Shelf Life

The fourth season of Lost begins on January 31st and that means after that date I will have to avoid any mention of that show anywhere on the Internet. I can't take the chance of hearing any spoilers at all. What makes it worse is that I have no idea when the fourth season will begin in Germany. Last year they showed the third season beginning, I believe, in late spring and since the fourth season is getting a late start in the US it could be delayed here for even longer.

The online group of knitting Losties that I frequent? Avoid. News stories about Lost and even stories about cast members? Avoid. Any other online discussion group in general that even features the word "lost" in a thread title? Avoid because maybe the writer just doesn't like capital letters. I even need to be careful when reading blogs because by accident I've found spoilers that the author didn't even know would be a spoiler to anyone. Not to pick on her because it in no way was her fault - she couldn't have known - but on Katya's blog she once mentioned something that happened in the third season of Battlestar Galactica and I freaked because we hadn't, as of then, gotten the third season in Germany. In fact we're just getting the third season now and Katya made her accidental spoiler over a year ago so that bring up a question:

For how long could a plot detail in a movie or TV show or book be considered a spoiler?

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows has been out in English for about six months. If I were discussion things like who dies in the book, I'd put out a spoiler warning but it's been nearly five years since Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix was published. Do I need to still keep mum about who dies in that book? I haven't been able yet to see all of season seven of Gilmore Girls - should I still keep hollering that I need spoiler warnings for a show that's no longer in production? Since it's been over fifteen years since The Crying Game was released do I have to still keep mum that Stephen Rea got the shock of his life when he found out his girlfriend was sporting a penis?

Oops. Hope you didn't want to see that movie anytime soon.

If it's any comfort to anyone who accidentally read a spoiler they shouldn't have, it's likely that if it wasn't a big, big thing (I'd consider anything in Harry Potter VII to be a big, big thing) and if you let enough time pass, the spoiler shouldn't do any lasting damage. By the time I began to watch the third season of Battlestar Galactica I'd completely forgotten what was supposedly spoiled for me.