Showrunner, Russell T Davies, has briefly spoken about the prospect of watching the next episode of Doctor Who without being exposed to any spoilers.
In Doctor Who Magazine, Davies suggests:
“Wouldn’t it be great if we got to this year’s Doctor Who Christmas Special and nothing had been spoiled and everything was new? Why do we do it any other way?”
There’s a suggestion here that the lack of news around the special isn’t because there isn’t any news, or because things are so up in the air, but instead that it’s intentional. Whether we believe that or not is entirely up to us.
Sometimes, of course, spoilers just happen. We see something on social media by mistake because someone else has watched the episode before you or perhaps even they’ve made an educated guess or lucky punt.
It does seem somewhat ironic that Davies calls for no spoilers when the Fifteenth Doctor’s first season premiered on iPlayer at midnight, before airing on BBC One in the evening, meaning many hours passed where fans could watch online and spoil the episodes before they even officially screened.
And some of us like spoilers: if we know if something’s coming, we can prepare ourselves. That doesn’t always work out. Still, the current production team does have an issue with spoilers, given rumours of Billie Piper returning to Doctor Who were rife before The Reality War. When I watched it, I steeled myself accordingly.
But then, John Simm’s return as the Master in World Enough and Time/ The Doctor Falls was incredible because it wasn’t spoiled ahead of time (although I worked out who he was under the disguise and let out an audible gasp).
How do you approach spoilers, DWC readers?
