Earlier today BBC Radio 5 broadcast an interview with Steven Moffat where he spoke about spoilers and fans – hear it in the player above. Below is a clip from today’s BBC Breakfast featuring Doctor Who Magazine’s Benjamin Cook discussing it.


  1. Moffat has a point, however, it's the internet, it's GOING to happen. Either try harder NOT to let these things happen, or just deal with it, honestly.

  2. I sympathize with Moff, but I don't think there's any way to keep that kind of thing from happening in an Internet age. Plus, I like a certain amount of spoilers so that I can speculate about how they're going to get there. As long as things are tagged "Spoilers," I think it's pretty fair game.

  3. I agree 100% with the Grand Moff.
    I'm an extreme spoilerphobe – I dont even watch the next time trailers or visit places like Galifrey Base anymore, Ive also stopped listening to a number of Podcasts because they have in the past let something slip.
    At the moment I know nothing about the Doctor's wife,and I want it to stay that way until Saturday night, but the level of information saturation regarding the episode has been ridiculous.
    In the last 7 days I havent checked Twitter,listened to any podcasts or read an articals. My DWM bought last Thursday remains unread. It really shouldent be this hard.

  4. Wait, someone had the plots of the first two episodes written online?… Yeah, see, I didn't even know that. Goes to show how obscure that source probably was, then again, I don't spend all of my time looking for spoilers on the internet to begin with! I check up on this blog occasionally, and that's it. As an artist, I can kind of get where he's coming from. Did he git himself into a bit of an over-huff, I think so. I mean he really did make a lot of valid points, but the 'go and watch another show' comments were a bit… over the top, in my personal opinion. Again, a lot of what he said was TOTALLY valid, but he really shouldn't get himself in that big of a huff over it.

  5. I would just like to personally apologize for the poorly written up synopsis of episode 1 and 2. I wrote it based off of memory fragments several days later as well as having poor grammar skills. In all seriousness I never meant for that synopsis to get out. It was something I wrote for someone as a PM on a message board and the next day I saw it posted in the thread. Had I known that would have happen I would never written it. I am greatly sorry. I am choosing to stay anonymous because I know there would be a vicious backlash at me. Just I'm sorry Moffat. So sorry. 🙁

  6. Actually, there ARE people out there who deliberately, without being asked, lay out the plot in the forums. I had to stay away from the sole DW discussion I visit (more discussion than forum) because some new person (not one of the long-time posters) actually identified the one to die in the first 10 minutes. I closed that window ASAP (keyboard shortcut = Ctrl + w), but I had NOT wanted to know that before watching it. What a twit that person was. Other fans feel really sad when they inadvertently see the spoilers — saw one real fan's reaction on a YouTube comment, he was so sad that someone had ruined the surprise for him on a DW Forum. It's for fans like that that the Moff was speaking, so I will concur with his views on the matter.

  7. I made a deliberate effort this season to stay big-spoiler free, only for our daily paper to spoil it on the day of transmission with BBC Publicity Pictures showing who died etc. Luckily I was warned by my sister who screamed quite loudly when she turned the page and there they were She then spent the rest of the day wandering round randomly wailing "Ruined!" until the episode played

  8. Spoilers have always existed, now I read forums and message boards and when I see a [spoiler] tag in the title I know that it's content I should avoid if I don't want to ruin a plot line, that is a fact of life, you will always get fans who will want to see the next little piece of information or a blurry picture, something they can think about, talk over and make a theory based upon.

    Nowadays however, you get news papers and magazines picking up on these spoiler posts and posting them on the front page of their websites, they've no decorum for posting spoilers as a spoiler tag in itself is the anti-headline.
    You'll never get rid of those fans, but maybe we can encourage the media to behave better (or maybe start posting real stories on their websites, not fluff pieces they pick up online, but that is another rant.)

    But hey, that's just how I see things.

  9. I was determined to stay big-spoiler free this year only for our daily paper to spoil the first episode on transmission day with BBC Press Pictures of who died. Luckily I was saved by my sister who screamed quite loudly when she turned the page and there they were. She then went around randomly wailing "Ruined!" until the first episode came on.


Please enter your comment!
Please enter your name here
