I'm not actually a Tivo user anymore. I use mythTV as my DVR. However, both TiVo and Schedules Direct (mythtv's source for guide data) get their data from Tribune, and thus they are the same, so that's why I monitor this forum.
I contacted Schedules Direct. In the past, they've had pretty good luck getting Tribune to fix incorrect data, so I thought I'd take a shot at getting this fixed. I sent them the information about this, including a link to Discovery's website where they list these shows as being episodes of Curiosity. They passed along the info to Tribune. I just got a response back from Schedules Direct today:
Discovery told Tribune that the listing (where each show is individual,
as opposed to being episodes of "Curiosity") is correct. I've asked
Tribune to try to get Discovery to change their mind.
That's just shocking...Discovery clearly acknowledges the episodes are part of Curiosity, but refuses to acknowledge the guide data is wrong.
Anyway, since you said "TiVo or Tribune refuse to fix this series", I thought you might be interested to know it's neither of their fault. The channels are (rightfully so) the authority on their own programming. If they behave stupidly, I guess there's nothing much we can do about it.
I suppose the only options at this point are to keep an eye on it and schedule them manually, or to schedule it a different way. I don't know what options are available to you in Tivo these days...just a timeslot recording perhaps (and then you'll have to deal with the duplicates)? With mythtv, I've got a bit more flexibility, so I'll probably setup a custom rule to tell it to record within any of the times it typically airs, and only if it's in the "special" category (which is how the episodes currently appear), and it will handle identifying if it's an episode it already recorded.
