Sometimes you have shows (like Frasier) that lists all the guest actors and their character names, but most shows (like Criminal Minds or CSI: NY) list them after the opening credits w/o names. I know there are sources out there, but even those are incomplete.

Is there one (allowed) source that people found useful? Obviously the best is the episode itself, but some of us don't have the time to watch the entire episode (and even then, you've got to match the face with a name...).

Yeah, for current series, that might work but older one's are more difficult. I just didn't know if someone has found a suitable site for this kind of thing.

I use TV.com as a starting point then try and find at least one other site to verify the role name.

OK, here's what I do in such cases: I compare the role names from three different sources: tv.com, IMDb and tvrage.com. These sites seem to be the ones that enter the data on their own, whereas all other sites seem to take their infos from one of those three.

Additionally, I search for the role names in the captions (which is the most "official" source IMHO - there are several sites on the Internet where you can download captions for TV series, you then simply have to do a text search). I have seen several cases already where a name was not spelled correctly on either of the sites I mentioned.

In some cases you can also use a site dedicated to a special series, for example for "The Office" Dunderpedia is a wonderful source.

Well, this has cropped up again. I'm working on the cast for True Detective season 2 but have only found one source for character names (IMDb), well one for the supporting players, the main ones I was able to find on HBO's official site. Do I leave off these names or use the one source? Watching the episode that I have completed filling in, I can maybe confirm like 4 or 5 of them (again, those outside of the main cast), the rest no idea.

I checked TV.com, tvrage.com and even used Google search but most of the results seem to be news stories on the casting. I did find a wiki page dedicated to the series but that is incomplete.

Thanks. I think at this point it might be something I'll keep local or I'll copy what I have and then submit ones w/o character names and then reinstate the ones with names that I got via IMDb (I generally don't like them as a source but they're the only ones right now and tend to match what I saw on screen but I can't guarantee it. Strange that a show doesn't have names on sites like TV.com and the like.