Mariska Hargitay’s facial expression in this screengrab taken during last night’s (admittedly awful) episode of Law & Order: SVU pretty much says it all: "Thanks, Comcast, for giving away the beginning, middle, and final ’shocking twist’ right there in your one-sentence episode description."
Riddle me this, PopWatchers: Has this kind of heinoustry ever happened to you?
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I never, ever read the comments in the Comcast guide, especially for any Law & Order shows. A good deal of the fun is watching the team track down the perp, and the guide almost always tells you who it turns out to be.
I was treated to a spot congratulating Whitney on winning “America’s Next Top Model”…during the finale’s first commercial break! Fortunately, my girlfrien didn’t see or notice the commercial, but it kind of took some drama away for me from what was otherwise a close contest between her and Anya.
Um…her face kinda always looks like that.
And yeah, I’m not a fan of preview spoilers. ABC has been notorious for that, especially when it comes to LOST.
DirecTV’s descriptions has spoiled a couple of episodes of Lost and Battlestar Galactica for me. Even a show as small as Reaper was spoiled by the descriptions.
Episode descriptions on cable often give away too much, but frankly, TV Guide is much worse at giving away spoilers for episodes in supposedly non-spoiler articles. Seriously, I can’t tell you how many times TV Guide feature articles on a TV show have given away major plot points in just the first paragraph of the article – and with no spoiler warnings! And frankly, EW has given away major plot points about TV and film, without warning, in some of their articles too. As a result, I have to make it a practice never to read articles or information (including reviews) about TV shows and films before I see them. Wish it didn’t have to be that way.
FYI- Most of the content for Comcast’s on-screen guide and program info comes from TV Guide.
Not my shows so much, but I do have some commercials that I enjoy and when the cable provider interrupts them about 3 seconds in to start the commercial they want to show, it annoys me. Especially because its always a PSA from the county or a homely commercial for a local car dealership.
What has always bothered me is when a show doesn’t start on time and my digital recorder cuts off recording before a show is over so I don’t know what happens at the end. This is most often the case if the TV show follows a sports game/match. Sports rarely conclude at the scheduled time. Why can’t the geniuses at network programming adjust the scheduled times for sports games since they rarely end when they are scheduled to? Cold Case on CBS is notorious for this. I have had this show actually start anywhere from 15 minutes to 1 hour later than its scheduled start time. I have to set my digital recorder to record 1 hour past the scheduled end of the show just so I can be sure it captures the the last half. If these cable companies know that certain shows always start late, why can’t they adjust for that? I have my recorder set to record new episodes only. Why is it not possible to have the recorder start exactly whenever the shows starts whether that is 9 or 9:45?
I really enjoy it when a character from another show glides across the screen in the middle of a climactic moment and stands on top of a chyron promoting his/her series. I always find myself thinking, “Tiny Holly Hunter, you git now — I’m tryin’ to watch my stories!”
Also, as far as screen guides go, my problem is not that they give too much away but rather, they cut off in mid sentence (A lot!). Maybe it is a Time Warner Cable problem. The people who write them don’t realize how often they cut off which wouldn’t happen if they kept the description to just a couple sentences. They try to cram in too much into the little space given. I have had a movie synopsis like this: “A cell phone may be a clue in the murder of a” Murder of who? I don’t know. The guide cuts off because they took too much space listing all the actors, the number of stars it gets, etc.
Alvin – you are soooo right…those tiny people drive me crazy – add pyrotechnics to that and sometimes the whole scene is ruined.
I always click around during commercials and if I’m a little late jumping back to Jeopardy, I miss out on Final Jeopardy because the description of the show stays on the bottom of the screen covering the question! That definitely ruins my viewing experience.
Of course, a lot of shows don’t even have a unique episode synopsis at all. Some have the same one for each show. What’s up with that? Here is the description for every single episode of the George Lopez show: “A father deals with his insensitive mother in all aspects of his life.” I have watched 5 or 6 episodes of the show and that is the description each time. A lot of the syndicated sitcoms especially on Lifetime or Nick at Night have the same generic description for each episode of the same series. Can anyone explain that to me?
It is so funny you mention this because I was just talking to my friend about this happening several times last week. I was HBO’s documentary, Ganga Queen, which revolves entirely around a court trail. While I was watching, I clicked on on the info to see how long it ran and in the description it told me the outcome of the trail. Kind of lost the suspense…
It is so funny you mention this because I was just talking to my friend about this happening several times last week. I was HBO’s documentary, Ganga Queen, which revolves entirely around a court trail. While I was watching, I clicked on on the info to see how long it ran and in the description it told me the outcome of the trail. Kind of lost the suspense…
When I first switched to Comcast, it would cut out for 2 minutes at the same time every night. The worst part is that it was from 9:57 to 9:59. It went on for two weeks with me emailing them and calling them until I finally called screaming that I’d had enough with them messing up the endings of my shows. It was fixed by the next day. It hasn’t happened since but everyone else in a while it will cut out of a second or two and I’ll start reaching for the phone immediately. They probably have me on a crazy lady list somewhere.
Not only the cable companies do this but the cable channel “spoil” their own shows. I was watching Weeds Monday night and the end of the show had one of those “gotcha” moments that you aren’t sure how it will play out or if the characters will live. As the credits are rolling Showtime shows next week previews with the character in question, alive and well. Thanks alot for spoiling it for me!
DirectTV has gone in the opposite direction at our house. Far from giving us major spoilers, the satellite company frequently says only the premise of the program – such as “Marge and Homer raise Bart, Lisa and Maggie” on the Simpsons – not even a description of the specific episode. I could use a few spoilers in such a case!
Wow. Never had this problem with my cable provider yet. Really takes the wind out of those “BIGGEST! EPISODE! EVER!” howls that you can count on every so often.
I’ve got one better — the cbs.com Web site ruined the mystery of the CSI episode written by the guys from Two and a Half Men. I pulled up their episode recap and they gave away the murderers in the second sentence. How stupid can you be?
Thanks for the feedback. I will make sure this is communcated to the appropriate network/department for evaluation.
Best Regards,
Mark C.
Comcast Corp.
My favorite is when they promote another show in the bottom corner and it covers up the subtitles of the show you are watching so you have no idea what was said, etc…. It has happened more than once for shows like Lost. I’ve also learned to avoid all Law & Order episode information on my Time Warner guides, because they usually tell you who ends up being on trial.
My favorite is my cable company gives reviews of movies: “A lame comedy featuring…..” was how it described one upcoming movie. Who’s opinion is this? And why are they giving it to me?
Kai–I was about to make the same comment. I hate it when subtitles revealing important plot point suddenly get covered by a promo for some lame other show. It often sours me on watching that show, or any other one on that network, which I’m sure isn’t their intent, so why do it? Arrrgh!
By the way, I think I’ll be laughing all day at Alvin’s comment: “Tiny Holly Hunter, you git now — I’m tryin’ to watch my stories!”
Comcast does this all the time and it is really annoying.
It happens all the time. I remember that SVU episode specifically. I new about the football player before he even showed up. A brief premise is ok, but don’t give it away!
Scifi is bad! you wait all week to watch a show and when it comes on, the channel will pixelate-leaving all kinds of dead spaces in the show.
The space channel gave away the four of the final five in BSG before the third season finale aired-commercial promoting season four.
Recently started watching Buffy on Hulu (Better late than never). I’ve had to start actively avoiding their capsules -which pop up when you roll over an episode and appear at the top of the page when you load an episode- because they generally give away the entire plot.
Dear numbskulls at EW.com, FYI — Comcast, Verizon, Time Warner, DirecTV, Cox, Dish Network, WOW, RCN, etc., all purchase the same guide data from pretty much the very same companies. So your provocative headline is misplaced, since a viewer would have a comparable experience no matter who his multichannel video provider is. (A legitimate news gathering organization would have learned this in the course of their reporting, but what else should we expect from a top-notch reporting outfit like yours?) SMB.
Dear David,
Way to take a holier than thou attitude with an entertainment blog. Hope tomorrow goes better for you or do you need to feel superior where ever possible?
Dipshit.