Talk:Young Americans (TV series)

Reponse to "to do" tasking: Unaired pilot episode

In response to the "to do" tasking above: ″Here are some tasks you can do: Verify if there was an unaired pilot and if it has basically the same plot as episode ‘The Beginning’ with few minor changes and what those changes are."

There was an unaired pilot episode

Yes, there was an unaired pilot episode of Young Americans (YA). The whole unaired pilot episode is publicly viewable online, cut up into three clips, in the ‘Unaired Pilot’ playlist of the ‘IckyGrub’ channel at YouTube. It appears not to be publicly viewable elsewhere online.

The script of the unaired pilot episode of YA is accessible online both at the ‘Unaired Pilot’ page, http://www.twiztv.com/scripts/youngamericans/season1/youngamericans-100.htm, of the Young Americans section of the scripts section of the TwizTV website and at the ‘Unaired Pilot’ page, http://www.hazyphase.net/strawberrylane/transcripts/unairedpilot.html, of the ‘transcripts’ section of ‘Strawberry Lane,’ http://www.hazyphase.net/strawberrylane/, a fansite. The scripts on these two sites appear to be identical and accurately to record the dialogue in the unaired pilot as shown in the YouTube clips.

Recordings of the unaired pilot episode appear to have been distributed to potential reviewers and publicists before July 12, 2000, when the first episode of YA, ‘The Beginning,’ was aired. Some reviews of the first episode of YA, written or published before July 12, 2000, appear to have been based solely on recordings of the unaired pilot. For example, one of the referenced sources of this Wikipedia article, "Reality Lite," http://www.prospect.org/cs/articles?article=reality_lite, by Jane Rosenzweig (then at Yale, now at Harvard), published in The American Prospect, writes of "adultery" in the pilot episode; since adultery is present only in the unaired pilot, not in the first episode of YA as aired, it is evident that Rosenzweig's review was written, based on the unaired pilot, before July 12, 2000, although the article as published speaks in the past tense of a first episode that "premiered on July 12."

How the unaired pilot differs from ‘The Beginning’

The unaired pilot differs substantially from the first (pilot) episode of YA as aired, ‘The Beginning,’ not only in plot but also in other respects. Some of these differences are described by Sandra P. Angulo, "Shoot Polish: The new summer youth drama underwent a major creative makeover," Entertainment Weekly, July 12, 2000, already cited as the first reference of this Wikipedia article. During the nine months between production of the unaired pilot and production of the series as aired, YA's creator, Steve Antin, fundamentally altered what YA would be. Antin not only changed the shooting location, the supporting cast, the soundtrack music, and some plot-lines, as Angulo describes, but also elevated the moral tone of the drama, making it more idealistic and less realistic.

Plot differences between the unaired pilot and ‘The Beginning

’

A ‘critical commentary’ in the ‘description’ box of the first of the three clips into which the unaired pilot on YouTube is cut offers a summary both of

• the plot differences between the unaired pilot of YA and episode 1 (‘The Beginning’) of YA as aired, and of
• ‘substantial differences in character development’ implied by those plot differences.

Differences in moral tone

themes, characters, symbols and dialogue

A ‘crtical commentary’ in the ‘description’ box of the second of the three clips into which the unaired pilot is split on YouTube, offers a description of ‘differences in themes, characters, symbols and dialogue [that] make the moral tone of YA as aired markedly higher than that of the unaired pilot.’ That commentary argues that, due to these differences, ‘the most conspicuous aspect of YA as aired, its unrealistic moral idealism, is absent from the unaired pilot episode.’

Phlegming (talk) 21:11, 19 August 2010 (UTC)

I converted your post to pseudo headings as it is a bit awkward to reply when you made multiple sections. This should prevent any other comments from being placed in the middle of your post.

The script you speak of is actually a fan-made transcript of the pilot. I went through it some years ago now. It is accurate as far as i could tell. Yes, i have a copy of the pilot. The cast, some of the themes, and also the location are different from "The Beginning". I was able to reference some of this to an Entertainment Weekly article. While i am impressed by the video quality of the youtube source you write of i am pretty sure that it constitutes wikipedia:copyright violations unless it is proven the uploader is the lawful owner of the work or has license from Columbia TriStar to distribute it (highly unlikely). As such i have also removed the links in your post to the YouTube uploads. Naming the channel in which it can be found, i am not so sure about so i am leaving that at this time.

The catch in this is that very rarely is the pilot of a show the subject of media coverage. That means wikipedia:reliable sources are often lacking. That anyone who is a fan of the show knows it exists and has probably found a copy of it from somewhere in the 11 years since it was made means almost nothing in terms of mention in the article. I blame wikipedia:verifiability for that. I was most shocked to find such coverage from Entertainment Weekly. But that is the only coverage specifically on the pilot that i could find. If yourself or someone else knows where to look for information on TV shows being filmed in Atlanta then maybe there is something about Young Americans that could be added.

I tried to meet the request of the "To Do" but found my success to somewhat lacking so i left the "To Do". What you have written does indeed expand on many things as well as somethings i had missed. The difficulty now lies in having proper references. delirious & lost ☯ ^~hugs~ 11:13, 1 September 2010 (UTC)

Delirious & Lost - Thanks for the heading edits. And I didn't realize that Wikipedia copyright policy applies to talk pages as well as articles; not to be able to link to copyrighted references in discussions among contributors/editors seems a rather cumbersome constraint on collaboration. If we couldn't at least name YouTube channels, we could really have a problem communicating, given that there's never been an authorized DVD or tape release of YA, so that all records of YA are copyright-infringing unless warranted by "fair use" exceptions that Wikipedia policy seems not to recognize.

I'm more concerned about the paucity of citable reaction to the aired series than the paucity of citable reaction to the unaired pilot. Few media reviews of YA known to me were published after episode 2 was aired or appear to be based on acquaintance with more of the aired series than episode 1. Some reviews of ‘Young Americans’ (YA), such as the Rosenzweig essay cited as a reference in this Wikipedia article, appear to have been written before July 12, 2000, when the first aired episode of YA was broadcast, and to have been based not on the aired first episode but rather on the unaired pilot.

Phlegming (talk) 19:40, 2 September 2010 (UTC)

I indented your preceding post. It is the common thing to do, so long as you are not indenting half way across the page. ;) After 5 or 6 indents it is usually reset.

There is a bit of a difference between linking to copyrighted works versus linking to infringement of copyright. The youtube links appear to be the latter.

As to the references in the article at this time, all but one were inserted by myself. For a long time there were no references. Unofficial policy some many years ago now was that references were a "bonus" to an article. That is no longer the situation. They are mandatory, especially for anything questionable or contentious. When i came back to YA a few months ago it had a nasty tag at the top saying the article relied on a single reference. I hate those tags. So i added 13 references and removed the nasty, ugly tag. Ten years on it becomes hard to find references. Websites have been redesigned and archives purged. Metacritic wasn't around back then. Outside of a very dedicated fan base the show is not too popular. I spent about a day and a half on that expansion. I think i broke it up into a few smaller edits, in part due to some typos. I used to own a tv rip from UK but it got lost. Now i only have copies from The WB so i can't even properly write a section on the different edits of the episodes. In such a case i would likely use {{cite episode}} but i would need the episodes themselves to be able to do so.

If you have any references that meet the reliable sourcing policy linked in my previous post then please do add them. If you are not sure about the formatting of references i can fix them up if needed. I know YA was shown in a few countries in Europe so there might be British or Swedish critical reviews out there. It however had a different title in some countries.

I thought to take a look through some archived fan sites. There is some information in one of them that could be of use, though referencing should go to the source and not the archive of the fan site. http://web.archive.org/web/20020607230155/rawley.fanforum.com/news.shtml Then there is The WB's site from back in August 2000. Not much too it but maybe a little hidden gem of something could be found somewhere. http://web.archive.org/web/20000815082006/www.thewb.com/news/ya/index.html Those are a couple of places i had not thought to look for information when i was expanding the article so there hopefully will be a few useful things to be found there. delirious & lost ☯ ^~hugs~ 01:30, 3 September 2010 (UTC)

Delirious and Lost -- I had not previously been aware of The Internet Archive Project (http://www.archive.org/about/about.php), although I had long been aware that the U.S. Library of Congress has been concerned about the transience of online material. Thanks tremendously for the reference to that!

I know of only one citable media reaction to YA that covers more than the first episode, from one of the Baltimore papers, which offered unusually good coverage of YA due to its local production. It is Adele Marley's 'American Pie,' Baltimore City Paper, August 9, 2000, online at http://www2.citypaper.com/film/story.asp?id=4541, which is based on a viewing of YA through episode 4; no citable reaction to the last four episodes is known to me. Paragraph 7 of Marley's article seems to me to come closer than any other citable reaction to YA to understanding (while still failing to understand) both what YA was doing and how: 'Young Americans does its best to recapture the romanticized, wholesome allure of the Eisenhower era ... Nobody drinks, smokes, doses, or cusses ... The only really telling clue that Young Americans is set in Y2K ... is that one character recites lyrics from one of those rambling Macy Gray songs in his outdoor poetry class.'

However, there are some press articles from the second week in July, 2000, based on interviews with YA's creator, Steve Antin, that are not cited and might usefully be cited in this Wikipedia article. They include:

-- Susan King, 'A Closer Look,' Los Angeles Times, Sunday, July 9, 2000, online at http://articles.latimes.com/2000/jul/09/news/tv-53140 . Of particular value are the citations of Antin's statements of his intent ('I wanted to tell classic stories') and sources ('most the the story-lines are Shakespearean') and that YA has hidden meaning ('It's really a wholesome show with characters who, for the most part, do the right thing but the big sort of aside is, look closer--there is a lot more happening.')

-- Jay Bobbin, 'Young Americans' share life's mysteries in WB summer series,' Tribune Media Services (syndicated), published in The Tuscaloosa News, July 9, 2000 (also published in TV Week in 2000, exact date unknown), online at http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1817&dat=20000706&id=WUogAAAAIBAJ&sjid=IqYEAAAAIBAJ&pg=2353,1725510 . Again, Antin describes his intent ('I wanted to a series that would tell classic stories ... about star-crossed lovers'), his Shakespearean sources, and his inspiration by New England.

-- David Zurawik, “Pretty as a Picture,” Baltimore Sun, May 2, 2000, online at http://articles.baltimoresun.com/2000-05-02/features/0005020130_1_young-americans-baltimore-new-drama. Indispensible citable description of how and where YA was produced; the 'huge warehouse down in Locust Point where Hull Street runs into the river,' inside of which the sets for the interior of 'Rawley Boys' were located, is Tide Point, built in the 1920s as soap factory complex, renovated in 2002 as a corporate office park. For more on where various scenes in YA were shot, see this fansite page, sadly uncitable though it be: http://www.subvertigo.com/yalocations.html . Nearly all the urban Baltimore shooting locations are in or near the Locust Point neighborhood.

-- The July 2000 interview with Antin by Richard Huff, 'Gas, Food, Lodging,' already among this Wikipedia article's references, is notable chiefly for one sentence not yet cited in this Wikipedia article: Antin says that YA is not just about youth, but also about 'the moments of life when you look back on your youth.' That may be the only citable external reference to YA's narrative perspective, explicated in YA by Will Krudski's change to the past tense in his final narrating voice-over, but hinted at throughout YA by diverse anachronisms that had largely disappeared from New England well before 2000, like gender-segregated prep schools and full-service gas stations, not to mention antique vehicles and Coke in glass bottles dispensed from a 1930's-model Coke refrigerator.

The differences between YA as originally aired in the USA on The WB in 2000 and the more complete version of YA aired in some other countries, including France, are evident from different versions of YA viewable online. The whole series as originally aired on the WB in 2000 can be viewed either in whole-episode clips on the YouTube channel of 'Alienious' or in shorter clips on the YouTube channel of 'Granadaville;' currently, episodes 1 and 8 are blocked on the 'Alienious' channel, but the clips on the 'Granadaville' channel cover those episodes. The whole series as aired on M6 in France, dubbed in French, in 2001 and 2005, can be viewed in whole-episode clips on '56.com,' a YouTube-like Chinese site; do a Google site search of www.56.com for 'Young Americans' and up they'll pop. The Spanish-language version of nearly the whole series, which is just a Spanish-language dubbing of the version aired in France, can be viewed in short clips on the YouTube channel of 'naypasedeNash.' On the 'IckyGrub' channel of YouTube one can view, in short clips, the whole series in the more complete form aired in France, redubbed into English using the soundtrack of the original 2000 U.S. version, with dialogue ommitted from the 2000 U.S. version left in French and Englished by subtitles; that makes the differences in dialogue stand out, although there are also some non-dialogue scenes in the French version that are omitted from the 2000 U.S. version, notably two camera tours of "New Rawley" (Havre de Grace, Maryland) in episode 2.

From the history page of this Wikipedia article on YA, that you have improved it enormously, including by greatly expanding its references, seems clear. That said, my view is that this article might best be reworked from scratch. In addition to some errors of fact (e.g., YA is not a 'spin-off' of 'Dawson's Creek' [DC] per the definition of 'spin-off' in Wikipedia or anywhere else, and YA was filmed as much in and around Baltimore -- chiefly in and around its Locust Point neighborhood and Towson, a northern suburb -- as in Havre de Grace) and some unsubstantiated assertions contradicted by some sources (e.g., about ratings), it seems structurally flawed. Far too much of this article deals with the relationship between YA and DC (which is misrepresented), with episode 1, and with the music in the soundtrack (the apparent attempt to list all songs played is very incomplete and inaccurate, and any such list might better appear in a note than in the text if it is worth keeping at all). There is far too little about plot and character development after episode 1, nothing at all about the intent of YA's creator (Steven Antin) as indicated in various press interviews in July 2000, nothing about the literary sources and allusions of YA, and nothing about YA's ambiguous narrative perspective and time-setting. I shall soon (probably a week to a month hence) offer a first draft of a systematic rewrite of the article in a new section of this discussion page; it is clear that any such effort could benefit from your review and editing, and I look forward to working with you.

Phlegming (talk) 16:34, 10 September 2010 (UTC)

I am not sure what to say other than you can make it a sub page by adding on "/draft" to the end of the url for your user page or here. If you want to call it "re-write", "revised", or "proposal" instead of "draft" then that is fine too. My point is that it would be easier if you put it on its own unique page and we work with it there. I'll skip explaining the technical reasons but there are some as to why putting the entire revision on this here talk page is a bad idea. delirious & lost ☯ ^~hugs~ 09:12, 25 September 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for the advice, D&L. Will do.

An observation and a question, please: The scripts of episodes of YA other than the unaired pilot, found both in the Young Americans section of the scripts section of the TwizTV website and in the ‘transcripts’ section of ‘Strawberry Lane’ fansite http://www.hazyphase.net/strawberrylane/, are not fan-made transcripts. Unlike the scripts of the unaired pilot, these scripts of YA often differ substantially from YA as aired either in the U.S. or in France and Spain, and the differences are not merely due to cutting/omissions; dialogue and narrative voice-over content is sometimes entirely different, sometimes even scene order is changed; one conspicuous example is the final three minutes of the final episode. Since the source of these scripts is plainly not the series as aired anywhere, they cannot be transcripts; they appear to be scripts used in production from which shooting and editing sometimes deviated. Does that render them citable in a Wikipedia article? Phlegming (talk) 22:33, 26 September 2010 (UTC)

Delerious and Lost -- Still working on it, haven't abandoned it. Please bear with me. Phlegming (talk) 10:38, 15 October 2010 (UTC)

I have never gone through the "(tran)scripts" other than the pilot to check accuracy. The inconsistencies are not themselves proof of being early versions of the final script. It could just be that the person who created the html files made mistakes. Tim Minear directly released the scripts for Drive, Wonderfalls, and a couple of his other shows that were short-lived. They are in .pdf (which wasn't around in 2000). The document properties of the .pdf aid in verifying the authenticity of the scripts. They can still be found on Tim Minear's official site in its archives. Comparable verification from Steven Antin or one of the other producers of the series would be required before scripts or transcripts could be used in the Wikipedia article for Young Americans. My own YA site has also had the same files available since i think 2003.
In like manner, the www.fanforum.com/f39/ site and its 100000+ posts is a massive wealth of information on the series. You can't cite the forum for any of the information therein though as it is a blatant violation of the wikipedia:reliable sources policy (no forums allowed). The only thing the forum could be used for is in referencing itself as a long established and still active 10 years later fan site for a short lived show. Notice of the 2nd 50000 posts is the subject of this thread.
As to the matter of YA being a spin-off of DC, you are correct that it is not so in the most conventional sense. It was manufactured by adding the main character from YA into DC after YA was conceived. It was done for recognisability and some cross-promotion. That the character Will Krudski makes his public debut in DC and then goes on to be the main character in YA is how and why "spin-off" is used. It is the term that best fits the situation and which is almost always used by the media. It isn't perfect. I can't think of any other example where the main character was blatantly written into an existing show for the purpose of promoting a forthcoming show. If you look at Private Practice, it exists because a character existing on Grey's Anatomy was both so loved and yet hated in her role on GA that ABC green-lit a show for the character of Addison Montgomery after she was well established on GA. That is a more conventional spin-off. delirious & lost ☯ ^~hugs~ 22:51, 2 December 2010 (UTC)

Deleriousand lost - Sorry, have been distracted by reality for a few months. Hope to get back to this soon.

Thanks for the reference to the YA board at FanForum. I'm already acquainted with it.

"Cross promotion" is the term used instead of "spin-off" by Antin to describe the YA-DC relationship, inasmuch as YA's pilot had been made in autumn 1999, and Krudski was written into DC 3/19-21 only months later, when the WB decided to air YA in summer 2000 during the DC time slot. The problem with "spin-off" is that it implies that YA originated from DC, and that's just not true. Antin made this point in an LA Times article in July 2000, at http://articles.latimes.com/2000/jul/09/news/tv-53140/2. But that's a quibble that we can hash out later.

The differences between the online scripts for YA and the series as aired are often quite large. For example, in episode 8: (a) in the truck-hits-deer scene about a dozen lines in the script are simply not in the aired series, even in the "complete" version aired in France and other European countries; (b) the order of the scenes at the end is different, so that the last scene in the script is the bus-leaves-town scene whereas the last scene in the episode as aired is the Finn-posts-note-on-mirror scene; and (c) the closing narrative voice-overs are entirely different. These differences do not result from transcription inaccuracies. These are plainly scripts from which the show deviated in its final shooting and editing. One can't prove that in the sense of documenting it, but there's no other plausible explanation.

Meanwhile, one question, please: You say you have your own YA website that posts YA scripts. I know of only one such site, "Strawberry Lane." Are you the "Juli" who maintains that site? If so, many thanks - an indispensible resource for studying YA. And can one still contact you at the e-mail address given on that site as the site administrator's e-mail address? If not, what is the site to which you refer, please?

Phlegming (talk) 15:10, 23 March 2011 (UTC)

Strawberry Lane is not mine. There is a rule about using wikipedia to promote yourself so i don't even name my site on talk pages. At one time i had different transcripts but sometime in the last decade i swapped them out for the ones from twiztv, i guess for continuity of source.
I read scripts when i am bored. Pilot scripts tend to change a lot. There are a few places you can find them online - sadly no script for young americans seems to be among the collections. What you speak of as the scripts i do believe are transcripts. Rather than be proof of deviation it is more plausible to believe there are various edits of the episodes available in different places. (I happen to recall one version which does not end with Finn placing the scholarship letter on the mirror but i am not sure which version.) Or the transcripts are just a wee bit fake. Eleven years ago it was not the fashion to release scripts of shows but for fans to transcribe them (and perhaps mix in a little fanfic too if noone noticed). Now you can more easily find the actual scripts, either the original .pdf or a scan of a print copy.
I could see how "cross promotion" would be accurate. I can also see how it is not - the cross promotion is not reciprocal as no characters from DC appear in YA. It only crosses one way. That is more like a spin-off would be. "Manufactured spin-off" would be more accurate but also rather uncommon. Though the proposed BONES spin-off is apparently of a similar approach in that they are taking the fictional universe of another author and inserting its characters into an episode of BONES with the intent of it serving as a backdoor pilot. That episode is on in a couple of weeks i do believe and then FOX decides if they are going to order it to series or drop it. In contrast, "natural spin-off" would be more like Criminal Minds and Suspect Behavior, Grey's Anatomy and Private Practice, or Buffy and ANGEL where a character in the original series moves over to their own series. delirious & lost ☯ ^~hugs~ 19:15, 8 April 2011 (UTC)

Deliriousandlost - My Phleming account expired, presmably due to non-use. So I've started this Phlegming2 account. New potentially citable material on YA is available, I'd like to discuss prospective use. But I'd rather do so in a less rule-constrained venue. You have a PM from me at FF. Phlegming2 (talk) 06:49, 7 May 2014 (UTC)