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Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Yesterday's Enterprise/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 Sarastro1 via FACBot (talk) 21:31, 4 February 2017 [1].

Yesterday's Enterprise

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Nominator(s): Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs(talk) 14:13, 29 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

This article is about "Yesterday's Enterprise", a third-season episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation commonly considered one of the best of the series, and part of the dramatic upswing in quality from previous seasons. Article has gone through GAN and PR and I'd like to see this get FA. Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs(talk) 14:13, 29 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Comments. As always, feel free to revert my copyediting. - Dank (push to talk)

  • "Running 106 pages it was far longer than the usual 65-page submission guideline, but a special allowance was made since the script was double-spaced.": Several questions, but I guess the main one is: why would the typical reader care that the script was double-spaced?
  • "is confronted with revealing to his guests their ultimate fate": He does it, or struggles with the decision and doesn't do it?
  • "and there all victories come at a cost": and where ...?
  • Support on prose per my standard disclaimer. These are my edits. - Dank (push to talk) 22:40, 29 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Comments. The References section shows three sources that have no matching inline citations: Captain's Logs: The Complete Trek Voyages; Beyond the Final Frontier : An Unauthorised Review of Star Trek; and Star Trek: The Next Generation: The Continuing Mission. If you have not already done so, you might want to add HarvErrors to your .js Then when you pull up any article, there are big red error messages when either the references section or the sfn citations have no matches. — Maile (talk) 13:12, 1 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Resolved comments from Aoba47
Comments by Aoba47
  • I think you should combine the second and third sentences in the first paragraph of the lead, in a similar way to Space See, to avoid short and choppy sentences in the start.
  • You repeat “featured” twice in the second paragraph of the lead, so I would recommend revising for variety. This may be a conscious choice for parallelism/repetition so this is more of a stylistic question/preference on your part.
  • The Denise Crosby image needs an ALT description. Please make sure that all of the images have ALT descriptions.
  • Should you mention in the “Media release” subsection that the episode was released in the following VHS and DVD releases: Star Trek: The Next Generation - 10th Anniversary Collector's Edition, Star Trek - Greatest Battles, and Star Trek: Fan Collective - Time Travel, Star Trek: Fan Collective - Alternate Realities? Not sure if this would be too trivial or not, but it would seem important to include information about the episode’s inclusion on numerous releases.
  • Should you incorporate the information about the mission “Temporal Ambassador” from Star Trek Online that was brought up in the peer review as it was created as a sequel to this episode and was created as part of the game’s third year anniversary.
  • Do you need to include the novels that reference this episode? I am not sure it would too trivial or not so I will leave this up to you. This is more of a clarification question. The episode was referenced in Back to Back, Q-Squared, Engines of Destiny, Q&A. This could be coupled with the Star Trek Online for a new section/subsection somewhere in the article if you feel this information is important/notable enough for inclusion.
  • I would make sure to address the questions/comments posed at the References section by Maile.

@David Fuchs: Great job with the article! I will definitely support this FAC once my comments are addressed. I am still relatively new to Wikipedia and the whole FAC process so take my comments with a grain of salt. Good luck with getting this promoted. Aoba47 (talk) 18:22, 1 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

@Aoba47:: Thanks for the review, and thanks for participating in the FA process (I know it seems daunting, but the more people participating, the better the process is!) I've made some tweaks to the lead per your pointers, as well as added in the image alt text. As to the proposed additions, I can't find much in the way of reliable sourcing that suggests the various connections in STO and the like are worth including. Ditto goes for the various repackaging collections/home media release. Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs(talk) 20:02, 3 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
@David Fuchs: Thank you for your quick responses. I agree with assessment about STO and the home media releases, but just wanted to confirm it with you. Great work with the article! I support this nomination. Good luck with this nomination. Aoba47 (talk) 20:17, 3 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Support Comments. taking a look now...Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 14:27, 14 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

The studio decided to spend more than the average on the episode, which at that time was estimated by Daily Variety as $1.2 million per episode. - has two 'episode's - why not "The studio decided to exceed/increase the budget, which at that time was estimated by Daily Variety as $1.2 million per episode." - and then change the next sentence to "This gave the production departments added liberties beyond what had been expected in the script." - just trying to trim some wordiness

Other than that, looking on target, I massaged the prose a little. Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 14:44, 14 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the look Cas. Your suggestion looked good so I implemented it. Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs(talk) 23:53, 14 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Comments

  • At the end of the Plot section, maybe it would help to note that Guinan is the only one who senses anything was ever wrong?
    • Done.
  • Given that Trent Christopher Ganino was deleted via AfD, you can probable remove the redline.
    • Done.
  • While it was not the review Ganino had hoped for, it was enough to keep the script in circulation. - The first bit seems like a somewhat unnecessary comment. I might have tried something like "The lukewarm review was sufficient to keep the script in circulation."
    • Reworded.
  • The main issue was whether the producers wanted to do a show with time travel. - If possible, some context (like what reasons they might have had for avoiding a time travel plot) would be helpful.
    • Unfortunately there's no real elaboration to be found in the sources. I suspect it's because there had been a few time travel episodes before in the series run, but I don't have any sources to support that hunch.
  • Sarek and the Vulcans on the surface are the only people not affected by the timeline change - The surface of what?
    • The planet where the Guardian of Forever is, which I realize was not explicitly stated, so I reworded.
  • Some staff were convinced that with so many writers, the script would be a disaster. - This comes across as too informal for me, but I'm not quite sure how to fix it. Maybe something like "Some staff feared that the script would suffer because of the large writing team"?
    • I just removed the clause. It was an unnecessary aside from the rest of the paragraph anyhow.
  • The studio decided to exceed/increase the budget - I know that "exceed" and "increase" are effectively the same here, but given that they conventionally mean two different things, I would just stick with the single more accurate term.
    • Done.
  • Among the reasons for the increase - If there are other reasons, it would be good to include them I think.
    • The source doesn't really delve into the other reasons. I slightly reworded the clause.
  • military-looking tables - Needs to be reworded, since I'm not sure how a table can look like military...
    • Reworded.
  • in later Next Generation episodes ... one other The Next Generation episode - Should be consistent about whether to include the "the".
    • Made consistent.
  • about how things should be done - "Things" too vague for me.
    • Clarified.
  • The main cast enjoyed the opportunity to play their characters differently. The result was an unusual degree of friction between characters - That the cast enjoyed it resulted in friction? That seems counterintuitive, but I might be missing something.
    • Reworded.
  • Berman, for example, was afraid that the episode was pushing the timeline too far. - Meaning the battle-tested warship timeline or the luxury hotel one? A direct quote from Berman might be helpful.
    • No direct quote to be had; clarified it's the "alternate" universe.
  • It's a bit discrepant for the lead to say that "numerous" death scenes were too "costly to film" (which isn't cited later in the article, as far as I can tell - you only mention two unrealized deaths, and for time constraints), even though a seemingly major point of the "Design" section is that the production crew had lots of money to work with.
    • Removed.
  • The episode is cited as a favorite among cast members - Another fact that isn't mentioned or cited in the article body, unless I've missed it.
    • Adjusted to crew members.
  • Overall, the intro could stand to be fleshed out a little. There's tons of interesting info relating to this episode, but the lead just feels bare-bones.
    • I've added a few sentences about development and reception.

Otherwise, a very solid article on one of my favorite episodes (obviously). I've done some copyediting to improve flow and clarity, but feel free to revert me if I've inadvertently changed the meaning of anything. I look forward to supporting this very soon, but as it stands, not good enough, dammit, not good enough!! :) – Juliancolton | Talk 05:20, 15 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Coordinator note: Unless I've missed them, we still need source and image reviews for this one. Sarastro1 (talk) 21:14, 16 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I can't do spotchecks for a few hours - if anyone has a burning desire to then great, otherwise later today Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 22:55, 16 January 2017 (UTC) [reply]

Ok, I'm happy - good to go. Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 01:20, 17 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Coordinator note: I'm not sure we are quite ready yet on prose. A very quick read-through showed several issues, including quite a few from the lead:

  • "to prevent their own disastrous timeline from ever occurring.": There is no indication in the lead of what "disastrous timeline" might mean.
  • "To complete the episode in time for sweeps, the final script was completed by a team of five writers": complete...completed
  • "Filming of the episode lasted a week, with some elements of the script were ultimately not included due to time constraints"
  • "with a 13.1 ranking, the third-highest number for the series at the time": This requires at least a link, but a better explanation would be preferable
  • "In the plot, the crew of the USS Enterprise (NCC-1701-D) must decide": Would "story" not be better than plot here? Or episode? Or can we reword it to avoid this at all (I'm pretty sure that the plot is different to the story, but if I am wrong, please ignore this)
  • "and is widely regarded as one of the best episodes of the series": There may be an issue here that, in the UK at least, series and season can be interchanged.

This was from a quick glance, so there may well be more. I think we might still need another copyedit, and maybe someone to have another look at the prose in this review. Sarastro1 (talk) 20:26, 17 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Comments by Mike Christie

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I'll leave comments as I go through the article. Please revert my copyedits as needed.

  • "Tasha Yar, who was killed years prior": I copyedited this to "years before", but is it really years? It's less than one-and-a-half seasons since her death. If there's no definitive in-universe way to establish the time more precisely then it's OK as is, but I thought I'd ask.
  • "Yar dies a meaningless death in the alternate timeline": here "alternate timeline" means "the timeline the TV viewer sees on other episodes", which they're naturally going to think of as the main timeline. Perhaps "other timeline", or "original timeline"?
  • "The foundation of their episode": this is the third "episode" in two sentences. How about "They came up with a story involving..."
  • "Satisfied with the story, the writers decided to pitch the idea to Piller": Suggest cutting this, and instead starting the next paragraph with 'Before Ganino and Stilwell pitched the new story to him, Piller read "Yesterday's Enterprise"...' or some similar rephrase -- because the new story doesn't have a title, the current wording led me to think for a second that 'Piller read "Yesterday's Enterprise"' referred to it. Alternatively give the title, "Guardians of Forever", at the end of the paragraph describing that plot.
  • "This gave the production departments added liberties beyond what had been expected in the script": seems to be imprecise phrasing; the liberties weren't expected in the script. Should this be "liberties in the script beyond..."? How about something like "This gave the production departments more leeway"? As it stands it's a bit vague -- of course more budget means more leeway. Can we be more specific about what the extra budget was used for?
  • "The crew took several steps to differentiate the alternate universe from the original one": perhaps "production crew", since I assume that's what is meant.

-- Overall I think this is in pretty good shape. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 11:15, 26 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the comments, Mike. I'm open to suggestions on the Yar thing. Stardates are pretty fickle, and so we don't really have a clear idea how much time has passed. Sounds weird to just say something like "previously" though. I've made changes per your comments above as well; only thing I can't detail further is exactly what benefits the added money gave, since they never go into specifics in the source. Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs(talk) 16:15, 2 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Support. The changes look good to me, and I think this is FA quality. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 17:14, 4 February 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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