To the Promo Dungeon with You!

Has anyone else noticed this?

One of the things that I hate most is the trend in movie trailers to reveal EVERY SINGLE TWIST IN THE MOVIE. The one that I can remember being most egregious was "What Lies Beneath" but it's a fairly standard practice now. The days of having a cool trailer that made you want to see the film, without giving it all away is kind of past.

The worst thing is all the data that these guys have that claims that actually works: that more of the audience today doesn't want to be surprised; they want to know exactly what they're getting. Sigh. Teenagers.

Anyway, the "next week" come-ons for most shows have always walked this line, too. Sometimes they use misdirection, editing the clip to make it seem like Marissa gets shot on the OC, for instance, or making it seem like the two people you want to get together actually get together, when really, they just have a smoldery look or it's a daydream or something.

I know people who deliberately don't watch these "next ons" because they got fed up being spoiled and/or misled. But I have some sympathy for the network on this: there's a lot of choices out there. They have to whatever they can to keep you coming back.

But FOX has, of late, started to seriously cross the line into movie trailer that reveals all territory.

Specifically: on promos for this week's PRISON BREAK, you saw a clip of Michael saving the Doctor from the infirmary by pulling her up into the ceiling.

There's only one problem. That wasn't in the episode.

If you tuned into FOX this week, the episode ended not with the Doctor (who for the sake of not knowing her character name, I'll call Dr. Hottiegovdaughter) being rescued. Nope, she's still in serious jeopardy. Then they show the "next week on" and the same clip of her being saved is in it.

So in other words, last week, they cut the promo with scenes from the next TWO episodes and made it seem like you would see this next week.

They did the same thing with Reunion: cut a promo for this week's show using a scene that doesn't appear until next week.

Now, if I'm one of the creatives on this show, this is not going to make me happy. Not only are you misleading your audience (and not in the fun way of re-editing the clips to make it seem like something different happnes...a technique that PRISON BREAK has used before to great effect.) but you're potentially spoiling story events not just one, but two episodes out.

Is FOX the only network guilty of this?

It's a bad trend. Down Promo Monkeys! Down!