My first post here for some time folks but nice to be back.
I was interested in the national ding dong over spoilers that has been raging since episode four of the Bodyguard was transmitted (assuming programmes are still transmitted).
I’ve always thought that this site was particularly well behaved over the use of spoilers and aside from the forthcoming biopic about Gerry Rafferty, I can’t recall ever having a box set or series spoiled due to the folks on this site.
So what constitutes good or bad form when people are desperate to discuss a particular happening in a film or show. Years ago this was never a problem as we all had to watch something at the same time and so if you missed it you were never going to catch up anyway. Those dammed video machines put paid to all that. It used to be part of the fun being able to talk about who shot JR or Dirty Den, but you just can’t do that anymore.
On second thoughts it may be that there were Victorians with advanced copies of “The Old Curiosity Shop” who couldn’t wait to run down the street shouting, Nell’s dead! little Nell’s dead!
I realise of course that I’ve just taken the liberty of introducing a massive spoiler for anyone just about to reach the final chapters of Dicken’s classic. So is it ok to do so after a gap of more than 160 years? Good job I haven’t mentioned Rosebud!
It’s possible that some of us are at least two regenerations behind the others in Doctor Who. What are the rules? For the natural gossips among us, when can we talk about stuff?
It’s a bugger. We’ve got so much on at the moment that Bodyguard will have to wait till the autumn but avoiding the spoilers is hard work.. Saying that most sites including this are pretty good at shouting SPOILERS!
Earlier this year we were binge-watching Spiral about five years behind everyone else. A friend said “Wasn’t it sad when ****** died”. A moment’s stunned silence. “******’s dead?????”
Yeahbut Joséphine Karlsson “swoon”
The OCS was so popular that New York readers stormed the wharf when the ship bearing the final installment arrived in 1841.
Someone shouted to the ship asking what had happened
“She died” was the reply.
Haven’t watched bodyguard bit next week’s Radio Times has the spoiler as its front cover.
Darth Vader is Rosebud’s granddad.
Keyser Soze is Norman Bates’s mother.
Considering Me Too you’re pretty much right.
We still haven’t watched the final series of The Bridge, as our teens have taken to watching Family Guy with us in the evenings, instead of buggering off to their bedrooms and playing that pesky pop music on the Dansette. We are considering taking a day off work for a binge watch.
It’s terrific.
It certainly is.
Maybe the best one.
Whitney Houston’s definitely dead.
Don’t tell me how this thread ends. I’m saving it up for a binge read.
We have a winner! Do you prefer vanilla or strawberry?
I’ve recently actually had a discussion (as part of a play I’m involved with) about whether revealing the ending of Hamlet is a spoiler or not. It’s 415 years old, but apparently some people haven’t seen it yet.
(SPOILERS: Everyone dies.)
Soylent Green is made out of Gerry Rafferty
I think Dickens wrote what they called “Penny Dreadful” weekly stories and they were sold on the streets. The soap operas of their day. So that Little Nell sceanrio wouldn’t be totally unlikely.
I saw a tweet which suggested that because they were published serially, but we read the coverto cover, modern readers invented ‘binge reading’ long before ‘binge watching’ was a thing.
They got it off NetDicks.
Amongst other things
These TV shows are a bit like the bands you like. You get into the early stuff and you’ll stick with it for as long as it keeps the interest levels up. Sometimes the series slowly gets better as if goes (Breaking Bad/Better Call Saul). Or it starts really well and then loses it totally when key personalities are missing (Suits). Or characters keep dying suddenly (GoT). Like Depeche Mode, Queen and Spinal Tap (the drummers).
See, I don’t mind spoilers at all. They spoil nothing for me, unless the film/series/book etc is of such poor quality that the element of surprise is all that it has to offer of interest. In fact, I often read the final pages of a book after the first chapter, so I can enjoy the rest of the read in a non-hectic “got-to-find-out-what-happens”-kind of pace, and not blindly skim past the beautiful nuances on the way.
Not that I would dare to blurt out the ending to others though…some people go absolute apeshit about spoilers!
Similar. In one way, having the read the conclusion, you can actually appreciate the plot and character development more
I think I enjoyed Fight Club more the second time, realising how clever it was constructed. Clues all over the place.
I haven’t seen the latest Avengers film yet but the other day one of my granddaughters happily recited a list for me of the major characters who die. I retaliated by telling her they all come back to life in the next film.
TV shows have become like books. Everybody is following something different or at a different place & if they haven’t seen it, then it’s new to them – regardless of age. There are far fewer “water cooler” moments than ten years ago. Perhaps sport is the only thing left that’s watched live
(Cue the Likely Lads avoiding the score episode!)
“become like books” – even proudly displayed on shelves to display ..er something
https://youtu.be/rDcC-wdutqA
We get Radio Times delivered, generally arrived on Tuesday of the week before broadcasting starts . I learned a good while ago not to look at previews of shows I like unless I’m absolutely up to date with them as they often give away the plot. My first encounter was when I looked at NYPD Blue and the preview said “Andy is struggling following the shocking murder of his wife”. OK, thanks, but it serves me right for looking ahead. But this weeks RT front cover with its Bodyguard spoiler is really out of order. And don’t give me the “everybody’s already talked about round the water cooler” excuse. I’m retired!
We got back from a fortnight’s holiday yesterday, with two episodes to watch. We went out for lunch and on the way, went into the newsagent to pick up a copy of the Radio Times….
We definitely hadn’t had an opportunity for any sort of discussion with anyone about it.
Is it a spoiler though? Can it be a spoiler if ‘it’ didn’t really happen? I’ll just leave that with you…
I don’t understand that. Spoilers are only relevant to works of fiction – TV, Radio, book, film etc – and not to real life. How can a spoiler be applied to something that did happen?
The ‘death’ in The Bodyguard – There’s a suggestion that it didn’t happen, that it’s a plot twist. Sorry if that turns out to be correct and I’ve just spoiled it
I think for films a good rule of course thumb is five years. But then again, if I meet someone who hasn’t watched, say, Don’t Look Know from 1973, I will go out of my to avoid saying anything about it and just urge them to watch it cold before they accidentally hear anything about it.
Speaking of Don’t Look Now, one DVD release had a still of that final scene (the ****** in the *** **** with the *****) on the cover??? I mean, that’s just going too far – leave a bit of mystery please.
Spoiler alert: Donald gives ‘er one.
I’ve read that one VHS or DVD cover of Planet of the Apes featured ‘a well known statue’.
I went to see American Animals lest week in the cinema knowing absolutely nothing about it beforehand. That was good, it’s worth doing that sometimes. But on the whole I don’t really mind spoilers – it’s fun watching a film knowing how it will turn out sometimes, and seeing the craft at work.
With most movies you can pretty much figure out the whole thing ten minutes in anyway.
If it’s a Ben Dover you don’t even need that.
I prefer his early fanny stuff.
Fanny Hall?
Have you seen Don’t Look Now….?
No, I haven’t. I said MOST movies.
Is Don’t Look Now a recommendation?
Hmmmmmmm.
After careful consideration, I’ll say yes. But it does turn some people off. The best way to watch it is just to let it happen and not overthink it.
Hard to say more without spoiling it. Definitely one to watch cold, and on your own.
I wasn’t looking.
Quite apart from “Bodyguard”, which I’m enjoying with the occasional pinch of salt. Like f’rinstance why has a certain would-be assassin and a connection to another character not been identified more quickly than in episode 5? Are the anti-terrorist squad really that slow?
Anyway..
Is anyone else watching “Press” and “Black Earth Rising”? Both a couple of episodes in and definitely holding my interest.
Can’t imagine how Press will resolve without a colossal fudge of an ending, although the characterisations ring pretty true to my imagined versions.
Black Earth Rising in particular looks good. Some great photography and an interesting view on events that have been shamefully skipped over. But what an odd sexy-weird leading lady.
Until your last sentence, I wasn’t going to bother with that. Now…
Odd/weird how?
Yeah. Does it involve ping-pong balls?
Young black lady, dark-skinned with very tightly-cropped hair, high cheekbones, Stocky muscular/athletic body always clad in very tight lycra-style clothing but no skin showing neck to ankles. Rather masculine walk.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b0bk8t7p/black-earth-rising-series-1-1-in-other-news
Gorgeous isn’t she? And so different to her role in Chewing Gum (which was based on a play she wrote). What a talent, definitely one to watch.
Very watchable, fer sure.
I wish somebody had spoiled Lost for me just before I started watching the first episode.
Never watched it, but SFWIC said that the producers were so intent on eliminating spoilers, they didn’t even tell themselves how it was supposed to finish.
I stopped watching it about half way through season two when it became apparent that the people making it had, er, lost control of the narrative.
There’s a place for long-form noodling… T.V. drama ain’t it.
I came to that conclusion in episode one when that polar bear appeared.
Lost was interesting for a while, but I zoned out when it became clear that the series was just a string of unconnected clues and cliffhangers, and there was never any payoff. They’d engineer a situation to create tension, then never resolve it.
Perhaps everything came together in a later series?
Spoiler – it didn’t.
Sure there is. Here’s one:
“Tottenham are going to win nothing … again.”
The first flush of Twin Peaks was tremendous until I realised eventually that I had totally lost the plot, which didn’t 100% matter so much. Much of Fire Walk With Me was a bit of a mystery. The “business” plotlines of Dallas used to bewilder me too, so I guess following a complex story is not a strength of mine.