What Do You Think About TV 'Spoilers'?

Spoilers are a major pain in the butt when you write, tweet or Facebook about TV shows because it’s inevitable that someone, somewhere will have DVRed the program about which you’re sharing your sparklingly insightful observations. And some of those folks may loudly object to any revelation, even about an already-aired TV program, no matter how witty your remarks might be.

If you’re blogging about a TV show -- even if you plaster a big, fat old “spoiler warning” at the top of your entry as I'm wont to do -- there are people who'll still go nutty because they want everyone to keep the TV episode information under wraps and not put anything out there that that might inadvertantly wreck their surprise when they finally get around to watching the show. (This is why, after Sun and Jin drowned on Lost, I chose to put the photo of them AFTER the jump so people looking at the blog wouldn't holler that I'd spoiled the episode of "The Candidate" by posting their image under the headline, "Lost's 'The Candidate' Made Me Cry, Dammit".)

If you’re live-tweeting or Facebooking a TV show as you watch it, people who either a) DVRed the program or b) live in another location where the show hasn’t yet aired, are likely to blast you for being an East Coast elitist spoil sport.

For example, the day AFTER the massively hyped, buzz-worthy Lost series finale, I tweeted and blogged (this blog is syndicated on Facebook via Networked Blogs) about the finale and later read status updates from people threatening to de-friend/unfollow people who posted anything resembling a Lost spoiler because they hadn’t seen the finale yet.

So when I read Jay Black’s post on TV Squad (Full disclosure: I used to blog for them) entitled, “TV 101: The Spoiler Police Need to Calm Down,” I wanted to stand up and cheer. After offering up his own definition of spoilers – which he said include the endings of movies (for which you have to pay) and "inside" information about what’s going to happen in advance of it being aired on a TV show – Black, a pop culture/TV writer, issued a few of his personal rules about spoilers including these:

-- “One a show begins to air, I can discuss it in real time. If you live on the West Coast, stay off of Twitter and Facebook. Sorry, it’s the price you pay for great weather and loose marijuana laws.”

AND

-- “After the show is finished, anything and everything is on the table. If you don’t wish to hear about it, I suggest you unplug your Internet connection and move into the Unabomber Cabin.”

A few weeks ago, I hadn’t been able to watch a pair of DVRed episodes of 24. I knew that I’d be going on Twitter, Facebook and pop culture/TV web sites which would likely be discussing the shows before I’d be able to watch them and that I might come across information about the unseen episodes. And I did. I learned that Renee Walker had been killed before I saw it unfold on my DVR. But I wasn’t angry because the whole world doesn’t have to grind to a halt and NOT talk about already-aired 24 episodes just because I had too much on my plate for a couple of weeks. That’s the way it goes sometimes. You make choices.

Black feels the same way:

“The Internet shouldn’t be subject to your personal whims. The Internet exists for only three purposes: To spread information, the (ahem) intellectual discussion of that information and hardcore balloon stomping fetish porn. To ask everyone to tiptoe around the first and second of those pillars just because you DVRed Dexter and haven’t gotten around to watching yet is pure selfishness.”

What do you think about “spoilers” about TV shows? Do you have a problem with people live-tweeting/Facebooking shows or blogging about them once they’ve aired? Have you had episodes “spoiled” for you?

Still Reveling in Afterglow of 'Mad Men's' Finale

*Warning all you procrastinator Mad Men fans. This entry contains spoilers from the finale. Watch it already will ya?*

I remain blown away by Mad Men's season three finale, "Shut the Door. Have a Seat," as do many critics and bloggers who've gone ga-ga over the hour of goodness that was both fun and exciting (had a bit of that madcap caper feeling), as well as occasionally leaden heavy with elements that made the heart ache.

As I continue to absorb and contemplate the re-booted Mad Men -- Don'll be single (if everything goes as Betty hopes while she's in Reno), he'll be working for an upstart new company, Peggy's asserted herself as being on equal footing with the men, Betty'll be married to a politician -- here are some cool Mad Men items I've found while surfing around them there internets:

Don Draper's 10 Tips on Succeeding in Business: A GateHouse News Service writer has a great column where he says that everything you need to know about how to be a successful businessman, you can learn while watching Don Draper. Tip number eight: "If you call a subordinate into your office to be fired, don't invite them to sit. It's easier to absorb a blow standing up, and they'll appreciate that you didn't lull them into a false sense of security."

Joan Holloway Harris Paper Doll: Mad Men-obsessed illustrator Dyna Moe has released her new Joan Holloway Harris (I hope she dumps the hubs and becomes Holloway again) paper dolls. Among the items you can dress Joan in include the green dress with random blood splatterings from the unfortunate incident with the riding mower. I'm anxiously awaiting Dyna Moe's illustration for the season finale. There's so much to choose from.

Everything Don Ever Said: A blogger who runs the site Unlikely Words has taken an extraordinary amount of time and claims to have chronicled every word that's ever come out of Don Draper's mouth. And he's put it under the heading, "Everything Don Draper Said," and it's organized by season and episode. Now I can't vouch for whether the blogger's captured every single utterance -- I haven't fact-checked him or anything -- but while scrolling through it it looks mighty comprehensive to me.

Which Characters' Futures Are Uncertain? TV Squad writer Joel Keller wondered about how much we'll see of Sal Romano, Betty (once she divorces Don) and others in season four.

Cast Discusses Finale: AMC's Mad Men web site has posted a video which includes interviews with the cast -- mostly Jon Hamm and January Jones, as well as show mastermind Matt Weiner:

Grey's, Grey's, Grey's

*Warning: Spoilers for the next season of Grey's Anatomy ahead*

Let's dissect some of the recent news with regard to Grey's Anatomy, shall we?

T.R. Knight spoke out to Entertainment Weekly magazine, saying that, given how little screen time his character George O'Malley got last season as compared to Sandra Oh's Cristina Yang (48 minutes versus 114 minutes), he figured there was little point in discussing with the show's creator/producer Shonda Rhimes about getting George more time.

"His surprising decision came after George's screen time was greatly diminished last fall," EW reported. "But what's even more surprising is that when it happened, Knight chose not to ask exec producer Shonda Rhimes what was going on with his character. Instead, he simply asked to leave. 'My five-year experience proved to me that I could not trust any answer that was given [about George],' he explains."

While EW speculated that bad blood had been brewing between Knight and Rhimes over the handling of the incident with former Grey's colleague Isaiah Washington (who reportedly twice invoked a homophobic slur in reference to Knight), Knight said, "The danger of going back is you're trying to pin blame on somebody, and to still be rehashing that three years later would be the ultimate craziness. I have nothing to gain by vilifying anyone."

The magazine portrayed some of his colleagues, in middle of filming the aftermath of George's death-by-bus scenes, as melancholy. E! (with the exclamation point!) reported that the cast was spotted shooting George's funeral scene.

Rhimes told EW that she'd originally planned on having Knight appear briefly in the new season, in the form of flashbacks, in order to show what actually happened to him on the day he died, including depicting him as heroically saving the woman from the bus, but that he declined saying he liked his departure next to the hospital elevator next to the gowned Izzie as is.

In other Grey's developments, EW quoted Rhimes as saying that the character Meredith Grey will not be pregnant in the show, as actress Ellen Pompeo is in real life. Pompeo will be taking a maternity leave in the fall, hence Meredith Grey will disappear from the show for a while.

This news had TV Squad's Michael Pascua speculating on what that would mean for Grey's. "Season six Grey's Anatomy is is going to be odd," he said. ". . . I understand that the title to Grey's Anatomy is a pun on the medical book, but if there isn't any actual Grey on the show then it should be spun into Yang's Anatomy or any of the other characters' last names. Would you still watch Grey's Anatomy if Meredith was gone and Lexie took her place?"

What do you think about the confirmed George death? About Meredith disappearing for a while? Think it'll be, as Pascua said, an "odd" season?

Image credit: Entertainment Weekly.

TV Squad Puts 'Grey's' In the Crosshairs

TV Squad (full disclosure: for which I used to blog) has a new list out. They love lists. This time, the web site puts 10 shows in the crosshairs and targets them for cancellation. Topping TV Squad's "Series That Should be Canceled" is Grey's Anatomy, writing: "I cannot take one more minute of Meredith whining. I've reached my limit." (See why I DON'T think Meredith is a whiner and why I root for her character, here.)

Included among the other programs that TV Squad targets are: Survivor, American Idol, Brothers & Sisters, a CSI, a Law & Order and Private Practice (lots of hating on Shonda Rhimes here, although the Violet-being-held-captive-for-unwilling-C-section scenes in the season finale were patently insane, plus her refusal to test for whose baby she was carrying was annoying to no end).

I must, however, disagree with the list, at least as far as Grey's goes . . . as long as the remainder of the Grey's season doesn't go whole-hog dead Denny-ish wacko on me. If that happens, I may find myself concurring with TV Squad, but not because Meredith's a "whiner."

Is there any TV series which you wish would just be put out of its misery?

Image credit: ABC.

Jack Bauer: Humanitarian?

When the sixth season of 24 wrapped up in May 2007, I was distinctly unimpressed. A fan of the show since the beginning -- notably adored its fifth season -- I'd been blogging at TV Squad about 24 through its entire, mediocre sixth season.

I haven't thought much about 24 since the last tick of that 24 clock. Due to the writers' strike, 24 has been on hiatus. (The seventh season isn't slated to begin until January 11. 2009.) So when I watched last night's 24: Redemption TV movie, my expectations were low, although I was still watching. And those low expectations were exceeded. Dramatically.

I thoroughly enjoyed the off-campus (as in not in LA for a change), two-hour movie that did a stellar job of setting up the seventh season and trying to literally redeem itself from the sadness that was season six. The movie had Jack Bauer in Africa, volunteering with a humanitarian mission spearheaded by a former colleague of his who ran a school for boys. Jack spent much of the two hours of the movie guiding a group of boys to safety all the while putting his own freedom at risk.

It was quite stark, seeing Jack as a humanitarian, surrendering himself to U.S. authorities -- who, for a year, had been unsuccessfully trying to serve him with a subpoena to appear at a hearing regarding his torturing of a terrorist suspect way back in season six -- so that a group of orphaned boys could be evacuated from their country that was about to collapse due to an impending coup. It was Jack, totally on the defense.

And, in typical 24 style, we saw other storylines unfold, alas, no Chloe O'Brian though. A new president, Allison Taylor, was inaugurated. Taylor has a distinctly different position on the use of force and foreign policy than did her predecessor, the sinister President Noah Daniels, who was the commander in chief during the previous season of 24. Taylor seems no-nonsense and has a cute adult son who, in the new season, will be in danger because a friend tried to leak him info about government ties to terrorists.

When Redemption ended, Jack was being flown back to the United States in handcuffs, the boys he'd helped were being evacuated and the first woman president had been inaugurated.

How well will Jack Bauer, rouge and violent anti-terrorism agent, play with the viewing public after the election of Barack Obama? I think he'll play well, particularly given that Jack, for the first time, will have to answer to U.S. officials in Washington for his methods. It promises to be an exciting season and we'll have to see if the show can maintain its quality throughout an entire 24 episode span. After all, the first four hours of season six were great, then it was downhill from there.

Image credit: Fox.