Episode Alert

I'm occasionally looking to test new TV episode tracking sites and software. This seems to be a very recent addition to the bunch, and information about who did it and where it comes from is practically non-existent. Some more information and openness would be nice, especially in terms of being able to judge how long-lived it might be. The site uses TheTVDB.com as its data source. Registration is quick and easy, you only need an e-mail address and a password. Apparently, no verification is required.

Most obviously, the site focuses on a minimalist and clean interface. I have to say that I really like it. Despite offering only the most basic features, what's there seems to be well thought out, and the usability is excellent. Each show's page shows a picture and its main description, with episodes categorised in season tabs and shown only by title and air date. You can flip open the episode descriptions if you want. You can mark single episode or entire seasons as seen, or, particularly handy, mark that you've seen all episodes up until a certain one. You can add shows to your followed list so you've got an overview of unseen episodes. Very nice, too, is the ability to archive shows you've completed or stopped watching, so they won't clutter up your overview without removing your episodes watched information.

Your profile also offers a Guide view where you can get a look at recently aired episodes, as well as a calendar that shows you which future episodes are going to air on which day. Pretty basic and essential functionality for a site like this – my only complaint is that the calendar view is currently much too zoomed-in. You can only see three days at a time, which makes it hard to get an overview. It would be nice to have an option to zoom out to week and month views.

There are only very basic statistics and no frills so far, but I'm curious to see where (and if) the site will continue to develop. It's worth having a look at if you're interested in an episode tracker that doesn't get in your way. A word of warning, though: so far, there is no ability to export your information in any way, so you're out of luck if the site should suddenly close (remember the murky ownership – all you get is a Gmail address and a Facebook page).