TV shows, other than ones that have new episodes year-round (e.g. news, soaps), typically group episodes in batches — most often per year, although not necessarily calendar years, and sometimes there will be multiple batches in a single year.

The term I am familiar with for these batches is "season", and the term to refer to the entire set of episodes that have ever been made of the show is "series". For example, there are 24 episodes of the TV show *24* each season, but there are 192 episodes in the entire series.

I've been told that in the UK the correct (perhaps "most commonly used"?) term for a batch of episodes is "series".

Is "series" indeed the correct1 term in the UK?

If it is the term for a batch, what is the UK term for the entire set of episodes? (I.e. what I would call a "series".)

Finally, assuming that a "season" is a "series" in the UK, if I am referring to a UK TV show, is it more correct (e.g. if I was writing academically) to refer to a "season" as a "series", even if the rest of the writing does not use UK English?

1 "correct": most likely to be understood correctly by a UK native.