'House of Cards Season 3' Release Date News: Netflix Leaks Season Early By Mistake

To the detriment of TV series makers, Netflix treated fans with an unexpected and unplanned release of "House of Cards," two weeks ahead of its third season's scheduled premiere.

Even though it was pulled out minutes later, the popular streaming network made the critically-acclaimed political drama fully available for viewing with an inadvertent debut on Wednesday.

In a statement, Netflix attributed the leak to a technical error. "Due to a technical glitch, some Frank Underwood fans got a sneak peak. He'll be back on Netflix on Feb. 27," Netflix said, according to The Hollywood Reporter.

On Wednesday night, eagle-eyed Netflix viewers in America were able to watch the series online for just under half an hour. On that night, all the episodes of the hit TV series were made available for viewing on Netflix complete with listing as well as episode titles and descriptions.

Even though Netflix was able to sort out the mistake roughly 20 minutes after the leak, visitors were reportedly able to load the episodes enabling to watch them in full at a later time.

Some fans on Twitter said they were able to keep streaming episodes they had begun watching before they were removed, BBC reported.

The official account of "House of Cards" on Twitter acknowledged the slip with a quip: "This is Washington. There's always a leak."

The leak came just a few days after Golden Globe Award-winning actor Kevin Spacey, who played Francis "Frank" Underwood, was trying so hard not to give away spoilers in his interviews with the media.

Spacey won Best Actor for his role as a ruthless politician on a power trip to get to the top of American politics in the "House of Card" at the Golden Globes last month.

"House of Cards" is a new version of a series by the same name originally screened by the BBC in 1990, based on the novel by Michael Dobbs.