It irritates me. I want the episode to be a complete surprise. I don’t want to be given bits of it at the end of the previous episode (or at the beginning of the episode as is sometimes done)
Why do they do it? And how many people actually want to see the spoiler? It seems to me like the TV equivalent of a thread that spoils something without spoiler warnings.
Ratings.
Many viewers don’t want to be surprised and aren’t bothered by spoilers.
They usually don’t spoil big plot points, but the purpose of a promotion, you need to show people something about what will happen.
AMC’s pretty good at not revealing any spoilers for upcoming episodes of Mad-Men in the previews. Even the sneak peak scene at the website doesn’t reveal much of anything about the actual plot. Hell, the ad campaign for season 4 consisted entirely of clips from the past 3 seasons; no new footage at all.
To entice viewers and remind them that’s there’s a new episode next week. Most previews aren’t very spoilery, and are fairly easy to avoid. In fact, some previews are even anti-spoilers - edited to make it seems like something happens which bears no relation to what ends up actually happening.
They’re teasers, not spoilers, at least when done right. The idea is to get people saying “Ooh, I want to see that scene!”, so they make sure to tune in again next week.
I too hate spoilers (or teasers) and try to avoid them whenever possible, muting or momentarily changing the channel when possible or fast forwarding if recorded.
My WAG as to why they do it, the producers have so little confidence in the loyalty of their viewers that they feel, as mentioned above, they have to get their attention all over again.
And at least for some shows, I can hardly blame them.
There’s often big, hurtful arguments in online forums between the people who watch the “next week on…” and those who consider those spoilers. It’s annoying enough how all anyone ever wants to talk about is what happened in the last 30 seconds of the episode (happens a lot more on TWOP than here), that then you have people who forget about the episode they just saw and only want to discuss the very misleading preview.
Ever since 24 actually showed one of the minor characters BEING KILLED in the next week previews (and no, it wasn’t clever editing - she actually was killed in the next episode!) I’ve refused to watch them at all. Thank god they’re already edited out of online versions, so I don’t even have to worry about hitting stop before I see something I don’t want to.
Fox promo monkeys are evil, as demonstrated by the last season of Hell’s Kitchen:
(previous to this episode two of the contestants, Jay and Holli had been flirting on and off)
Next week on Hell’s Kitchen, things heat up!
Holli: It was like a marriage proposal
Jay: (something crude about Holli)
Have things GONE TOO FAR?
Chef Ramsay makes a shocking decision!
Ramsay: I’ve never done anything like this in my entire life! (He says a variation of this every week)
Holli: (blubbering uncontrollably) I love him so much!
On the next SHOCKING Hell’s Kitchen!
And then the actual show:
Jay and Holli go on a blimp ride together.
The marriage proposal bit is just her making a lame joke.
Chef Ramsay’s shocking decision is to let the donkeys pick their own stations and has nothing to do with the (completely non-budding) relationship between Holli and Jay.
Holli is crying because she’s seeing her son for the first time in many weeks. Her actual line is “I MISS him so much.”
Jay fades into the background as she snuggles with the baby-daddy who came along with her son.
The only shocking thing was how deceitful the promo monkeys were.
So hit the mute button. That’s what I do.
I stop the show before it gets to the “next time on…” bit. I only watch the shows I like, dammit! I don’t need you to tell me about next time - I’m already going to watch! Similarly, I hate the “coming up next” bits before commercials… you’re spoiling something I’m going to see in TWO MINUTES (even less, because of TiVo), you pricks! Slightly more than two minutes for some shows, because when you do come back from commercial, there’s two MORE minutes of RECAP! Is this TV for goldfish now? I just watched this bit… and I don’t need you to tell me about it again. “Reality” and a lot of cable shows are the worst offenders here. And I’m looking at you, Deadliest Warrior… you hour-long program that could easily be thirty minutes! Or a better hour, I guess. But why dream impossible dreams?
What I really don’t like is how some shows do it within the episode itself - I didn’t mind how Battlestar Galactica did it, because it was more of a “feel” sort of thing, but I was just watching an episode of NCIS, which has got to be the shittiest show I watch and I have no idea why I keep tuning in except that I can’t watch any good shows on my own because the boyfriend will want to see them, but anyway there was a character caught up in a prison riot and in real personal danger. So of course the little black and white flash at the commercial break was him at his desk smiling. Thanks for that.
Battlestar Galactica was horrible about this kind of thing. Starbuck’s dead. Well, maybe not. “We’re cylons, and we always have been”–in an unmistakable voice. Etc.
As long as it doesn’t give away something plot critical (a character seemingly about to die when the ep you were just watching ended seen running around perfectly fine in a completely different setting, for example) I don’t see what the problem is. Frankly it pisses me off (a tiny amount) that they cut them off from downloaded eps.
The worst is anime, especially the older kind that would do the Batman style announcer at the end. “Can Sakura really be dead? Tune in next week.” “Next time on Magical Monster Girl Fun, Takeru sees Sakura and wonders why she isn’t dead.”
But I don’t think plain teasers are spoilers. A spoiler is a significant plot point being told in advance. That said, the ones that are misleading are annoying as all get out.
I love those little tidbits. Of course, I don’t mind spoilers at all. I flip to the back of novels just to see who is still alive when the story is over.
Why? I simply can’t understand people who do this. What’s the point of reading the book then?
On an Episode of Family Guy last season, after Cleveland had moved away for his spinoff, Peter and the guys went on a road trip and happened to meet up with him.
I don’t recall the exact wording, but Peter said something like: “Cleveland! Boy, am I surprised to see you! Of course, nobody else is, since FOX spoiled it in the previews.”
I’ll never forgive Fushigi Yugi - the episode before ends at the beginning of a deadly ambush. What’s going to happen next? Oh, the title of this one is “To Die for the Star of Suzaku”. Thanks.
I have heard that Japan in general doesn’t care about spoilers, specifically that when some big soap opera had a “is she going to die or not” storyline, the morning news before the show gave it away and nobody thought that was weird.
Wow! Thanks for alerting me to this previously unknown feature of my TV.