That might make sense - and of course it's good to be respectful - if we were talking about a broadcast programme that people might happen across. But we're not. We're talking about removing episodes from an 'on demand' service. In other words, you actively choose to download and view the episodes.
A simple content warning would surely be enough to avoid those affected from happening across the offending episode. Come to that, if Sky genuinely wanted to show respect, they could stop *actively promoting* the series and remove the whole thing for the time being.
Of course Sky are actually much more interested in making money, so they want to continue driving viewer numbers (boosting the market value of their series) even if those viewers later find out they can't see the full series because Sky also want to pay lip service to being respectful and cover their backside in case of complaints. It's inconsistent and insincere.
---
As an aside: it's notable that those defending Sky's decision also just happen to be the same people who've already been able to watch the whole thing so they aren't affected - they've seen it themselves, but they think other people shouldn't be allowed to.
