House of Cards’ Full-Season Launch Redefines ‘Spoiler Alert’
Shelly Palmer
This article about “House of Cards” contains no spoilers. That notice seems necessary, since Netflix’s all-at-once release of the Kevin Spacey political thriller series last Friday has raised a thicket of questions. Chief among them: how can viewers who binged on all 13 episodes in one sitting talk about the show without ruining the season for others who might wait weeks or months to watch it? Netflix’s release strategy went against the grain of “social TV,” the catchall term for viewers who virtually watch TV together by chatting along in real time on Twitter, Facebook and other Web sites. Jenni Konner, one of the showrunners for HBO’s “Girls,” made the point this way on Twitter on Sunday night: “I don’t know how to talk to people who aren’t at least halfway through ‘House of Cards.’ ” On Tuesday she still had one episode left.
