Spoilers Can we talk about the BBC's problems with Spoilers?

[The Borgified Corpse]

I'm a huge fan of the show but I live in the U.S., don't have cable, and don't have an Amazon streaming account to download individual episodes. As a result, I'm at the mercy of either waiting for the DVDs to come out or else my friends inviting me to watch episodes at their house. For the most part, this set-up totally works. I'm often a few weeks behind but that's OK. But it would help... it really would help... if they didn't start posting videos the day after the original airing that feature massive spoilers IN THE FREAKING THUMBNAIL!

I am, of course, talking about...

Spoiler: Spyfall, Parts 1 & 2

...the return of the Master. Now, the very fact that the Master is back at all should merit some caution. Lots of people would like to go into the episode not expecting it, especially since the episode treats it like a surprise. But not only do they spoil the Master's existence but they also spoil his new identity by showing his face in the video thumbnail! If they had at least held back that information, I would have spent the majority of the episode not realizing that O was the Master.

This isn't the first time that they've spoiled a major surprise like this.

• The Season 2 DVD spoiled the return of the Daleks at the end of "Army of Ghosts" by putting a Dalek on the disc art.
• "Dark Water" did a superb job of gradually dribbling out hints about the return of the Cybermen, which were utterly ruined when we saw Cybermen all over the damn place in the episode promo at the end of "In the Forest of the Night."
• The John Simm Master appeared in a few Season 10 promos. If he hadn't and I hadn't been expecting him, I never would have recognized Mr. Razor underneath all the make-up.

This is even stranger when you consider how tight-lipped the BBC tends to be about other things. They seem to take forever announcing release dates for each new season. And remember back in 2013 when there were rumors about old Troughton episodes having been rediscovered in Nigeria? After several months of the BBC issuing non-denial denials, they finally copped to the fact that they did in fact recover most of the missing episodes of "The Enemy of the World" & "The Web of Fear." They announced it the day before the episodes were available for download, which means that the Restoration Team must have been working on them for months.

Is anyone else as annoyed about this as I am?

 

[Nightowl1701]

The US audience is an afterthought for Auntie Beeb, methinks. As for why they do that with the videos - I dunno. Maybe they're into shaming those in the UK who weren't viewing the episode the night it aired for whatever reason (and hence not contributing to the ratings). "See what you missed out on? You could have watched with the rest of us and been surprised, but NOOOOO, you just had to wait. Well, sucks to be you."

 

[The Wormhole]

The only time I scratched my head about BBC's spoiler policy was back in season 9, Capaldi's second season. BBC tried their damnedest to keep it a secret that Davros was in the premiere to the point the prequel minisodes dance around identifying him directly him by just leaving vague references to "him" in them. This despite the fact that Davros is revealed to be in the episode in the opening scene, just before the opening credits roll.

Then, they release an official plot synopsis for Hell Bent several weeks, possibly a month prior revealing the Doctor is back on Gallifrey, despite the revelation of Gallifrey being the plot twist ending cliffhanger of Heaven Sent.

 

[Awesome Possum]

I just avoid social media and YouTube until I watch it. I’ve been burned too many times.

 

[The Nth Doctor]

Yup, exactly that. In this day and age of the Internet and social, that's the only way to ensure yourself to be spoiler free. There's no point in blaming a person or a company or news organization or a channel or whatever when that's become the standard all around.

 

[rocketdave]

Yup, exactly that. In this day and age of the Internet and social, that's the only way to ensure yourself to be spoiler free. There's no point in blaming a person or a company or news organization or a channel or whatever when that's become the standard all around.

I dunno, I think it's totally valid to get upset about spoilers. Just because it's become so commonplace, it doesn't mean that people who thoughtlessly spoil stuff shouldn't know better. I mean, to me, it's the height of rudeness for people to take out their phones during a movie, and if you were to tell me that that that kind of behavior is just the norm now in theaters, and if I don't like it, I should just stay home, I wouldn't consider that a very satisfying response.

I'm not proud of how reliant I've become on the internet, but just telling someone to basically stay away from the computer in order to keep spoilers at bay is kind of easier said than done. Anyway, it doesn't seem that unreasonable to expect the official Doctor Who YouTube channel of all things to have enough sense and consideration not to put huge spoilers in the titles and thumbnails for their videos right after the episode has aired. And even if you manage to somehow avoid spoilers until the DVDs come out, and the DVD menu and/or artwork feature spoilers, as The Borgified Corpse mentioned, what then?

 

[The Borgified Corpse]

I just avoid social media and YouTube until I watch it.

That's not really practical because it often takes me a week and a half to get caught up. I can't avoid the entire internet that entire time. Besides, while the season is going on, even once I get caught up, there's still the next episode and the one after that. Am I supposed to stay offline completely for the entire 10 weeks!?

I mean, if I'm clicking on videos about Doctor Who and I get spoiled about something that happened in Doctor Who, that's on me. I usually avoid watching videos about TV episodes or movies that I haven't seen yet. But if I'm just opening up YouTube in the morning because I wanna bitch about politics or watch videos about the history of theme parks, and the FIRST THING I SEE AT THE TOP OF MY FEED is a THUMBNAIL with a MAJOR Doctor Who spoiler, that's not cool. It would be so easy to obfuscate a few details in the Name & Thumbnail, like, "Doctor Who: *HE* is back! [Spoilers]." Everyone who already knows would already know what you're talking about and you're not being too obvious to completely spoil those who haven't seen it yet. The video itself could be nothing but top to bottom spoilers but it would give me the choice to not click on it!

There's no point in blaming a person or a company or news organization or a channel or whatever when that's become the standard all around.

It's really not the standard though. I haven't been running into these problems with Marvel or Star Wars and those are far more ubiquitous franchises.

 

[Paul Weaver]

The US has ignored the rest of the world for decades with spoilers. While you were waiting to see if Picard survived the Borg, In the UK we hadn’t even had encounter at Farpoint

DS9 seasons 7 came out months after the US and then only on video tape at (in today’s currency) $20 an episode. It was on sky even later than that.

Short Treks 1 wasn’t out until discovery season 2, and we’ve no idea if we’ll ever see children of mars.

 

[JoeZhang]

The US audience is an afterthought for Auntie Beeb, methinks. As for why they do that with the videos - I dunno. Maybe they're into shaming those in the UK who weren't viewing the episode the night it aired for whatever reason (and hence not contributing to the ratings). "See what you missed out on? You could have watched with the rest of us and been surprised, but NOOOOO, you just had to wait. Well, sucks to be you."

Because they have a legal duty to maximise the value of the license fee and ratings are a part of that - sure the money from selling Doctor Who is *helpful* but its viewing figures overseas aren't *political* like they are here.

 

[The Borgified Corpse]

The US has ignored the rest of the world for decades with spoilers. While you were waiting to see if Picard survived the Borg, In the UK we hadn’t even had encounter at Farpoint

Well, at that point, you're talking about 1990, pre-internet. Where were British fans hearing about American spoilers back then? (Also, I thought that TNG had debuted in the U.K. prior to that. I thought I'd heard stories about TNG being part of the reason why Doctor Who got canceled in 1989 because it looked so shabby when held up next to TNG's production values.)

 

[Paul Weaver]

Where were British fans hearing about American spoilers back then

On usenet, although even after trekbbs launched, I didn't bother spending any time in the voyager/enterprise forums on trekbbs come 2000.

Also, I thought that TNG had debuted in the U.K. prior to that.

September 1990. BOBW Part 1 was April 1992.

 

[The Borgified Corpse]

OK, yes, there was technically some internet in 1990. But it wasn't widely used, so avoiding spoilers by avoiding the internet was a much more practical option back then.

Also, spoiling stuff from 2-3 years ago that just hasn't aired in a foreign country yet is a little bit different from spoiling stuff the very next day. A lot of people are busy and don't have time to watch stuff the instant it airs. I don't think it's unreasonable to be at least a little circumspect about spoilers during the first few weeks, at least, maybe even for the duration of the season.

As it is, I feel like I'm spending my entire life living like Jerry...

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[Haggis and tatties]

^^^Yeah if you watch a lot of todays modern stuff and have the internet then it must be a nightmare to stay away from finding stuff out before you watch it, me personally i don't really watch that much modern stuff now and almost all of my TV watching is from the Uk 60/70 and 80s, boxsets i own or via streaming services, but i do read the reviews to see if anything of interest might bring me back to the show....but so far nothing is tempting me back, so in a way the reviews and spoilers are working in my favour, so i kind of positive for spoilers, but i get your point. lol

 

[The Borgified Corpse]

^^^Yeah if you watch a lot of todays modern stuff and have the internet then it must be a nightmare to stay away from finding stuff out before you watch it, me personally i don't really watch that much modern stuff now and almost all of my TV watching is from the Uk 60/70 and 80s, boxsets i own or via streaming services, but i do read the reviews to see if anything of interest might bring me back to the show....but so far nothing is tempting me back, so in a way the reviews and spoilers are working in my favour, so i kind of positive for spoilers, but i get your point. lol

That's kind of the same here. I don't watch a lot of new TV these days apart from Doctor Who and The Mandalorian. And even then, sometimes I'll fall behind and then I'll watch some online reviews to get caught up. So, yes, those online reviews have spoilers but I know that going in and the videos aren't giving me a preview of what those spoilers are before I choose to click on it.

 

[valkyrie013]

For me, I keep up with watching the Doctor, but I'm maybe a day behind or so..
So spoilers have havent been a problem.. Until the last reveal with Juudoon episode..
Monday Freaking Moring.. IN THE HEADLINES of all the news sites i go to.. If its in the story.. I can just not read it.. BUT the spoiler was In the Freaking Headline! I Can't ovide it! so the whole big reveal was nuked from orbit.. and it was ruined for me.. because some wankers had to be first or cash in on the reveal.. Ugh..
Atleast give it a few days? or don't put it in the headlines!

 

[The Wormhole]

Or just avoid the news sites until after you watch the episode? That's what I do if I want to keep spoilers unspoiled.

 

[OCD Geek]

For me, I keep up with watching the Doctor, but I'm maybe a day behind or so..
So spoilers have havent been a problem.. Until the last reveal with Juudoon episode..
Monday Freaking Moring.. IN THE HEADLINES of all the news sites i go to.. If its in the story.. I can just not read it.. BUT the spoiler was In the Freaking Headline! I Can't ovide it! so the whole big reveal was nuked from orbit.. and it was ruined for me.. because some wankers had to be first or cash in on the reveal.. Ugh..
Atleast give it a few days? or don't put it in the headlines!

Yeah, The Mary Sue fucked up hard there. How difficult would it have been to name the article "Things We Saw Today: Jo Martin is [SPOILERS] on Doctor Who!"? By all means, get your clickbait on. You are a business after all. But please clickbait responsibly. It wasn't even 24 hours after broadcast. It was more like 12.

 

[The Borgified Corpse]

Or just avoid the news sites until after you watch the episode? That's what I do if I want to keep spoilers unspoiled.

For me, it's not even news sites. It's my entire freakin' YouTube feed! Hell, just Google "Fugitive of the Judoon" and the first video results include 2 big spoilers in the thumbnails.

As for the big "Fugitive of the Judoon" reveal, it seemed like a lot of YouTube thumbnails were at least being a bit more circumspect, at least at first. The problem was that everyone was talking around the big reveal in different ways, so you could pretty easily piece together what it was based on the hole it made.