Saturday 12 May 2007

Spoilers - a discussion

I was going to write about a different subject but i'll leave that for another time.

Spoilers. Do you who watch Corrie in other countries like to know what's going to happen? If you participate in Corrie boards and forums, chances are you will run across storyline spoilers now and then. Some boards have a no-spoiler policy, some urge posters to warn first and some are no holds barred, particularly of course, the UK based ones. Does knowing what's going to happen spoil it for you?

The people that avoid spoilers say yes. And fair enough to them but it's hard not to catch one once in awhile, even if you're not on the internet because so many people are. We hold "pings", or fan get togethers, three times a year here in Halifax and we always avoid discussing spoilers with the group because we feel that if there's even one person that doesn't want to know, we won't ruin it. What they all discuss at the tables among themselves is up to them. When we have a visit from an actor, however, it's hard to prevent spoilers though some of the actors have been fairly reticent about the big plot lines.

Canada is about 9 months behind the UK. New Zealand is further behind and Australia is more than a year back. Those are the main non-UK and Ireland countries that get the show though i know someone in Germany that watches on a satelite feed a week later than the live broadcast.

I've been a spoiler fan for years. I can't imagine not knowing the future plots and developments. I check out each episode on the ITV site where there are screen captures and plot summaries, i read the written episode updates and weeklies sent out by Glenda Young. I discuss it with other fans at times. It doesn't ruin it for me. Seeing screen caps and reading written summaries does not capture the nuances, the glances, the throwaway lines and reactions and the superb acting of the talented actors presenting it. You don't get as caught up in the emotion as you do seeing the actors give it back to you on your screen.

When BBC Canada started showing old Eastenders episodes, i avoided spoilers there for a long time so i do know the other side of things. We're watching scenes now leading up to Den Watts' (second) death. A year or so ago i broke down. I bought an anniversary book for EE and it went ahead of where we were by about a year or so and i succumbed to the spoilers. Now, on occasion, i read ahead on a written update page and get an idea of what's going to happen. Since i'm not at it every day, i don't always remember a lot of details which is fine. Most people i know don't watch it so there aren't many i can discuss it with anyway aside from one online friend in Ontario and one in Australia.

It's too late for me. I'll be a spoiler queen forever where Corrie is concerned and now writing for Corrieblog you can't avoid them.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Why do Canadian fans of Coronation Street have to watch 9-month-old episodes? Is it just because they are cheaper to buy or is there a more mysterious reason?

Isn't it about time that we caught up to date by adding one or two extra episodes per week and avoided this whole "spoiler" business in the Internet age.

Alwyn

Tvor said...

We used to only be 6 weeks behind. It would take time to ship the episodes and convert them for our technology. When major sports events were on, we wouldn't see Corrie but they would air extra episodes to catch up. But when Corrie went to 4 episodes a week, they ceased bothering to catch us up. Thus, every time the Olympics or another major event happened, we'd fall 2 weeks behind. If there was an hour long episode that aired in the UK, we'd get it chopped into two half hours. If the UK had showed extra episodes, say, for christmas or a wedding, we'd only the the regular half hour episodes, so little by little, we fell further and further behind. During the NHL Strike a few years ago, they doubled up on the episodes and we got caught up by a couple of months but are sliding back again.

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