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TV Finales Spoiled Again: Why I Hate My DVR Because of Twitter

By Jason Cohen Posted Sep 14th 2009 11:30AM

You're telling me! Remember when Tivo and DVRs were a TV obsessive's greatest joy? Now you can't go out to dinner on a Sunday, choose the VMAs over the 'True Blood' finale -- or, for that matter, live in the Mountain or Pacific time zones -- without risking exposure to pandemic-level spoilers of your favorite shows. Most blogs and message boards have "spoiler rules" and unspoken etiquette, but in the age of social media, nearly everyone you know -- and lots of people who you don't -- can ruin your fun in just 140 characters.

SPOILER ALERT: This subsequent discussion of SPOILERS will include SPOILERS for episodes of Mad Men, True Blood and some other classic cable shows. If you are not caught up, or are a TV-shows-on-DVD type person, now's the time to click away.

When Season Three of 'Mad Men' premiered back in mid-August, I decided to save 'True Blood' for Monday viewing. Big mistake, as an overly enthusiastic fellow critic, Joe Gross of the Austin American-Statesman, posted this on Facebook:

Godric + Eric + sun = year's best TV death scene?

"24 hours is fair game" was his reply to my great outrage, and while I didn't think so then, I'm now forced to agree. 24 minutes is fair game. Resistance is futile, and that may not be so bad. Twitter ruined the DVR, but it has also given back the thing we lost with DVRs (and watching shows online): The collective cultural moment, where everybody's watching and then talking about the same show at the same time. Tweet me at the watercooler.

Personally, I'd still rather watch the show - if you tweet five times during 'True Blood,' that's five times that you might miss Sookie's boobs or a Sam butt shot. But for those of you who have to have the real-time conversation, here are four ways you can do it better.

1. Put the hashtag first instead of last.
This should be self-explanatory.

2. Be consistent.
If you tweet about True Blood every week, I can always twick-twock you from my feed before Sunday's finale. But if I'm following you because 90% of your posts are about the Phillies, and then you all of a sudden tell me who Don Draper's making time with, I am gonna be a little chuffed. Slate critic Jody Rosen, for example, only tweeted 33 times TOTAL between August 1 and September 13 - I barely knew that he was in my stream - but then posted about Mad Men 32 times on Sunday.

3. Understand that everything is a potential spoiler.
One of my friends tweeted about how much she disliked spoilers one week, then posted "Peggy Olson: wayward woman" and "Sally the klepto" in successive weeks. And Rosen mentioned the return of Duck. Granted, these are not quite the same thing as being told that Grandpa Gene died, but Mad Men is a slow-paced, detailed show, full of tiny moments and small changes in the way its characters behave. I prefer to see them for myself.

4. Have something to say
The hundreds (thousands?) of people who wrote "Roger is in blackface!" during that episode are about as interesting as the Dad in the Verizon commercial ("I am on the patio."). Yeah yeah -- we're all watching, we know! And If we aren't watching, we don't wanna! Having heard my earlier complaint, Joe Gross was more discreet (and clever) here:

@JoeGross this just in: MAD MEN's John Slattery has no fear. #madmen
9:57 PM Aug 30th from web

Anyway, I'm just glad there wasn't Twitter in 2004. My head would have exploded if I'd read a tweet like this:

@McNutty014 R.I.P., STRINGER BELL #thewire

OTOH, the Twitter action on June 10, 2007 would have been a laugh:

@AdrianaIsAlive What the &#$%?!! Did anybody else's HBO go out? #sopranosfinale #cableFAIL

Tags: dvr, television, tivo, twitter

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Monday 14 September

By PN

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I stay tight lipped from the builups of season finales or spoilers. Don't even say a word! I think with the computers and Twitter and when they made the cellphones and Blackberrys smaller and tinier to a wafer-thin pocket size, it makes it harder for the network executives to shield it from the viewing public until the day of the finale.

Tuesday 15 September

By tupoyiwan26000

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Monday 14 September

By gobluespartyon

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I don't use my twitter for spoilers just a little spoilers nothing earth shaddering. My thing is if you don't want to hear about spoilers not to use twitter when your shows are on just my opinion.

Monday 14 September

By Anastasia

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I don't spoil anything because generally I don't watch a lot of television; however, don't expect people to wait until you've seen the show to discuss it. Whether a person discusses it ten minutes or ten days after it comes on, it's on and over. I think it's a little egotistical for a person to assume the world revolves around them and when they find time to watch television shows that have aired. Also, I agree with someone else who said something to the effect of...if you don't want to know, then don't get online and see it. Don't get online to twitter or where ever to listen to the spoilers. There's something for you to do instead of complaining about what others do.

Monday 14 September

By Susan

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I don't twitter so it's no bid deal..Don't understand the fascination in Twitter. Personally I would rather talk to my friends than twett them, its so much more fun to sit and have drinks face to face than reading a iphone/blackberry!!

Monday 14 September

By chihawkee

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Perhaps if you weren't so obsessed with everyone's lives by constantly having to check into their tweets, it wouldn't have been 'spoiled.'

Man up and put some of the blame on yourself, at the very least.

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