Spoilers and me

People often wonder why I am so anti-spoiler. I never used to be, I used to lap spoilers up for everything. For me, part of the fun of watching a TV show, or a film, was reading spoilers and imagining the results, then seeing it on the screen.
But that all changed one day.
Now I'll admit that while I'm anti-spoiler, I am NOT against other people having spoilers. No way. I'm more than happy for people to have spoilers for shows or films. All i ask is that you keep me out of it.

So, the tale of this fateful day that changed me. It was February 1995. The past few months I'd been getting excited for the new Star Trek film to be released: Generations. I was reading magazines and newsgroups about it, lapping up information.
Sure we all knew Kirk and Picard were in it. We knew Kirk was going to die. I think that was the worst kept secret in Hollywood that year.
Then a friend of mine got his hands on a draft copy of the script. He printed it out for me. I was dubious at first. It was one thing to read snippets, but to know the whole thing?
Then it was revealed that it was a fake script. So i read it. The story was pretty good. I gave it to a friend of mine who also read it.
We had made plans to see it on opening night, along with another friend. That night, standing in line, we see the poster for it. The 3rd friend said "Picard?? Is he in it?" We looked at each other. He didn't know ANYTHING, other than the fact it was a Star Trek film.
The film started and within 10 minutes we realised it WAS based on the script we read.
However, the moment Kirk died - the proper death - our unspoiled friend gave out a huge gasp. It was then that i regretted reading, in fact in any of the spoilers.
I wanted that rush he was getting, that emotion.
So it was that I stopped reading up on the big stuff.

A few years later it was announced a new Star Wars film was going into production. At that point I declared I wanted to know NOTHING about it.
I went to watch with zero expectations. ALL I knew about it was it was a prequel story featuring Anakin Skywalker as a young boy.
I think I must have been one of the few who enjoyed the film! It was well worth the hassle.

There were a couple of times when some news had been leaked and my friends wanted to discuss it, but being mature they said "We wanna talk Star Wars!" so I'd leave them to it for a few minutes. I think the main one was when the soundtrack album was released (a week before the movie opened) and it featured perhaps one of the biggest spoilers EVER. One of the tracks is called "Qwi-Gon's funeral".

My philosophy is: I'm going to watch it anyway, why ruin any surprises the writers/director have in store for me?

An open letter to Universal UK

Let me start by saying, I think you are brilliant. Since the announcement was made back in February that you were getting the rights to Flashpoint (All episodes, including the ones which, at that time, hadn't been made yet), I supported you.

I was happy you were treating this show with respect. That you were airing it at a decent time. Even happier once we (we being the fans) realised you were giving us plenty of opportunity to see each episode (3 airings of each episode within 24 hours can't be bad!), and to repeat the run a total of, what is it now, 3 times?

I've had the pleasure and – dare I say it without sounding egotistical – privilege of watching the fan numbers rise on the Producers own Facebook group. Sure not all of those are UK based, but believe me when I say there are a LOT more now than there were before you started showing it.

Alright, I may have been slightly vocal about your episode numbering system and the airing order, but we managed to work around that.

Ultimately though, I was happy. I can appreciate that you didn't want to rush onwards and overdose us with new episodes. You left us on a great cliffhanger with Ed Lane being shot.

But come on now, it's been several months since the last new episode aired and people are getting tetchy over the missing episodes.

Given that some of the episodes we've yet to see have been aired in Canada and the US for over a year now, there are plenty of spoilers out there. You can't blame those who have seen the episodes. They've kept quiet this long, how much longer can they go on being quiet?

I was still loyal though, encouraging people to stay cool. “They'll show them soon..” I would say. Hell, I started a blog entry and updated it twice a week with your schedule. I noticed a gap in the schedules coming up. Could this be it?

Sadly, no. No offence to the Sea Patrol fans, but it seems you're dropping Flashpoint altogether at the end of September.

Which brings me to the point of this. We've been patient, but patience always has to run thin.

On the 16^th of October, the missing episodes will be released on DVD in Canada. Now I'm not suggesting that everyone rushes out to buy this, but what I'm warning is that people will. I know of at least 5 UK viewers who have already pro-ordered. Alright that's just 5 people out of the thousands who watch it. But it could be more.

What I'm worried about is your advertisers. The more people who have to buy it on DVD, the less people who will be targets for your advertisers. And let's face it, you may not care about the viewers – we're not your customers. The advertisers WILL know.

Is it too late for you to show the missing 18 episodes? I don't know. But please bear this in mind when you come to think about what to do with Season 5 (which starts in 2 weeks time in Canada...)