A tool for finding Cyclic TV Reference Paradoxes
Cyclic Tv Reference Paradox Finder
Cyclic TV Reference Paradoxes occur when a chain of fictional TV show references form a cycle. Each show’s reality depends on another being fictional, so a cycle of these dependencies is a paradox.
ie.
Here, in the Simpsons’ fictional universe, Rick and Morty exists as a TV show (shown by the reference). However, in the Rick and Morty fictional universe, The Simpsons also exists as a TV show. These two references create a cycle where each depends on the other being fictional in their respective universe, which cannot both be true simultaneously – a paradox!
This project finds these paradoxes through looking through subtitles files of popular TV shows. It is divided into two sections:
Reference Gen Scripts
A set of python scripts to get the subtitles, and eventually output a CSV file of all TV show references found to be displayed in a web app.
| Script | Explanation |
|---|---|
| get_top_tv_show_subtitles.py | Downloads subtitles of the top TV shows listed on The Movie DB. Be sure to set the TMDB_API_KEY environment variable to your API key. |
| index_srts.py | Indexes all subtitle files downloaded by get_top_tv_show_subtitles.py with Woosh. |
| search_subtitles.py | Searches the index generated by index_srts.py for a keyword. |
| gen_output_data.py | Generates a graph of TV show references from the index generated by index_srts.py (and saves it to disk). Outputs a CSV of all references found in the index above as well a CSV of all TV shows used. |
| find_cycles_in_references.py | Runs a DFS on the graph outputted in gen_output_data.py to find cycles in references. |
Web App
A react web app for visualizing the the graph generated by the Reference Gen Scripts. Run with npm run start to test locally.