Directors have always been leery of
people leaking information from film sets.
Especially now, in a time where information can spread so quickly across
the globe, it’s become a much larger problem.
Fans will scour the Internet, looking through fan sites and forums,
desperately searching for the smallest scrap of a plot twist. Some directors react more severely to this
pressure, and institute massive security lockdowns. Unfortunately, mistakes are still made
regardless of the precautions that may be taken.
The long-running science-fiction show, Doctor Who, is celebrating its fiftieth anniversary this year. Part of the celebrations includes a special anniversary episode at the end of the year, but the season finale that aired last week was also highly anticipated. Long-standing mysteries of the series
were going to be revealed. The executive producer, Steven Moffat, is always particularly close-mouthed when it comes to spoilers, but he made it clear in the press that certain mysteries would be resolved. However, the BBC made a fairly large mistake last week.
Several days before the finale aired, 210 Blu-Ray copies of Season 7,
Part 2 were mailed out early to Americans who had already pre-ordered
them. Days before the episode, and 210
people were given the answers early.
Obviously, the powers-that-be at the BBC were likely having massive
heart attacks at this point. But their
response was just to apologize, and ask those that already had the episode to
please not release any spoilers. Moffat announced shortly after that, a special video would be released to fans, as
long as no one leaked anything. “Our biggest surprise, our most secret
episode, a revelation about the Doctor that changes everything…and we'd have
got away with it too, if we hadn't accidentally sent Blu Ray copies of Name Of
The Doctor to 210 Doctor Who fans in America.
Erm - security-wise, that's not GOOD, is it?”
The crazy thing is, it actually worked.
Not one of those 210 people leaked a word. Even some of the fan websites closed their
comments sections for the duration; just to be sure no mistake was made. I would say that it is definitely a testament
to the fans, but really the BBC just got lucky.
One spiteful person could have done some damage. Simply requesting that the fans not release
any spoilers is not much of a strategy for damage control. But then again, what else could they have
done?
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