The Trouble With Spoilers & Other Lessons Learned From Six Years at TV Squad

This month marks the sixth anniversary of TV Squad's launch and also my sixth anniversary at the site.

A lot of newbie readers of TV Squad might not realize that back in 2005, we used to snail mail our blog posts to readers and they'd read them on paper. It's true! Then we decided to use this thing called "the Web" to post the stories when we realized that, with the postal rates going up every few years, it just wasn't cost-effective.

This was my first post on TV Squad, where I talked about how much I was looking forward to the big-screen version of 'Bewitched.' I've learned a lot since then, like you shouldn't say that you're looking forward to a big-screen version of a TV show or it might blow up in your face. Here are five other things I've learned since 2005.

1. Spoiler Alert: Spoilers Will Get You Tarred and Feathered
To be more specific, readers hate reading spoilers in reviews of their favorite TV shows. (I'm going to assume they don't mind reading the spoilers in a regular column that is titled Spoilers Anonymous.) But this has always baffled me. If you haven't watched the episode yet, then why in God's name are you reading a review of that episode? I mean, OMG, people! And maybe even LOL!

We're pretty good about spoilers at TV Squad. We usually try to wait until the show airs on the West Coast before we publish anything spoilery. Of course, as we've said before, if something happens on TV, then it crosses into the "news" realm, and since we are a TV news site you might see the news here rather quickly. So it's better to be cautious about where you surf.

But honestly, if you don't want to know what happened on your favorite show, then stay away from reviews of the show and Facebook postings about the show and maybe give Twitter a rest for a while. Just going to a TV site means you might see something that could be considered a spoiler, so you might want to watch something before going to a TV site.

We've had people yell at us because we gave something that happened on a TV episode that aired two weeks earlier. No offense, but that's unreasonable. Isn't there a statute of limitations or something?

There was a time when we never knew what was coming up on our favorite shows, and if we missed an episode we had to wait until it was repeated months later to see it. I call it "the first 50 years of television." But then along came DVRs (we never had this problem with VCRs, dammit) and the web and the iPod Touch and we all started to watch shows when and where we wanted to. Now we can watch the latest episode of 'Glee' the day after it airs or three days later or two weeks later, even as Twitter and Facebook make it almost impossible to avoid spoilers because everyone is posting what happened quicker and quicker, pretty much as it happens. That's like everyone in the world talking on same phone line while the person who shot J.R. -- it was Kristin Shepard, but it's been 30 years so I think I can reveal that -- was revealed on 'Dallas' and we all started to talk about it before the episode was over.

It's convenient, but it means that "spoilers" have taken on a whole new meaning and a whole new importance. It's a tricky thing for TV fans to deal with, and it's even more tricky for a television web site that wants to report the news but also wants to please their readers. Everything has changed, and I'm still not sure if it's for the better or not.

2. If you liked 'Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip,' some people will attack you.
The short-lived NBC drama was a constant source of controversy for TV critics and readers of TV Squad. People still comment about it on posts that have nothing to do with the show. Or Aaron Sorkin. Or studios or strips of any kind.

Was it a perfect show? God, no. It was one of those shows where you said to yourself (or on TV Squad), "Why did they decide to do that?" and "That character is lame" or "I hope this episode gets better." But even the mistakes made the show more interesting than most shows. It was more ragged than perfect (unlike Sorkin's other shows, which seemed to be really well-balanced).

But most shows aren't perfect, and I think people were expecting it to be another brilliant Sorkin show like 'The West Wing,' or they expected it to be something other than what it turned out to be. Some episodes are downright terrible; some episodes (like the pilot) are outrageously well done. Mix those two together and you get a show that had incredible potential. But it only lasted one season, so we'll never know.

Here's a little secret you might not know about people who cover TV for a living: Sometimes we just want to enjoy the shows and don't want to think about them any more than that, and even we get sick of the hate and quick critical panning of shows. So if you liked 'Studio 60,' go on liking it no matter what anyone else says. If you liked the 'Bionic Woman' remake, go ahead and buy the DVD set and enjoy it. If you liked 'Yes Dear,' well, that's a special case. But even that show you can love if you want.

Just don't tell anyone about it.

As for Sorkin, we can now look forward to his new HBO show about cable news. People are probably already making notes about what negative things they can say about it.

3. There are some short-lived shows we'll always miss.
I could sit here and wax philosophical about how much I miss 'Arrested Development.' But that's so 2009. Whenever someone asks me what show I miss the most from the past five or six years, my first thought is 'Eyes,' the short-lived ABC drama with Tim Daly.

There really wasn't anything else on TV like 'Eyes' when it launched in March 2005 (hey, the same month TV Squad launched!). There still isn't, really. It was a clever mix of heist drama and nighttime soap, with a great cast and writing that was 10,000 times better than you expected.

'Eyes' was fun, sexy, completely unpredictable, and smart. What else do you want from a TV show?

The show's episodes -- including some that didn't even make it to TV -- used to be online, but they're not anymore. I guess we'll just have to be happy with the DVD set. Oh, wait...

But we all have the short-lived shows that we love, right? Maybe it actually is 'Arrested Development' (and you're already waiting in line for that movie they keep talking about) or maybe it's 'Firefly' or 'Journeyman' or 'Better Off Ted.' These are the shows that, if you asked 10 random people on the street about they'd look at you funny because they either don't remember it at all or they thought it was "lame" (or must have been lame otherwise it would have been a hit!). But you and other fans can think back and smile and nod to yourself, "Damn, that was a great show. I really miss it." And then you go back and watch the DVDs or the shows you have recorded over and over again.

4. Sometimes people are glad when a show they like gets canceled.
I bet a lot of you are like this too. You love a TV show to death, you watch it live every week, you buy the DVD sets, you come here to TV Squad and argue in the comments about how great the show is and it would be a mistake to cancel it, and you'd make love to it if it was socially acceptable, but it's been on for five or six years and there are a dozen other shows you really love too, so you wouldn't be completely bummed out if it got canceled.

A show -- even a good one -- getting canceled will mean more space on your DVR and (even more importantly) more space in your head, space you're going to need when the fall season comes around and there are new shows to start watching.

There's an old joke that says that the only things you can be sure about in life are death and taxes. I'd add to that list the fact that every single fall season there are new (or returning) shows we like, and there's a great chance some of them will be canceled. And sometimes I just don't care.

Part of me feels guilty about this, because a show can still be good even if it has been on for several years, and you don't want to see a good show replaced by a bad one. Having said that, I wouldn't cry if 'Chuck' went away, and I know you have shows like that, too.

5. We watch A LOT of television (but I watch more than you do).
Sure, a lot of people watch a lot of television. If you're reading this site, a site devoted to TV shows and TV news, and you visit it at least once a day, then you probably watch more TV than the average person.

According to recent figures, the average TV viewer watches about five hours of TV a day. I know a lot of people who watch less than that, but most of us watch that much or more. It's amazing how quick the hours can add up in a day if you watch a morning show, a news show, and a couple of prime-time shows.

I was trying to figure out how much TV I've watched over the years, and it comes down to this startling statistic: I've watched five hours of TV every single day since 1970. Some days I've watched a lot more (like the past 15 years, when my job has been to watch TV for a living) and some days were less (days I was away from home and away from a television set). But even on days when I was in school from 7AM to 2PM or days I had a normal, full-time job and was out of the house from 7AM to 6PM or so, I still watched several hours of TV at night. I guess all that TV-watching gets me jobs writing about TV, but it's still an odd statistic to think about.

These days I have my TV on nonstop from around 8AM to past midnight. Every single day. Maybe you're like that too. Sure, there are times when I just want peace and quiet, but most of the time I feel a little uneasy if my TV isn't on -- even if the sound is muted.

There are studies that say that in the past several years, people have moved away from TV and getting their entertainment from the Web and other sources. I really don't believe that TV is going anywhere. How much we watch TV has increased a lot since TV Squad went live in 2005, and I don't see that number going down.

By the way, my first word when I was a kid? 'Batman.' Yeah, that explains a lot.

What have you learned about TV or your TV viewing since the launch of TV Squad in 2005?


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