com/dbmovies/docs/25e2748d9537f172.webp) ### What Dbmovies does with each episode Either way, Dbmovies: - links every episode to its TV show; - sets its season and episode numbers; - builds its title and address from the pattern in your [Titles and content](https://doothemes.com/docs/dbmovies/settings/titles-and-content) settings, so all your episodes follow the same style; - never creates the same episode twice. ## Keeping a TV show up to date - **One TV show**: click **Update** in the **Meta Updater** column of the list. - **Your whole catalog**: turn on the automatic [Meta Updater](https://doothemes.com/docs/dbmovies/tools/metaupdater). - **New episodes of a series on the air**: add it to the Automatic episodes queue again with **Queue TV shows with missing episodes**, or import its latest season from the seasons manager.