Hey all,
And so, the SpoilerTV Favourite Episode Competition comes to a close for yet another year. We knew going into this year's final that Person of Interest would emerge as winner, but which of its two episodes would take the crown? Well, as many of you will have seen, it was 'If-Then-Else' that triumphed.
Outlander's 'The Wedding' came third.
Person of Interest's win means that we have our first different winner in the third year. Previous holder Beauty and the Beast crashed out in the second round, which left it wide open for a new winner. Commiserations to the Beauty and the Beast fans who were unable to get very far in this competition, but I was glad that it fell so early as it prevented the potential for the show to claim victory for a third successive year, and I love seeing variation. Commiserations also to the fans of every other show involved in this competition - even if your favourite didn't win, I hope that you had a lot of fun participating.
With Person of Interest taking both spots in the final, some were understandably aggrieved that it limited the involvement of fans for the big event. I can certainly understand that. Having seen the amount of votes cast in the final compared to both of our previous finals, as well as compared to that of this year's quarter-finals and semi-finals, I was disappointed. The vote count for this year's final was fewer than all of those polls, which is especially frustrating, given that 13 and a half thousand votes were cast in the semi-final between Outlander and Person of Interest - the most votes in a single poll in this competition across all three editions.
As I mentioned yesterday, before the competition began, I discussed with DarkUFO the idea of preventing the same show from meeting in the final and I didn't implement the idea. That isn't something I plan to do next year, but perhaps we will have to have a look at how the draw works in order to try and lessen the chance of this happening in order to make the final rounds bigger and more accessible to fandoms. That's a question for next year, however.
For now, let's look at some positive things. We smashed records this year. As I mentioned, the first semi-final claimed over 13 and a half thousand votes - 13,596 to be exact - to become the most voted in poll in the competition's history. That total is also more than either of the semi-finals for the 2014 Series Competition managed to achieve, which is mightily impressive. In terms of pageviews, we destroyed the record with the count at 264,000 shortly before the final ended. By comparison, 2013's competition claimed 97,000 while 2014 gathered 88,000 views. So, despite the disappointing final, it seems clear to me that we are most definitely going in the right direction with this competition. It's getting bigger every year, and as more and more people discover the site, I can only see that number rising this time next year. I never imagined the competition could grow this big when I started it back in 2013, and I'm so happy that it has.
When this competition began at the start of June, I was pretty busy outside of the site, and so I wasn't able to get as excited as I wanted to. The enthusiasm that everyone has shown managed to really get me into the feel of the competition, and now that it's over, I'm sad that I won't be setting up polls and writing up posts every day for a while. Without you, the readers of SpoilerTV, this competition would be a failure, so I want to thank you for being a part of it - whether you voted in one poll, all of them, or anywhere in between. Also a huge thanks to DarkUFO, whom without, this competition (nor this site) would be possible.
This may be the end of the Episode Competition for another year, but that's not it for competitions this summer. Dahne is once again running the Character Cup, and if it's anything like last year, she will deliver another roaring success. You can get your nominations in for that by following this link.
As for me, I'll be back in August to run the sixth edition of the competition that started them all on SpoilerTV - the Favourite Series Competition. I'm expecting that to be huge this year - bigger than we've ever had before - so make sure to look out for that in a few weeks time. In the meantime, I'm reviewing Under the Dome over the summer, so you can catch my weekly reviews under my author label. You can also get in touch with me via my Twitter or send me an email through the links in my bio below.
For now though, a final thanks to everyone for taking part this year, and I'll see you all again in 2016.
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