Talk:Justified (TV series)

Not a Western...?

Despite the lede’s description, “Justified” is not a Western. Its setting in Appalachia is clearly a long way from the Western part of the USA. Furthermore, the typical elements of a Western, other than the lead character being a U.S. Marshall, are not present. --216.152.18.132 (talk) 19:41, 11 October 2022 (UTC)

I just Googled "justified modern western" and lost count of the number of reliable sources that would disagree with you. - wolf 22:37, 11 October 2022 (UTC)

the typical elements of a Western, other than the lead character being a U.S. Marshall, are not present. You mean like a rebellious antihero who follows their own personal moral compass, gun slinging protagonists, or a quest for justice? But you're right - it's not specifically a "Western" - it's an example of the neo-Western subgenre. ButlerBlog (talk) 01:01, 12 October 2022 (UTC)

We describe the show using the terms our reliable sources use. The point of Wikipedia isn't for us to do original research (such as ask ourselves whether this or that show is a Western, or a romantic comedy, or a sitcom, etc), but to faithfully compile what our sources say. Since the overwhelming majority of TV critics consider Justified to be a Western, just as wolfchild says, our article does too. We editors do not decide they're right or wrong for ourselves, that's not the purpose of Wikipedia. All we do, to the best of our ability, is evaluate which sources to use and which sources to not use. CapnZapp (talk) 06:50, 12 October 2022 (UTC)

In light of this edit, suggesting that "Neo-Western" needs to be sourced while reverting to something likewise uncited is rather ironic. the overwhelming majority of TV critics consider Justified to be a Western is essentially true because all Neo-Westerns are Westerns (but not all Westerns are Neo-Westerns). Neither label would be technically incorrect, but using the subgenre is more precise - and well supported by many reliable sources, such as the New York Times. ButlerBlog (talk) 22:04, 13 January 2023 (UTC)

When the Motion Picture Association calls it a Neo-Western, I'm inclined to go with their expertise. ButlerBlog (talk) 22:46, 13 January 2023 (UTC)

While it's easy to plug in any RS that supports a particular POV, we should take notice of sources that are industry-specific, such as Slash Film, ScreenRant, The Hollywood Reporter and Film School Rejects, (as examples, there are more), which all refer to Justified as a neo-western. - wolf 03:59, 14 January 2023 (UTC)

At least one of those I think I already had in the cite bundle. I'm going to adjust that bundle of refs to highlight just the "majors" - NYT, EW, /Film, HR, TV Guide, and ScreenRant as those are primarily sources we would use in the film and tv projects, and I think we can all agree that those are the most reliable of sources for genre. It does get referred to as a Western in media and even in film-school specific texts because, for reasons I noted above, it is a Western - neo-Western being a subgenre is a more precise identification. With that in mind, I also took out "crime drama". These are not genre, per se. They are the "attributive qualifier" describing the type of Neo-Western. Of the six primary sources I have listed, only 2 use the attributive qualifier - the other 4 (and Motion Picture Association noted above) do not. While neo-Western is a hill I would die on, the attributive qualifier is something that I could live with if someone insists on being obtuse about it, but IMO it is unnecessary because it is attributive, most sources do not use it, and it makes the opening sentence overly wordy. ButlerBlog (talk) 14:51, 14 January 2023 (UTC)

Lolz... I didn't even look at the sources already there, I just pulled those 4 cites from the top 10 in a Google search for "justified neo western" but, as for the rest of it... yep, fine by me, I'm not a fan of long, clunky sentences. ;-) - wolf 16:04, 14 January 2023 (UTC)

Don't agree with the removal of "crime drama" from the opening sentence. It's been there since 2016, and before that, it was described as a "drama" going back to when the page was created in 2009. Three of the refs attached to the opening sentence refer to the show as a "crime drama", and whether it's considered a genre or just an "attributive qualifier", it's still an important disntinction, as it let's the reader know that the show is a "neo-western crime drama" and not a "neo-western comedy" or "neo-western epic romance" or "neo-western sci-fi adventure", etc. - wolf 20:12, 5 February 2023 (UTC)

(Re)Assessment

I'm not sure what I was thinking when I assessed this article as B-class back in June, but after a hard re-look at it over this weekend, it is does not pass criteria in several areas of B-class assessment. It's close - but not totally there. I must have been distracted by overall length, but a good chunk of that is the synopsis over 6 seasons. The article sections are not quite MOS:TV (close) but there isn't a "Release" section that would be necessary to be complete, and I would say there are minor items to be addressed yet on all of the B-class list. I'm rolling it back to C-class for the time being (until those things are addressed and it really can be said to pass the criteria). ButlerBlog (talk) 16:08, 16 January 2023 (UTC)

That's fine. You don't have to feel responsibility for old assessments just because they are your old assessments.

Anyway, if you want feedback on your reasoning, I'd say "there are minor items to be addressed" isn't nearly as helpful as actually listing what those "minor items" are. After all, you effectively state that in order for the article to regain B-class status, it must first fix "those things". But you never specify what "those things" are, so your criteria can never be met. (Of course, I or anyone else could re-grade it regardless, but now I'm providing feedback to you specifically because you didn't just change the assessment, you wrote a post detailing why. Or not detailing why, as it were.) Cheers CapnZapp (talk) 08:41, 6 February 2023 (UTC)

I did, in fact, mention the big one - The article sections are not quite MOS:TV (close) but there isn't a "Release" section that would be necessary to be complete. The criteria for B-class assessment are standard, and this section (and moving the Home Media section to a subsection under Release) fails the criteria of B3 (article has a defined structure) where we look for the article to meet the MOS structure (MOS:TVRELEASE). Without that, it's not a B-class article for the television and westerns projects (in so far as assessing for those projects - the other projects it falls under may not necessarily care about those items and can assess accordingly). Related to that, there is no Episode section (or "was", as I've addressed that), and that's where the Series overview belongs. The "minor items" are expansion of the Production section (more could be said about "Casting", half of the opening paragraph of Production deals with cancellation, which itself warrants a subsection if there's enough to say about it, which there is), and the plot synopsis section needs pruning of the season 1 subsection which is far too detailed based on MOS:TV and expansion of seasons 5 and 6. ButlerBlog (talk) 15:44, 6 February 2023 (UTC)