Originally Posted by simmons_5251:
“can anyone actaully tell me who or what spoiler is?”
“can anyone actaully tell me who or what spoiler is?”
After writing a fascinating dissertation on the nature of spoilers, I've just realized I probably misunderstood your question.
I'll keep that text afterwards because otherwise I've just wasted a chunk of my life, but to answer what I now think is your question...
The Master and Romana are both Time Lords - well Romana is/was a Time Lady who was also The Doctor's companion for a while in the Classic series, later part of the Tom Baker era.
Now for that rambling essay...
An interesting question, and worthy of a thread of its own - no doubt there have been one or two in the past.
The simple answer is a comment about an episode (or film/book/etc) that spoils someone's enjoyment when they watch (etc) for the first time.
When discussing future episodes some people will mention facts and some will speculate.
In my opinion, speculation is not a spoiler - anyone can guess anything, and should be free to do so - indeed I'll often get quite annoyed about people putting spoiler quotes around obvious speculation, but that's a rant for another day.
On the other hand, facts about an episode, maybe from someone who has seen filming, would definitely be a spoiler and should be flagged as such.
But then there are all sorts of grey areas. How about talking about an episode that has been broadcast in one country but not in another - or a series that is running at different paces on different channels? DS tends to have threads for the different paces that viewers may be watching at, which is all well and good, but if someone wants to ask a general question, unrelated to a series thread, they might get answers from people at different paces which might consequently lead to plot points being revealed before some FMs are ready. In such a situation my argument would be that (for DS) the episodes that have been broadcast on UK (analogue) terrestrial channels are 'in the public domain' and info on them is not a spoiler. This definition may need to be varied in the future as digital TV developments mean more channels are freely available to "everyone."
What about trailers? The latest VotD trailer was on BBC1 on Saturday evening, but some of the discussion of it had elements 'spoilered'. I'd say this is unnecessary, as the material has effectively been broadcast, and again is in the public domain. I know others would disagree.
What about newspaper and magazine articles? Assuming they have correct information (another debate for another time!) I think that information in these can definitely be regarded as a spoiler.
And then you have the speculation that people make on top of actual spoilers. They're guessing, but reading their guess may give you hints which effectively make them spoilers.
Oh what a tangled web we weave!
Sorry.
