Can’t wait until the latest episode of Doctor Who season 11 arrives this Sunday? Well, it seems neither could Amazon Prime, as they decided to make the upcoming installment available three days early.
Episode 11×08, titled “The Witchfinders,” was mistakenly uploaded in place of last week’s episode, “Kerblam!”, meaning that, for a short period on November 22nd, American users were able to watch the Doctor’s latest time-traveling adventure without having to wait until Sunday. The weird quirk meant that, while the episode description and captions all matched “Kerblam!”, the video itself was “The Witchfinders” in its entirety.
Naturally, fans are having a field day with this. Not only because some of them got to see the episode half a week before they expected to, but also the irony of this happening a few days after the release of “Kerblam!” As I pointed out in my review, the titular intergalactic retail company was clearly a parody of Amazon, with the show taking shots at some of the juggernaut’s less-savory elements. With this leak occurring now, fans believe that Amazon took offense to the episode and decided to get their own back.
Though Whovians are laughing about it, the BBC’s taking the leak very seriously. Metro reached out to the corporation for a response and a spokesperson released a statement saying they were investigating how this could have happened.
“We’re aware that an upcoming episode of Doctor Who was made available to Amazon Prime users in the US in error. ‘BBC Studios took steps to remove the episode as quickly as possible and is investigating how this happened.”
“The Witchfinders” takes the TARDIS team to 17th century Lancashire in the third historical outing of the season. Alan Cumming guest stars as King James I but the hour’s also notable for being the only episode of the modern series to be both written and directed by women – namely, writer Joy Wilkinson and director Sallie Aprahamian.
Be sure to catch Doctor Who the old fashioned way when it airs on BBC One/America this Sunday, November 25th.
