@vanddekamp said:

1) Even tough the second season finale was exhibited as a two hour event back in 2006, ABC itself didn't consider 2x23 to be a single super-sized episode, but two back-to-back episodes (2x23 and 2x24). As you can see from the press release below from the original exhibition, ABC listed and numbered it as two different episodes [Episode Title: (#223/224) "Remember, Parts 1 & 2"], instead of a single 2 hour episode.

This is not the case on the official website at the time of the broadcast.

As you can see on this ABC archived page of the day of the original broadcast, was presented as a single episode being "the two-hour Second-Season finale of Desperate Housewives." there are no mention of parts on this page.

It is also listed as one single element in the ABC TV schedule at the bottom of this archived page from the same day. Again, no mention of parts here.

And if you look at the bottom of this archived page from 2 days later, you will see that the last broadcasted episode was the episode 23 "Remember".

2) If season 2 didn't have a 24th episode, the whole episode count of the series would be affected. Therefore, the 100th episode would be 5x14 (Mama Spent Money When She Had None). But this is not the case, since 5x13 (The Best Thing That Could Have Happened) is considered to be the 100th episode of the series by ABC, the creator Marc Cherry and the cast & crew. A fact that was heavily publicized by the press at the time.

This numbering is based on the way the episodes were listed at that time, not on the way they were originally broadcasted.

By the way, even if 2x23 was really a single 2 hour episode, the runtime of the episode is wrong here on TMDb, since is marked as a 44m episode instead of 88m.

The duration of episode 23, which was wrongly changed by a French user last month, has been fixed and locked.

Hi, superboy97. Thank you for answering. I'm sorry if I'm being insistent, but I'm having a hard time wrapping my head around this – since the finales of Seasons 4, 5, 7 and 8 were all a two-hour event. And all of them are presented here as two episodes.

I'll be taking the season 7 finale as an example. As you can see in this promo and in this press release, it was advertised as a two-hour season finale. And in this archived page from the ABC's schedule from the original broadcast and in this TV Tango listing, it was being presented as a "single episode". The same applies to the episode guide of the show. It was listed as one episode, no mention of a 7x23. It's very similar to how the second season finale were presented and listed by ABC on its official website. Even tough in the official release to the press, ABC numbered it as 7x22 and 7x23, the same way that happened to episodes 2x23 and 2x24, as I've pointed before.

Meanwhile in TMDb, it is being listed as two separate episodes (7x22 and 7x23), as all other double season finales, including the series finale. All except the season two finale.

Since I'm not from USA, I can't speak for how the episodes were really broadcasted. But I've watched the series finale live on ABC, and we didn't even get a commercial break when it switched from one episode to another. There was no credits or anything between the two (It didn't even have a closing narration!). Which, in my opinion, would make it one episode, and not two. So I believe that it was similar to how the others finales were exhibited. And the two-hour series finale is also being presented here as two separate episodes.

Going even further, Lost's second season also had a "two-hour season finale" in the same week of Desperate Housewives. ABC also didn't mention "Parts 1 & 2" on its website, and there was no episode 24 on the recap page. The only mention of "Parts 1 & 2" I could find was on the press release. And yet it's two episodes on TMDb.

So my point is: why only Desperate Housewives' second season finale is being presented different from the rest? The only difference I can see between that and the Season 7 finale is that ABC used two titles separated by a slash or a semicolon ("And Lots of Security…/Come on Over for Dinner"). So if ABC called both episodes "And Lots of Security...", it would be considered a single episode?

But if that's the reasoning, why Lost is considered two? The only reason I could've think was that ABC divided it as a two one-hour blocks on that schedule, while the Desperate Housewives one was a two-hour block (which brings me back to how the others double finales were blocked...). Is that it?

Sorry for the long message and all this questions. I understand that TMDb utilizes the rule of how the episode was originally broadcasted. But I'm struggling to see why some are considered two episodes, and some don't. It's a bit confusing for me. Maybe it’s a cultural thing? I don’t know. The finale was distributed as two episodes in my country. And it is also two episodes on my DVD box set (which states that the second season has 24 episodes) and on Disney Plus (where I’ve rewatched last year).

This numbering is based on the way the episodes were listed at that time, not on the way they were originally broadcasted.

I don’t know if I understand what do you mean by that. What’s the difference between being listed and broadcasted in this case?

@vanddekamp said:

Hi, superboy97. Thank you for answering. I'm sorry if I'm being insistent, but I'm having a hard time wrapping my head around this – since the finales of Seasons 4, 5, 7 and 8 were all a two-hour event. And all of them are presented here as two episodes.

I'll be taking the season 7 finale as an example. As you can see in this promo and in this press release, it was advertised as a two-hour season finale. And in this archived page from the ABC's schedule from the original broadcast and in this TV Tango listing, it was being presented as a "single episode". The same applies to the episode guide of the show. It was listed as one episode, no mention of a 7x23. It's very similar to how the second season finale were presented and listed by ABC on its official website. Even tough in the official release to the press, ABC numbered it as 7x22 and 7x23, the same way that happened to episodes 2x23 and 2x24, as I've pointed before.

Meanwhile in TMDb, it is being listed as two separate episodes (7x22 and 7x23), as all other double season finales, including the series finale. All except the season two finale.

It seems that our listing of season 7 (at least) will have to be fixed. But this will have to wait a few weeks as I don't have the time to do it for the moment.

Going even further, Lost's second season also had a "two-hour season finale" in the same week of Desperate Housewives. ABC also didn't mention "Parts 1 & 2" on its website, and there was no episode 24 on the recap page. The only mention of "Parts 1 & 2" I could find was on the press release. And yet it's two episodes on TMDb.

If you want to talk about another series, you will have to file a content report on that series.

So my point is: why only Desperate Housewives' second season finale is being presented different from the rest? The only difference I can see between that and the Season 7 finale is that ABC used two titles separated by a slash or a semicolon ("And Lots of Security…/Come on Over for Dinner"). So if ABC called both episodes "And Lots of Security...", it would be considered a single episode?

The difference between season 2 and season 7 is that season 2 has been checked due to previous content reports, and that nobody has created reports about season 7 until now.

All our content is entered by users. We don't have the time to verify it at the time it is created and we can only apply corrections when the content is reported to us or when we are interested in a specific series.

This numbering is based on the way the episodes were listed at that time, not on the way they were originally broadcasted.

I don’t know if I understand what do you mean by that. What’s the difference between being listed and broadcasted in this case?

The difference in this sentence is between "at that time" which refer to the time they were talking about the 100th episode and "originally" which refer to the time of the original broadcast.

Oh, no. I’m so sorry. I didn’t want to cause any problems or to criticize anyone’s work or to add even more work to you. I didn’t know that the content were entered by users. Like I said, I’m new here and don’t know how things really work. At first, I was just trying to make a plea for the separation of 2x23 and 2x24, since I’ve thought the reason for this was just a deleted note on Wikipedia. Because I’ve always seen them as two episodes, and I’ve thought that I had proof that ABC did too. And then, since you’ve pointed that archived pages, I was just comparing with other episodes and shows to better understand what was the difference between both and the reason for the merger. I don’t want to complain about other shows or episodes. It’s kind of hard for me to express myself in English, since it’s not my first language. So maybe I’ve made some confusing points, and I’m sorry about that. I was NOT complaining about the way the other finales were added. I was just really trying to understand the motives and such, so I can learn more about it, since I’m passionate about this kind of behind the scenes stuff. And since you seemed a person with knowledge on the subject, I was trying to pick your brain to learn a little bit, but instead I’ve made a mess. Please, don’t change things because of my mistake. I’m really sorry about the confusion ☹️

Don't worry. I will not change things because of you.

But I will have to change it because (at least for season 7) it appears that our listing is not correct as per the archives of the official pages.