It all started when DWM published four covers for issue Issue 433 that all indicated the tag that one of those on the cover would die in the first episode! The argument put forward was that this built on anticipation rather than a real spoiler, but many fans thought it gave away an important plot point in an unmissable way, splashed across the cover as it was. Maybe so, but this was nothing to the BBC website who then proceeded to print a image of the Doctor apparently regenerating in the opening episode the morning of broadcast!!!
Meanwhile, the Radio Times - not one for keeping back on reveals as those who remember Daleks in Manhattan can testify! - presented a preview of the series coming up, and for A Good Man Goes To War printed a previously unseen photo that blatantly gave away a protagonist for the mid-series finale! Those of us that follow filming knew about this already, but for the general public/fandom it was the first time they had been seen!
So, with the first episode barely out, those fans who don't hunt down spoilers and were content to wait for the series had three reveals in a matter of weeks - none of which had been indicated in the trailer that had been broadcast for what seemed like months beforehand! But then again ... the CBBC version of the trailer revealed another returning character unseen in the main BBC ones!
Week two saw the plot of Day of the Moon revealed online, basically ruining any surprise for those who read it. Though the item was taken down, the damage had been done in some quarters, and prompted Steven Moffat to comment on such fans who give away details as "spoiler vandals" a couple of weeks later. With either a case of mockery or just simple irony, the Times then proceeded to do the same for The Doctor's Wife that weekend! (The Sun was previously chastised for such behaviour when they published the plot for The Stolen Earth back in 2008, though at least they didn't know the reallly big ending thank goodness!)
And now we reach the mid-series finale and a real controversy to spoiler purists. Information on the episode was put up on the BBC website before The Almost People had even been broadcast, giving away an additional two protagonists to the one the Radio Times had revealed a few weeks previously. The hubbub from this caused Moffat to retort: "To the worriers - anything on the BBC website is APPROVED, and not a real spoiler. You know NOTHING, trust me. No, actually, you can't." - which of course for some directly contradicts the 'vandal' comments before on spoiler policy!
This is where things can get heated. It makes sense to say that a spoiler is only a spoiler to those who don't know or don't wish to know something, but where do you draw the line between publicity for a storyline and giving too much away? For me perhaps knowing that there would be another Doctor at the end of The Rebel Flesh would have been a spoiler, but it wouldn't have been half as bad as knowing what happened at the end of The Almost People!
Harking back to Daleks in Manhattan, Doctor Who News fortunately tipped me off to the front cover of the Radio Times and didn't reveal it, and I actually managed to get to the episode without knowing about Dalek Sec's transformation. I'm still entirely sure how I managed that (grin). But this, to me, was an outright spoiler, verging into 'ruiner' territory - and this was orchestrated by the BBC's premier listings magazine itself!!!
Anyway, back to A Good Man Goes To War, and in perhaps the most bizarre spoiler scenario to date we saw that The Almost People ended with a "To Be Continued" and no "Next Time" preview; that might not seem bizarre in itself being The Stolen Earth ended similarly, but this time the BBC website posted a Trailer for the episode that continues the action and includes characters integral to the conclusion of the previous story (whereas for Journey's End it was a recap trailer and so not giving anything away)!
Personally I think this is all just getting a little bit too ridiculous - the various BBC departments could at least be more consistent in how they handle this! If there isn't a "Next Time" then it seems to to me that the production team's intention is that we shouldn't know what's next and wait in anticipation, so for the BBC site to then go and put a trailer revealing more anyway just seems like giving away details for its own sake rather than for any real publicity benefit.
(but then Moffat has said that all material on the website has been approved, so maybe we should simply blame him for all the shenanigans? (grin))
There's still a week to go, with the BBC site promising more previews, a Radio Times that will probably have a front cover revelation, not to mention the trailer on television and publicity stills with more images ... would we have any chance of avoiding finding out things we really wouldn't want to know beforehand?!!! And all this is just for the mid-series finale - there's six more episodes to be revealed later this year!
Spoilers? Shh!!!!!!
