Gather 'round folks, I've got a question for you. It's one that rattles my brain from time to time and I figured now that I've got the soapbox, I might as well ask. My question is, in this age of technology, of Twitter and Facebook and any other social networking sites, are we really spoiler free?
I started thinking on this today in the wake of Sunday's "Mad Men." I wasn't able to watch it until this morning because I have a four car pile-up on my DVR on Sunday nights. That's understandable, right? Except when I look at my Twitter or my Facebook and I see some idiot who blurts out some major development and it ruins everything for me. Because I'm like an elephant, I never forget. Oddly, in regards to the episode of "Mad Men" in question, it didn't dull the shock. I still can't forget what I saw when I saw Lane Pryce dead. It's the same thing as when I saw Gustavo Fring *spoilers* dead in the season finale of season four of Breaking Bad. My biggest complaint about these people is that when you cry out about them spoiling the show, they get incredulous. "How dare you call me out? Why don't you watch it live like the rest of us?" By the way, I will say that I'm sort of gulity of this. I'm guilty of spoiling "Glee." I don't consider that as epic a spoil as a deep character driven show would have been. I would say that as much as I watch TV, my life doesn't revolve around it. Maybe in a sideways world, but not here in reality. No, sorry. So, I shield my eyes from whatever idiocy someone is spewing and move on down the line. It's how we have to roll in 2012. We live in a world of speculation. People sit around and read into things. If a man in black walks into a bar, people are gonna say, "Hmm, he's sinister." They won't relax and think he could be the savior. Reading into films and movies is overthinking it. If you've seen the film or television show before, then read between the lines. It's a fascinating experience. Trust me.
Of course, my thinking on this got me on to another tangentially related topic. Would this be the same if the internet presence was as heavy as it was twenty years ago? Probably so. After all, with shows like "The X-Files," "Twin Peaks" and "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" people would have not been able to keep the secrets those show revealed. Whedon was a saint in terms of writing but he loved to kill off multiple characters as much as he added them. People ruin things for people, period. There isn't a sense of expectation. It's why some people go to the end of the book and read the last line. Why? The fun rests in getting there. It's like a Lord of the Rings fan saying, "Oh, they get rid of the ring. Hmm."
Not all of the blame rests on the people who watch the show as well. If you watch a show where characters are getting killed off and often, a new casting announcement for a television series is a death warrant. It's practically walking the character down the 'ol Green Mile. We know about characters dying before the final three episodes of the season, simply because The Hollywood Reporter can't shut up about casting news. I remember the notorious "Walking Dead" spoiler that erupted out on the AMC (!) website. Somebody has to catch this.
Maybe I'm overthinking it as I'm apt to do. Maybe it's something I need to ignore. I just need to detatch from the computer and the smart phones and wait until I actually watch the show (which I usually do, but hey, shut up) but should it have to come to that?
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