Five years ago, when the world was much different still, we chose our favorite tv-series. Now it's time to do so again. Cause next to movies, many of us also like to watch series.
Mini-series are ineligible for this poll!
A mini-series is 16 episodes or less, not multiple seasons, and not planned to be longer but canceled, and is intended as a single unified work and not episodic.
To be clear while this poll is called tv-series, series released directly to streaming-services are eligible. Cause streaming-services our widely understood as "tv".
DEALINE = 31 DECEMBER 2020
You can already start submitting list, but be aware what's admissible might change still.
Lists can be any length.
Each nominee can only be named once (of course)
Lists can be ranked or unranked or partially-ranked. In a partially-ranked list, the top X films are ranked and everything after that point is unranked. When not specified I will consider a list as ranked.
Half-life last time was 20 and list length was 100, unless there are solid reasons to deviate from they will be the same this time. Participant = 45
Please check if your list is stated, ordered and linked correctly. And is set to public. For iCM lists you can also set it to "Friends" and befriend me.
Last edited by Lonewolf2003 on January 6th, 2021, 1:47 pm, edited 10 times in total.
I think the most important issue is: What would be most useful to the people who are going to use the list? I think most people who are looking for TV shows to watch would be interested in both mini-series and longer series. It's convenient to have them all in one place, rather than having to look at 2 different lists. For example, suppose my goal is to watch the top 100 series (including both long and short). I won't know how many of each to watch, unless they're both in the same list. If people want to know which longer series made the list, you can always post a filtered version later.
If we include mini-series, not only would it be consistent with our previous poll, but it would be consistent with every other TV list (most of them include mini-series).
Lastly, I think it'll look strange if we have a TV list that includes short series like Firefly and Fawlty Towers, but excludes Dekalog and Berlin Alexanderplatz.
We include mini-series in every poll under the argument that they're more like film than TV. Seems weird to say now that they're more like TV, no? People can survive without Lynch, Kieslowski and Fassbinder at the top of a list for once, I'm sure.
It feels weird to not include mini-series. Both the tv-series poll and the mini-series poll are polls that don't occur on icm that often. If they were yearly annual polls then I would feel more fine otherwise to make an exclusion, but these polls rarely occur on this forum. Definitely weird when the definition used to describe mini-series include tv shows that can have up to 16 episodes, and 16 episodes is basically a full one season in multiple countries and not mini at all. If the definition was something like 4 or 6 or possibly even 8 or 10 episodes is a mini-series, then I would be more fine with the exclusion, but 16 episodes is a lot.
Teproc wrote: ↑December 5th, 2020, 6:39 pm
We include mini-series in every poll under the argument that they're more like film than TV. Seems weird to say now that they're more like TV, no?
+1
Teproc wrote: ↑December 5th, 2020, 6:39 pm
People can survive without Lynch, Kieslowski [...] I'm sure.
When did we do the miniseries poll? If it was in the past two years, then I feel like the TV series poll should not include them. I remember that we also had a long discussion in order to come up with a definition that differentiates TV series from miniseries. That seems like a good standard that we should use again.
blocho wrote: ↑December 5th, 2020, 7:39 pm
When did we do the miniseries poll? If it was in the past two years, then I feel like the TV series poll should not include them. I remember that we also had a long discussion in order to come up with a definition that differentiates TV series from miniseries. That seems like a good standard that we should use again.
We had the mini-series poll in February 2020 (results posted in early March).
One is a subset of the other. Excluding mini-series from a TV list is like excluding martial arts from an action list.
I think the mini-series poll was useful, because a lot of people (especially on this forum) are more interested in shorter series than longer series. I don't think the reverse is true. I think most TV fans watch both longer and shorter series.
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@Lonewolf: I'm not sure if you want to make a poll, but if you do, I guess we have 4 options:
Allow series with >16 episodes
Allow series with >16 episodes + shorter series that were ineligible for the mini-series poll (multiple seasons, or planned to be longer but cancelled)
Allow series with >4 (or 6?) episodes
Allow series with at least 2 episodes
I actually agree that mini-series are a subset of TV series... but I think that argument should very clearly lead them to being ineligible for film polls. Which is quite obviously not how this forum in general feels about it, so I'm quite confused about the notion that they should also be included here.
Teproc wrote: ↑December 5th, 2020, 10:12 pm
I actually agree that mini-series are a subset of TV series... but I think that argument should very clearly lead them to being ineligible for film polls. Which is quite obviously not how this forum in general feels about it, so I'm quite confused about the notion that they should also be included here.
I think one of the reasons why we include them in film polls is because that's what other lists do (e.g. S&S, TSPDT, 1001 MYMSBYD, NYT1000).
This is going to be an interesting poll. Rarely do I see people rank TV series, so I would look forward to see the result. As for mini-series, we just did one not long ago. Mini-series are just one long movie, so I would agree not to include so we will have a pure TV series list. Though it might be obvious in most case, I think it might help to define a TV series like defining a mini-series to distinguish between the two, or that they could have overlap like a 1 season series that could have been renewed but didn't.
Here's my ranked list from IMDb. It's a little wonky so hopefully I can get to it and fix it up a little before the deadline. And before anyone asks, after having 6 kids I do have a lot of appreciation for children's shows as I spent a lot of time watching them. https://www.imdb.com/list/ls066624488/
mjf314 wrote: ↑December 5th, 2020, 8:54 pm
@Lonewolf: I'm not sure if you want to make a poll, but if you do, I guess we have 4 options:
Allow series with >16 episodes
Allow series with >16 episodes + shorter series that were ineligible for the mini-series poll (multiple seasons, or planned to be longer but cancelled)
Allow series with >4 (or 6?) episodes
Allow series with at least 2 episodes
I will let the discussion go on for today at least to see where it leads to. If I do a poll it will probably be with three options:
Don’t allow mini-series
Allow mini-series with given definition
Allow mini-series with given definition but lower episode amount ( not sure yet what that amount should be, I was thinking 4,6 or 8.)
shorter series that were ineligible for the mini-series poll (multiple seasons, or planned to be longer but cancelled) are already eligible for this poll.
Teproc wrote: ↑December 5th, 2020, 10:12 pm
I actually agree that mini-series are a subset of TV series... but I think that argument should very clearly lead them to being ineligible for film polls. Which is quite obviously not how this forum in general feels about it, so I'm quite confused about the notion that they should also be included here.
I agree and would also be for them to be ineligible for film polls.
While I understand mjfs argument that people looking for a series list want them included, cause they are a subset. I also understand the opposite argument that people want this list to be purely about tv-series.
Like Cocoa said earlier, some countries have a standard TV show length of 16 or less. It seems strange to me to exclude what some countries consider a standard TV show.
In anime, the standard length of a 1-cour series is 11-13 episodes. Within the anime community, these have always been considered TV shows, and an anime mini-series is typically around 2-6 episodes (they're usually OVAs).
In J-dramas (Japanese live-action), the standard length is 10-12 episodes, and in K-dramas (Korean) it's 16 episodes.
Also, like I said before: If we include mini-series, we can always filter it to make a long-series-only list. The reverse is impossible. We can't combine a mini-series list and a long-series list into a single list, because they won't have the same set of participants.
Teproc wrote: ↑December 5th, 2020, 10:12 pm
I actually agree that mini-series are a subset of TV series... but I think that argument should very clearly lead them to being ineligible for film polls.
Note: I couldn't find The Wire and Fargo in the searchbar (weird). So i just placed something equivalent to solve the issue, and its clear that its these 2 series placed in their respective rank.
Regarding Mini-series i wouldn't care in theory, but my guess is that if they are allowed to exist in the list, we will see the usual suspects at the top (Dekalog, Berlin Alexanderplatz etc). While this says something about the best series from a forum perspective, it will also be heavily biased because many users has seen these compared to regular series because of their official status and shorter runtime. In my eyes it would be like cheating given the nature of the site.
toromash wrote: ↑December 6th, 2020, 9:21 pm
Note: I couldn't find The Wire and Fargo in the searchbar (weird). So i just placed something equivalent to solve the issue, and its clear that its these 2 series placed in their respective rank.
Update it with the tab "by IMDb Movie url(s)". Use the right IMDb-link. If you simply put something equivalent in the spot, your vote won't be counted, because the process is automated by IMDb-urls.
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toromash wrote: ↑December 6th, 2020, 9:21 pm
Note: I couldn't find The Wire and Fargo in the searchbar (weird). So i just placed something equivalent to solve the issue, and its clear that its these 2 series placed in their respective rank.
Update it with the tab "by IMDb Movie url(s)". Use the right IMDb-link. If you simply put something equivalent in the spot, your vote won't be counted, because the process is automated by IMDb-urls.
mjf314 wrote: ↑December 6th, 2020, 6:37 pm
Like Cocoa said earlier, some countries have a standard TV show length of 16 or less. It seems strange to me to exclude what some countries consider a standard TV show.
In anime, the standard length of a 1-cour series is 11-13 episodes. Within the anime community, these have always been considered TV shows, and an anime mini-series is typically around 2-6 episodes (they're usually OVAs).
In J-dramas (Japanese live-action), the standard length is 10-12 episodes, and in K-dramas (Korean) it's 16 episodes.
Also, like I said before: If we include mini-series, we can always filter it to make a long-series-only list. The reverse is impossible. We can't combine a mini-series list and a long-series list into a single list, because they won't have the same set of participants.
You make a good argument. Maybe the definition in the OP is too American centered, where the difference between mini and regular tv-series is much more about intent (a mini-series is intended single unified work and written completely in advance) than episode amount. In other countries and anime where single season tv-series are more common this distinction might be more difficult to make
zzzorf wrote: ↑December 6th, 2020, 9:41 am
Here's my ranked list from IMDb. It's a little wonky so hopefully I can get to it and fix it up a little before the deadline. And before anyone asks, after having 6 kids I do have a lot of appreciation for children's shows as I spent a lot of time watching them. https://www.imdb.com/list/ls066624488/
Ayy nice, my dad was an editor on both Once Upon a Time and The 100.
If we're defining mini-series as 16 episodes or less, I'm still including the new Twin Peaks, but I'll keep out Berlin Alexanderplatz, World on a Wire, and Scenes from a Marriage (the former two of which I saw theatrically anyway, and can't consider tv experiences in any way).
@Lonewolf: Whatever your decision is regarding mini-series, I hope you make it soon, because I think it's important that everyone follows the same rules.
mjf314 wrote: ↑December 7th, 2020, 5:16 am
@Lonewolf: Whatever your decision is regarding mini-series, I hope you make it soon, because I think it's important that everyone follows the same rules.
I added a poll.
Poll will run for a week, but if the results are clearer soon we can reach a conclusion before that maybe.
For people already making a list already, I suggest to include mini-series for now, cause it's probably easier to delete them later from your list than to add and rank them afterwards.
Lonewolf2003 wrote: ↑December 5th, 2020, 1:46 pm
Half-life last time was 20 and list length was 100, unless there are solid reasons to deviate from they will be the same this time.
20 seems a little bit low to me, but maybe look at the results before you make the decision, and see what half-life produces the best results.
Lonewolf2003 wrote: ↑December 5th, 2020, 1:46 pm
Half-life last time was 20 and list length was 100, unless there are solid reasons to deviate from they will be the same this time.
20 seems a little bit low to me, but maybe look at the results before you make the decision, and see what half-life produces the best results.
Of course, I will look at average list size to see if 20 is still a good half life to use
I voted for no mini-series to be included...personally I see mini-series, or limited series, as more distinct from TV shows than ever. Telling a self-contained story makes these much more of a film than a tv show. So I excluded all mini-series from my list, even if I may have included them a couple years ago.
I wouldn't be opposed to a poll where we rank mini-series alongside self-contained seasons of tv shows.
