Cartoon Network’s Latest Leak for Steven Universe is Supremely Disappointing

Yesterday, Steven Universe, one of the shows in the history of television with the most leaks, suffered its worst leak yet, potentially spoiling the events of up to ten episodes in the future, at a time when the show’s story is more crucial than ever.

This is just supremely disappointing from Cartoon Network. The leak came from a video on their own YouTube channel. It was a completely unforced error caused solely by themselves. There have been so many accidental leaks and episode releases with Steven Universe, even a regular public Turner early screenshot and clip release system that they’ve still not shut down, and to see it not only not get better, but in fact have what’s surely their worst leak ever that will compromise many viewer’s Season 5 experience is so, so rough.

It’s not hard to imagine how a person making the video could have been confused or unaware of which episodes had or hadn’t aired. It’s a natural consequence of CN holding onto finished episodes for such a long period of time. Or maybe this video was supposed to go up in several months and not now (although that doesn’t seem likely from context). But how are there not checks in place to stop this? How did one person not catch that these clips were obviously from unaired episodes of their most popular show online and shut the release of the video down? That’s what’s really hard to swallow.

No this isn’t the end of the world. It won’t ruin the show, it won’t ruin these episodes. We’ll still all love watching the rest of Season 5. But it will affect how we view future episodes, it won’t be the way the crew intended (without this future plot knowledge). And that’s the most disappointing element, that the crew’s vision and hard work on this show is hurt. I can imagine how tough this must be for them and wish their work was being respected more by the cooperate side of CN.

It seems like we’ll be in for a great ride from the rest of Season 5 of Steven Universe regardless and I can’t wait to experience it, hopefully unabated any further.