i was angry about the spoiler AND NO ALERT

and said so in this posting

The History and Use of "Spoiler Alert"

by Nate Freeman 

 

In her July 14 article about the premiere of the fourth season of "Mad Men," Alessandra Stanley neglected to include a phrase that precedes potentially revealing facts in film and TV reviews: “spoiler alert.” Fans read ahead and the damage was done. A certain string of words made moot a device key to the operation of the “Mad Men” universe—the ignorance on the part of the audience of how much time has lapsed between the previous season and the current one—and she did not give readers the choice of whether or not they wanted to know before the episode aired. The information was placed casually in the middle of a sentence—and so, for some, the fun of the anticipation had been ruined, and something would be taken away from the original viewing experience. Betrayal! Stanley had broken the unspoken agreement.

The outrage was widespread. Matthew Weiner, the show’s creator, told the Hollywood Reporter that he was “shocked” and that  “A lot of people told me they were blindsided by [the Stanley article].” Writing for Variety, Brian Lowry called out Stanley for “ignoring their plea to avoid spoilers—without so much as a word of warning.” New York magazine placed “Alessandra Stanley spoils pretty much everything in the 'Mad Men' season premiere” far on the “despicable” side of its Approval Matrix..................