Season Numbering of "Z Cars" (1962-1978) - not in agreement with other sources such as TheTVDB and Wikipedia

@Fran​ Would this be considered “official”?

https://www.newspapers.com/article/liverpool-daily-post-merseyside-ed-z/151718127/

https://www.newspapers.com/article/evening-post-z-cars-11972/151718197/

Many episodes of BBC programming are missing, and the official BBC website hosts a “Treasure Hunt” section listing those series and episodes as part of an appeal for the general public to come forward should they possess a copy. Z Cars is listed, along with series numbers and all the episodes verified as archived or missing.

Link to the “treasure hunt” BBC page:

http://bbc.adactio.com/cult/treasurehunt/index.shtml

Link to Z Cars BBC Treasure Hunt page:

http://bbc.adactio.com/cult/treasurehunt/missing/zcars.shtml

@Col_Needham​ please understand, I have no stake in this issue. Out of curiosity, I wondered exactly what would constitute an “official source” and asked the question in hope of helping the OP. I agree that this case is a complex one, and appreciate the desire to avoid unnecessary, time-consuming corrections.

The problem is that Z Cars began as a traditional series with limited seasonal episodes, but later changed its format. At the end of Z Cars’ 1965 series, the BBC did not commission another one for 1966. Instead, it commissioned a twice-weekly serial entitled “United!”. When that series failed to attract enough viewers, the BBC canceled it and commissioned another series of Z Cars, which like United!, would run twice weekly year round as a serial drama. Z Cars were broadcast in this manner until 1972. At that point the series reverted back to the original, traditional format of episodic drama, one episode per week for a limited period with significant breaks in broadcast between series.

Again, I have no opinion one way or the other regarding the actions that should be taken, but I do hope I’ve somewhat clarified the reason for this very unusual situation.

Update:  I see that my original links were not included in the message to Fran.  I edited the post and will add here, too, but the gist is that it does appear that the 7th series was broken into two separate series as these two newspaper listings -and there are more- details the 11 Sept 1972 as a “new series” of Z Cars.

https://www.newspapers.com/article/evening-post-z-cars-11972/151718197/

https://www.newspapers.com/article/daily-post-merseyside-ed-z-cars-119/151718061/

@Col_Needham​ Agreed. It's not an easy one!

I wonder whether one solution is to follow the trend of the various other sources - some more official than others - so episode a.b in IMDB is the same season/episode as other sources use for that episode. The difficulty is in determining who has copied from whom in the past - there is always the possibility of "the whole world is wrong except me" which may even be true ;-)

Certainly I'd caution against any hasty change. At least the current numbering *almost* matches other listings such as Wikipedia, TheTVDB and http://bbc.adactio.com/cult/treasurehunt/missing/zcars.shtml: at least all the season boundaries are preserved (even if some seasons differ by one number between one site's listings and other) and only the troublesome Season 7 is split.

The ultimate source would be something from BBC (prod co and distributor) or at least episode numbers in Radio Times (the genome web site) because at the time RT was the "official" BBC listings magazine. But a quick glance at the episodes either side of the split between IMDB's S7 and S8 doesn't show any series/episode numbers.

We need a BBC archivist and or someone who has access to call sheets or other production documentation that may list intended season/episode numbers. Maybe we'll find unicorns and Lord Lucan in the same place ;-)

I raised the subject to see if anyone knew of any more official sources. At present it is difficult to determine which is the primary source and which (including IMDB) are secondary sources which may or may not have copied from the primary source.



If you think this is a problem, consider the ongoing issue of episodes of Casualty (1986) which seem to have two season-numbering schemes: the one that IMDB and many listings sites use, and the one that BBC sources (eg iPlayer) use which uses season *names* (not numbers) and merges seasons across season-number boundaries in the IMDB/listing-site scheme. Absolute nightmare. IMDB is right to stick with the current numbers scheme, maybe with trivia entries to say "start of season called XYZ" and "end of season called XYZ". BBC even *retrospectively* altered the numbering for episodes that had been broadcast a year or so previously. What a mess ;-)