It doesn't matter. We use the air date of the first episode.

Thanks for the fast answer Banana. However the pilot is the first episode - it is an hour long proper show and it starts the series. Maybe it should be set to episode 00 under season 1 then if the system is hard coded to use the first episode date. But the series really started with the pilot in 2010. You can check all other sources on the internet.

The Brit's always do TV shows differently. ;-)

Thanks again,

Sorry, I meant episode 1x01!

The pilot only "counts" if the original network treats it as the first (1x01) episode of the series. And in this case, it does not: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01d8jmz/episodes/guide

Okay that's clear. Then it stays under "special" series, I can agree with that even though IMDB considers it part of Season 1. At least TMDB matches TVDB on this point. (Also I noticed you cleaned up the stray pilot episode entries - cool! :D Thanks!)

Where I still disagree pretty strongly is in setting thte year for the show as 2012. Here, everyone else acknowledges the pilot air date as being the start of the show in 2010. https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2303367/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1 https://www.thetvdb.com/series/dirk-gently https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dirk_Gently_(TV_series) and even your link... https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01d8jmz/episodes/guide

The pilot isn't a different production like the Battlestar Galactica 2003 Miniseries a year prior to the main 2004 series. Is it really a set in stone policy to stick to the first season's s01e01 air date on this site? Seems needlessly contrarian to me, but I guess my opinion doesn't matter if there's some mega strict rule about this...

Thanks again for all your time, sorry to bother!

All the best,

We do not have a field to override the original year of release, and I honestly do not think we should have one. The pilot first aired as a one-off. Technically, 1x01 is the start of the series.