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Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Mercy Point/archive1

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The following is an archived discussion of a featured article nomination. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was promoted by Ian Rose via FACBot (talk) 09:58, 9 August 2017 [1].

Mercy Point

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Nominator(s): Aoba47 (talk) 23:13, 25 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Hello everyone. This is an article about an American science fiction medical drama that aired for one season on United Paramount Network (UPN) from October 6, 1998, to July 15, 1999. With an ensemble cast led by: Joe Morton, Maria del Mar, Alexandra Wilson, Brian McNamara, Salli Richardson, Julia Pennington, Gay Thomas, Jordan Lund, and Joe Spano, the series takes place in a 23rd-century hospital space station located in deep space and revolves around its doctors and nurses. Initially focused on ethical and medical cases, the storylines gradually shifted toward focusing on the characters' personal relationships to better fit UPN's primarily teen demographic.

This is my third nomination of an article on a UPN series, following the successful promotions of Love, Inc. (TV series) and Eve (2003 TV series). I have primarily used my experiences and feedback from those two prior FACs in preparing for this. I just find something about the network’s eclectic mix of genres and shows to be fascinating. I have actually never seen this series (as it was never officially released outside of its original broadcast and only clips of it are available online), but I greatly enjoyed working on this and found the production history to be very interesting. I believe that this fulfills all aspects of the featured article criteria. Hopefully, this nomination will inspire more people to put up television-related articles in the FAC process. I look forward to everyone’s feedback. Thank you in advance! Aoba47 (talk) 23:13, 25 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Resolved comments by Mymis
Comments by Mymis
  • "Running time: 60 minutes" -> I'm sure it's around 42 minutes?
  • You mention the names of the production companies twice within in intro.
  • I wanted to make it clear which company was being referenced as they were two of them. I restated the "Mandalay Television" company at the beginning of the second paragraph to clarify which of the two was being discussed, and add "between Mandalay Television and Columbia TriStar Television" to make it absolutely clear as I feel that saying something along the lines "between the two companies" would a little too vague/unclear. I would be more than happy to hear your suggestions on this. Aoba47 (talk) 20:33, 27 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Just remove "The series was produced by Mandalay Television and Columbia TriStar Television". You state it again in the next paragraph anyway ("deal between Mandalay Television and Columbia TriStar Television"). Mymis (talk) 20:41, 27 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • Not sure if UPN template is necessary at the bottom of the article.
  • "Callaway has stated that he had the potential..." -> "has" is redundant.

Mymis (talk) 20:26, 27 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]

  • "Following its decision to expand its..." -> Two "its" is bit repetitive. Maybe replace first one with "a" or "the" (not sure which one is grammatically correct).
  • "Dan Snierson reported that Mercy Point faced tough" -> maybe "noted" instead of "reported".
  • "While Mercy Point was envisioned as a companion to Star Trek: Voyager.." -> You mention this fact few times throughout the article. But who exactly envisioned it? The network? The creator?
  • When you talk about Joal Ryan's opinion, you could include a quote.
  • I am not sure if there is a really good quote from Ryan's article that would be better than paraphrasing, but I am more than happy to hear your opinion on this. Aoba47 (talk) 19:37, 28 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Mymis (talk) 19:10, 28 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]

  • In the "Concept and development" section, it is still unclear who imagined it, especially when you have a quote (a "companion piece"). Whose quote is that?
  • "part of a $3 million deal" -> The number should be spelled out, to be consistent with the rest of the article.
  • "while casting each role. During the casting process, he focused" -> "Casting" sounds a bit repetitive. Maybe "During the proces, ..."
  • "episodes of the series, which is considered a "half-season's worth"." -> I'd say "was" instead of "is".
  • "appeared in the 1998–1999 television season" -> Maybe link "1998–1999 television season"?

Mymis (talk) 18:55, 29 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Comments from Argento Surfer

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  • I don't think the colon is necessary before the cast listing in the lead.
  • The lead says the show was put on hiatus after two episodes, but the air dates in the episode table show the hiatus starting after the third episode. The broadcast history section seems to support it being third. I think the hiatus was announced after two, but took effect after three. For clarity, I think the lead should be changed to say "three", and first part of the second paragraph in Broadcast history be rewritten to clarify the order of events.
  • Is the show available through Netflix or other streaming services? That might be useful to include with the bit about it not being on DVD or Bluray.
  • The show is not available on Netflix or any other streaming service. I do not think that there has been much interest after all of the episodes aired, and it seems like it has been mostly forgotten over time. Aoba47 (talk) 19:24, 28 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for the quick replies. I can support this. Argento Surfer (talk) 19:27, 28 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Comments by Moisejp

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Hi Aoba. Just the lead so far. I'll get to the rest soon.

  • "three million dollar deal": seems similar to some of the examples requiring hyphens in MOS:HYPHEN but I'm not confident.
  • "Director Joe Napolitano had praised the show for its use of a complete set to allow for more intricate directing." I haven't gotten as far as the main body of the article yet, but is "had praised" correct? "Has praised" seems much more likely.
  • "The show suffered from low viewership, with an average of two million viewers." If it can't be helped, it can't be helped, but it sounds a bit repetitive having "viewership" and "viewers" in such close proximity. Is there possibly a way to reword the sentence to avoid the repetition?
  • "The final four episodes of the series were broadcast in two, two-hour blocks on Thursday nights in July 1999." Would "two 2-hour blocks" be possible to avoid awkwardness? Or maybe we don't even need the first "two"? Moisejp (talk) 06:21, 31 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Aoba. I will finish this review really soon, hopefully this weekend. Thanks for your patience. Moisejp (talk) 06:15, 5 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Lead:

  • "Even though it was picked up by Mandalay Television, the concept was eventually revised as a television project and renamed Mercy Point due to the poor commercial performance of the 1997 film Starship Troopers." The "Even though" could be confusing because it was picked up by a television network and then revised as a television project. People could be confused why it's not normal that a television network would tailor the project for television. Moisejp (talk) 06:13, 6 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • "It was never released on DVD or Blu-ray, and was never released on an online-streaming service." I don't have a strong opinion about this, but it's possible these statuses could change in the future, in which case "has never been" may be better than "never was". Moisejp (talk) 06:18, 6 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Casting and filming

  • "Lund had to sit through several hours of prosthetic makeup to get into character." I think it's the application of the makeup, not the makeup itself, that he had to sit through several hours of? Also, I believe "get into character" is usually used slightly differently than how I interpret it here. Usually it means, adopts the mannerisms, etc. of the character. But I'm not confident it couldn't refer to the appearance too—I'm just not used to seeing it used that way. How about something like "The application of Lund's prosthetic makeup required several hours each day that he was filmed."
Revised. Aoba47 (talk) 15:05, 6 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Cancellation and unproduced episodes

  • "To better connect with UPN's teen viewers, Callaway reported that he shifted the show's focus from medical and ethical cases to the characters' relationships." Please rework this sentence so that the opening phrase is not tied to "reported". Maybe the easiest solution would be just to remove "reported that he". Moisejp (talk) 14:50, 6 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • "Due to its cancellation, Callaway viewed Mercy Point as a limited-run series." Is this noteworthy? It's unclear to me how relevant it is, but maybe I'm missing some context. Moisejp (talk) 03:54, 8 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I originally thought it was important to mention how Callaway changed his views on the show after it was cancelled, and viewed it more as a limited-run series than a regular show. However, I do agree it does not seem as relevant anymore so I have deleted it. Aoba47 (talk) 13:11, 8 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]

  • Just checking, this section talks about Grode's missing family, and just below the synopsis of episode one talks about Jurado's missing family. They both had missing families, and there is no confusion of subject in either instance (i.e, they're not both supposed to be about Grode, or both supposed to be about Jurado)? Moisejp (talk) 04:01, 8 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Critical response

  • Is the first paragraph supposed to be all about appraisal the show got at the time of its debut (no later appraisal)? If so, I strongly suggest "Mercy Point received" instead of "Mercy Point has received". But if it's not supposed to be only at the time of its debut then "following its debut" is confusing and should be removed.
  • "David Bianculli of The New York Daily News praised Mercy Point as an improvement over "UPN's watch-me-please gimmick shows", commending its focus on its characters and medical cases while "relegating the futuristic elements to the background"." Here "commending" modifies Bianculli but "relegating" is meant to modify Mercy Point. The reader probably expects the _ing/_ing to be a parallel structure modifying the same subject, but it doesn't, which is confusing.
  • "Mercy Point also garnered negative reactions from television critics, with GamesRadar's Dave Golder including it on its list of the worst science fiction and fantasy television shows of all time" Should it be "his list" instead of "its list"? If it is not only Golder's list, it would be less confusing to not mention him at all. Moisejp (talk) 05:17, 8 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • "he advised the audience to "change this bedpan fast". The series was heavily panned" The repetition in close proximity of "pan" / "panned" jumps out at the ear. Maybe rearrange the sentences so that these two don't direct follow each other?

Those are all of my comments. Thanks. Moisejp (talk) 05:24, 8 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Comments by Epicgenius

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I don't see any issues, grammatically or otherwise, since these were all already fixed. I support this nomination. epicgenius (talk) 02:18, 2 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Image review from Adityavagarwal

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  • There are two images in the article. Appropriately placed, have description template well present, and no issues anywhere. Good to go; it is a pass!

Support from Freikorp

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I previously commented on the FAC for Love Inc. I must say I really admire the amount of effort you put into articles on unpopular TV shows. Seriously. I took a film I was indifferent about to GA once, mainly because it was terribly written and since the film was unpopular I figured nobody else would ever improve it, but that was about as far as I wanted to go with it. It's admirable that you've been willing to put this much effort into a series that you couldn't actually watch. I find it hard enough to bring things I'm passionate about to FAC level. While I do support this, I do have a couple optional things I'd like to point out.

  • "According to Napolitano, Lund had to...", this isn't a controversial or outrageous statement, so personally I wouldn't feel the need to attribute it to anyone, but up to you.
  • "It was never released on DVD or Blu-ray" - I know it's kind of impossible to find a source that it was never released in any format, but as this statement only clarifies the formats it wasn't released in, it raises the question of where one can view it today. From your FAC intro I gather it can't be viewed anywhere; it's a shame this probably can't be sourced. Personally I'd add the information that it can't be viewed today into the prose anyway but it might be a smarter idea to wait until the FAC is closed to do that :).
  • Thank you for the comment, and that is a good point. I actually just found that there are several episodes available on YouTube, such as the entirety of the second episode "Opposing Views" can be seen in this video. (I am not entirely sure how I missed that during my work and expansion on this article for GAN lol). Do you think that I should make a note that the episodes are now available online and use the YouTube links as sources or would that be crossing lines of copyright as these YouTube videos are not official releases? I will have to watch at least one of these episodes to actually see all of this stuff in action and see if I actually like this show or not (at least before they are taken down lol). Aoba47 (talk) 14:43, 2 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • Linking to the an un-official YouTube video would unfortunately be a copyright violation. If I were you I'd probably just expand the 'It was never released on DVD' sentence to also say it was never released on an online-streaming service either (which effectively means it is currently unavailable for official viewing; you probably don't even need a source for that). You could consider taking it one step further and explicitly saying the series is not officially available for viewing anywhere, though someone might challenge that as needing a source, especially while this is at FAC. Freikorp (talk) 23:37, 3 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • What is "advance containment"? Can you find an appropriate wikilink?
  • I actually had a hard time pinpointing an appropriate target for this then I originally anticipated. I linked the phrase to the "Prevention" section in the "Infection" article as it is dealing with preventing containment. I also changed "advance" to "advanced" as I think that was a typo on my part as the critic was dismissing how the show tried to pass off gloves as "advanced" medical technology. Aoba47 (talk) 14:43, 2 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Best wishes. Freikorp (talk) 13:34, 2 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]

  • @Freikorp: Thank you for your kind words. I think that there is something interesting about working on articles on unpopular shows, and I agree that it certainly feels that no one else would have improved this so it almost becomes like a personal project in a way. Hopefully, this nomination and my previous work with Love, Inc. will inspire more users to look at more overlooked/unpopular topics. Thank you for your comments; I believe that I have addressed all of them and made the appropriate corrections. I actually have found a few episodes of the show on YouTube, and put a question about that in one of my responses. I am looking forward to your input on that point. I hope you have a wonderful rest of your day. Aoba47 (talk) 14:43, 2 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Comments by 1989

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  • I would replace the word disappointing with poor in the lead and the Production section.
  • Would it be better to have the state of art hospital part replace facility on the 2nd sentence, and facility replace the state of art hospital on the fourth sentence? (reverse the phrases)
  • Did you intend to have it as "state-of-the-art hospital" instead of "state-of-the-art" hospital? (italics are used for clarification)
  • "In their book Science Fiction Television Series, 1990–2004, Frank Garcia and Mark Phillips" I would reverse their with the author's.
  • "Its setting and filming style" How about "The series' setting and filming style"? I thought it was talking about the book for a moment.
  • "extremely efficient and attractive,"
  • "circular hub with offices and rooms radiating outward,"
  • "Lund had to sit through several hours of prosthetic makeup to get into his characters." Character?
  • "Napolitano said that he found this to a challenge to the production schedule" You're missing a word.
  • "work necessary for the character depending on the scene" What character?
  • into the "Sahartic Divide" Is the phrase quoted a place or an episode title? If a place, replace into with to.
  • "Dru Breslaur joins the hospital as a new resident and is forced to confront her past with her older sister Haylen Breslauer, and a romance with C. J. Jurado." and a romance?
  • "UPN ordered six original series" How about brought up instead of ordered?
  • "television shows picked up UPN" You're missing a word.
  • "competition from other shows in the same time slot, Just Shoot Me!, Spin City, and Felicity." You're missing a word.
  • "The series carried a TV-Y parental rating, meaning that it was judged as "unsuitable for young children"." Are you correct about that? TV-Y means it's suitable for all ages. If your right, the sentence sounds weird.
  • "UPN's watch-me-please gimmick shows,"
  • "The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel's" You mean The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel's?

When you address my concerns, I'll check back. -- 1989 19:42, 2 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Comments from Paparazzzi

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  • "the series was promoted as 'ER in space'..." and "'ER'-in-space mess..." Shouldn't "ER" be in italics?
  • Good point; I think I left it without italics because that was how it was presented in the sources, but I agree it should be in italics given that it is the name of a television series. Aoba47 (talk) 14:50, 3 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]
I actually did not find any other mistake here. Since it is only a comment, I Support this nomination. If it's possible, could you look at my FAC? Thanks, and have a nice day.--Paparazzzi (talk) 07:02, 3 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • Thank you for your comment. I have addressed it and made the appropriate revisions in the article. I would be more than happy to help with your FAC, and will most likely put comments up this weekend when I have the time to really read through the article thoroughly. I hope that is okay with you. Have a great rest of your day! Aoba47 (talk) 14:50, 3 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Source review

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Every single url is archived and the sources appear to be reliable. Maybe "Teevee.org" could be retitled simply "Teevee" but that's nitpicking. As a resut I think this article passes its source review. Good luck.Tintor2 (talk) 23:41, 3 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.
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