@aaron451 said:

Why can't I put the proper episode title in these episodes? Numbers are useless.

is someone going to unlock these so we can put the proper names in the titles?

Why are these still locked?

I don't know, crazy!

I reported this back in May. Apparently still no response.

I just unlocked them and fixed the titles.

I feel like it’s worth mentioning that the titles as released by HBO should include the air date. I would add them but I feel like this is the kind of thing that would start a back and forth edit war.

@linetrimmer said:

I feel like it’s worth mentioning that the titles as released by HBO should include the air date. I would add them but I feel like this is the kind of thing that would start a back and forth edit war.

That's what the First Air Date field is for. I understand the concept of following the original sources, but it shouldn't be applied blindly and some common sense should be used as well.

@SindarS said:

it shouldn't be applied blindly

It isn’t blindly. HBO lists the episodes with the air date as a part of the title, and they have been doing this since the season began. Episode titles must be entered as the original title.

In any case, I’ll leave this discussion here for a moderator to decide. I was just waiting to bring this up when a moderator was actively watching this show since I knew this would be contentious.

@linetrimmer said:

It isn’t blindly. HBO lists the episodes with the air date as a part of the title, and they have been doing this since the season began. Episode titles must be entered as the original title.

Yes, cause they don't have a separate field for displaying the air date of the episode. Luckily, TMDb does have such a field, hence this information should be indicated there. Copying the title blindly as it is shown on HBO site would mean putting "1. February 20, 2022: Critical Race Theory" in the title field, without taking into account what it represents.
Meaning, "Episode #" . "Air Date" : "Episode Title".
To that point, on their official show channel on Youtube they don't indicate air date as a part of the title, hence they recognize that it's not part of the title itself.

@SindarS said:

Copying the title blindly as it is shown on HBO site would mean putting "1. February 20, 2022: Critical Race Theory" in the title field, without taking into account what it represents.
Meaning, "Episode #" . "Air Date" : "Episode Title".

No, "1. February 20, 2022: Critical Race Theory" is not the title used by HBO. The "1. " is a part of their season list view. The episode title for all HBO shows is what is displayed at the top of the episode’s page.

To that point, on their official show channel on Youtube they don't indicate air date as a part of the title, hence they recognize that it's not part of the title itself.

YouTube is not the official broadcaster of this show, so the title used by the YouTube channel is not relevant.

You can also see the recent discussions on the Saturday Night Live page for another example of this exact situation, such as this discussion.

Again, it's simply overlooking what the information represents before and after the ":" .
To that point, when publishing episodes on their official show channel on Youtube they don't indicate air date as part of the title, hence showing that they recognize that it's not part of the title itself.