If a TV Show Has a Spoiler, Chances Are It’s Already Spoiled
Real masterpieces don’t have conclusive answers, but new sorts of questions
The rise of digital media and video games has encouraged the makers of commercial entertainment to mimic some of the qualities of post-narrative work, but without actually subjecting their audiences to any real ambiguity.
Movies and prestige television, for example, play with the timeline as a way of introducing some temporary confusion into their stories. At first, we aren’t told that we’re watching a sequence out of order, or in multiple timelines. It’s just puzzling. Fans of ongoing series go online to read recaps and test theories with one another about what is “really” going on. But by the end of the series, we find out the solution. There is a valid timeline within an indisputable reality; we just had to put it together. Once we assemble the puzzle pieces, the show is truly over.
In a nod to the subscription model of consumption — where we lease cars or pay monthly to a music service — the extended narratives of prestige TV series spread out their climaxes over several years rather than building to a single motion-picture explosion at the end. But this means energizing the audience and online fan base with puzzles and “spoilers.” Every few weeks, some…
