I'm still not entirely convinced that yesterday's headlines-grabbing leak regarding Doctor Who season seven finale The Name of the Doctor wasn't planned. Follow my deductive reasoning for a moment.
For those unaware, it has been confirmed by the BBC that the Series 7 Part 2 Blu-ray shipped early to US purchasers who bought from the BBC America online shop. This Tumblr Early-Getter posted images of as much. Tumblr has exploded with detailed spoiler synopses covering the entire episode.
Previously, a SPOILER-RIDDLED thread appeared on the IMDb message boards, discussing various elements of the finale. It was posted by someone who alleged to have taken some shots from a cinema screening of most of the finale. I've chosen not to link it here in the event the spoilers are legit.
I've lost the link, but one story I read last night had a followup from this poster who acknowledged that the shots he posted were fake, and that he works for some part of the production, has been found out, and is going to be fired.
The images on the Tumblr match the released box art and so on, and that looks like a real title card screen. All of these things establish confidence in the legitimacy of this thing.
And yet...I wonder about all of this.
An examination of the Tumblr Early-Getter's Tumblr reveals that it has only existed since 22 April 2013, which as of this writing, makes it around 13 pages of Whovianism long. They didn't post any screengrabs other than the title card. Even though their Tumblr content as posted includes some spoiler posts, none are blatant, fully-spoiling content in advance of an episode airing. The rest is run-of-the-mill Who fan GIF-age. An intern in a production office could be running it, for all we know.
I do not think that the spoilers for this season's finale were leaked intentionally at first, however I am convinced that the famously airtight BBC offices governing Who have quietly accepted that enough people of a young enough age work on the series, and with that come consequences of always-on-and-connected lifestyles leaking info. Inevitably, things will get out, and the best way manage that is to get out ahead of it if possible, and if not, to try spinning it into a social media and publicity spike.
The initial spoilers came from a screening for Doctor Who Magazine staff and select press, which did not include the final three minutes of the episode. They must have known that someone would use the anonymity of the internet and spread some spoilers. Moreover, not even the power of the BBC can stop things from being uploaded to torrent networks, and the episode itself has yet to appear, according to all reporting I've seen. Note that the official BBC statement says nothing about asking fans to prevent the piracy of the episode, only to not spread spoilers. The "special video with Matt & David" to be released as a reward for preventing spoiler spread could have been planned all along.
The early release of Blu-rays to the US purchasers is good for inducing some saber rattling over in the UK, "Those damned Americans ruined Doctor Who for us! Get them (digitally)!". This distracts from the initial leak having happened, and redirects fan energy toward fighting the good fight against spoiling trolls. This also makes the actual airing an even bigger event, now that there's a scandal attached. Mabe the initial leak was planned as well, along with the "I've been fired" followup. Who knows.
My entire theory falls should the episode leak prior to its airing. We'll see between now and Saturday evening UK time.