It’s time to stop. It’s time to stop the TV on DVR spoiler madness.
This scenario occurred at my office this week. A co-worker and myself were reminiscing about this past season of “Lost” when another person joined into the conversation. As the discussion turned to the season finale, her fingers shot into her ears like she was standing next to space shuttle. At the same instant she shouted, “Don’t tell me, I have it on my TiVo!” and scuttled off like a scared dog.
It was insanity. The “Lost” season final aired on May 29th. That was three weeks ago! Go watch it already. It’s not that hard. It takes 90 minutes.
But no, instead she preferred to run across the office with her hands in her like a four-year-old who thinks his mom’s punishment isn’t real if he can’t hear her. It’s ridiculous, but something we’ve all encountered in the DVR era.
Of all the wonderful things that accompanied our ability to digitally record television (pausing TV, easily recording an entire series, not having to program a VCR or buy tape) they are nearly outweighed by the evaporation of the TV watercooler. The best thing about following a series is discussing in the next day. Hurrying into work, or school, or a coffee shop and excitedly asking, “Did you see that last night!”
In the past, this question was met with a resounding, “Yeah!” followed by an in-depth discussion that puts everybody’s day an hour behind. Nowadays, you’re lucky to find one other person who joined you in viewing the program on its scheduled airdate, and the two of you are ushered into a corner amidst a chorus of, “Don’t tell me!” to discuss it in tones normally reserved for Communist sympathizers in the late 1950s.
This might be fine if it happened occasionally, but now it’s become a daily occurrence, and sometimes lasts weeks and even months for the same show. I had a friend around whom we couldn’t discuss last season’s finale of “The Office” for months because it was still sitting on his TiVo.
The only thing more outrageous than the measures taken by people to avoid any knowledge of their recorded shows is the measures taken by people to abide these lunatics. People now begin any discussion of a TV show, no matter how long ago the episode aired, with, “In case anybody hasn’t seen it, I’m going to talk about X week’s episode of X show.” You could be talking about the series finale of “The Wire” and still proceed with similar trepidation. It doesn’t matter how long ago the show was on.
Why is this? Why is any credence paid to these losers who let a show digitally fester for months yet purport to care about it so deeply that merely mentioning the episode they haven’t viewed is an affront so grievous as to warrant profanity?
It’s time to stop the madness. It’s time to once and for all put the DVR Nazis in their collective place. I have a solution, and it’s very simple.
Two weekends. People now have two weekends after a show airs to watch it, or the episode is fair game. For example, if you’re a “Swingtown” fan and missed last Thursday’s episode, you have until Monday until spoilers become fair game: There isn’t any reason why a real fan of a TV series can’t find 45 minutes in two weekends to play catch up. If they can’t, then they deserve to have the episode ruined. It’s clear at that point the show just isn’t that important to them.
So I implore you, dear reader, if you have a friend who asks you not to reveal the big twists at the end of the “Lost” season finale, look him in the eye and tell him exactly what happened, he’s out of the grace period. In fact, I’ll do it for it you. Michael died in the boat explosion, Ben moves the island (causing it to disappear into the sea), and Locke is the one in the casket. There you have it.
But don’t tell me what happened on “Swingtown” last week. I still haven’t watched it.
Photo by billadayÂ
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