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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 not promoted by GrahamColm 10:14, 18 December 2012 [1].

Ice (The X-Files)

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Ice (The X-Files) (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

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Nominator(s): GRAPPLE X 00:56, 28 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

You'd have seen this one a lot sooner were it not for the National Novel Writing Month (almost done). "Ice" is one of those episodes everyone recommends when you mention The X-Files, as it's bloody brilliant. The article itself has seen a GA review, an A-Class review and a few pairs of eyes combing it over. As always I should be on hand to offer swift responses, and I thank anyone in advance for their time reviewing this. GRAPPLE X 00:56, 28 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Initial comments I'd like this episode more if I didn't have to see it again half-a-dozen times by the second-season end (a fact discussed in the article; lovely). Anyway, this article looks pretty good, as usual.

  • The original is on Commons here; I would be tempted to crop just to the left of Hawks' arm and just to the right of the rightmost vertical black line in the background. That seem any better or what do you feel should be in/excluded? GRAPPLE X 03:08, 29 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Aren't there any reviews from 1993?
    The brief New York Times passage was all I could get. Although the series became huge, it was at this point just a cult critical darling; the second and third seasons saw its popularity grow to the point where mainstream press were discussing and reviewing it with frequency. The next-oldest source I could track down after the 1993 NYT clip is a 1996 Entertainment Weekly review. GRAPPLE X 00:15, 29 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • References can be cleaned up. I'd prefer the likes of "10 must-see episodes of The X-Files | TV | TV Club 10" to be just the neater "10 must-see episodes of The X-Files" (the other stuff is not really the name of the article). Also, the Digital Spy ref is missing journal/publisher name and I wonder if the AV Club ref with several authors can just be "various".
    Sheared off some of the title fluff and cleaned up the Digital Spy ref. Not so sure about trimming the authors down on that one, though. If I knew who wrote the relevant segment I'd just just their name with "et al" but unfortunately the individual sections aren't ascribed to anyone. If general consensus is for a divers hands approach I'll yank them. GRAPPLE X 00:15, 29 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Finally, as usual, I'm going to ask you whether that one footnote of episode-names can just included in the body (either after the quote or inside it, with an episode name after each allusion). :)—indopug (talk) 05:59, 28 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    Have replaced it with text insertions ("quote quote quote [aside]"). Could be done with egg links instead, this would read cleaner but the former would probably be better overall. GRAPPLE X 00:15, 29 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Accidentally took the ref out when I removed the old note. I'm not sure the titles need an additional set of inverted commas, though; they're in double quotes for being titles but they aren't being quoted beyond that. GRAPPLE X 03:08, 29 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • I don't believe so; single quotes would be preferred if there would be a doubled-up set of double quotes (""Squeeze" is an episode") but here they're cordoned off without any duplication. I'll gladly defer to a third opinion though if you'd like. GRAPPLE X 06:24, 29 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Comments

TBrandley 18:00, 28 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose: Sorry to oppose here, but I've read the lead and the first part of the plot section, and found many little prose issues. Nothing dreadful, but enough in a short space to suggest it is not quite up to FA prose standards. I would recommend a copy-edit by an uninvolved editor, but am very aware that good copy-editors are few and far between. But it would be worth checking the rest of the article for any similar issues. Sarastro1 (talk) 00:19, 8 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

  • "Written by Glen Morgan and James Wong, while directed by David Nutter": Using "while" suggests these events occurred at the same time.
  • "the episode is a "Monster-of-the-Week" story, unconnected to the series' wider mythology": Having read a few X-Files articles now at FAC, I'm not too sure that this line is necessary. Certainly, not too encyclopaedic and the general reader is probably not expecting a connection to anything. And it is not mentioned in the main body, which may be a better place for it if it must be included.
  • "watched by 6.2 million households": Picky, but can a household watch anything? (Perhaps it can, technically, but not the best phrasing). Perhaps watched "in"?
  • "viewers upon its initial broadcast": Why "upon" rather than "on"?
  • "The show centers on FBI special agents Fox Mulder (David Duchovny) and Dana Scully (Gillian Anderson) who work on cases linked to the paranormal, called X-Files.": Given the short nature of the lead, do we need this much detail in proportion to the rest of the text? With the earlier sentence on "monster of the week", that is a quarter of the sentences in the lead which are not about this specific episode as such.
    Hmm. I've cut it out for now, but this is a boilerplate line that was requested in an earlier FAC (for Squeeze (The X-Files) I believe). I'm happy enough to lose it given the weighting you've mentioned but it might end up being requested again. GRAPPLE X 01:20, 8 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • "Isolated and alone, the agents and the group they are with…": "Group they are with" seems inelegant. Maybe "remaining team members"?
    I've tried "their accompanying team", the idea of "remaining team members" seems to imply they're survivors rather than new arrivals. GRAPPLE X 01:20, 8 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • "Morgan was originally inspired": I'm not sure "originally" adds anything here. I'm not sure you can be inspired any other way.
    What was intended was to say that the inception of the script came at this point, later details can take inspiration from other places but this is where the first kernel of an idea came from. Have used "initially" instead but I'm open to changing or dropping that. GRAPPLE X 01:20, 8 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Incredibly long sentence at the start of the second paragraph of the lead. For a start, the names of the two films could be cut from here; they are distracting and this is too detailed for the lead.
  • "Chris Carter has cited": I'm never sure about using "cited" like this. Why not just something along the lines of "Other influences include" or "among other influences named by"
  • ""Ice" was originally intended as a bottle episode": Why name such an obscure technical term in the lead? It is not as if we are short of material which could be included instead.
    I felt it was a defining element of the episode (it's why the cast is so small and the plot so tense, for example) but if you think anything else is more deserving I could move that up instead. GRAPPLE X 01:20, 8 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • "during a break between Arctic storms": I think this could be safely cut from the sentence.
  • "the only pilot willing to fly there": More over-detailing?
  • "Entering the outpost" and "Subduing the dog": Again, I think this is redundant.
  • " as well as a dog that attacks Mulder and Bear. Subduing the dog": Dog...dog
  • "An agitated Bear": I'd be inclined to cut the first two words here.
  • Three "whens" in quick succession. Sarastro1 (talk) 00:19, 8 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    That's fair enough; as I've said before my prose isn't my strongest point. I'll work through what you've listed while seeing if I can find someone with a stronger sense of FA-quality prose to comb through it again. GRAPPLE X 01:20, 8 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose, since there has been no activity on this FAC for eight days, I decided to look, per Sarastro1's concerns. I skipped to the last section, where in the first paragraph one finds an ungrammatical sentence:
  • "Ice" was released on VHS in 1996, alongside "Conduit";[26] as well being released on DVD as part of the complete first season.

Also, when it comes to choosing quotes, the one highlighted in the next sentence seems to say ... nothing:

  • Carter felt that Morgan and Wong "just outdid themselves on this show, as did director David Nutter, who really works so hard for us. I think they wrote a great script and he did a great job directing it, and we had a great supporting cast".
  • A quote telling us *why* something was "great" might be of more encyclopedic interest. There seems to be a lot of gratuitous quoting.

The last sentence in the article is ungrammatical:

  • Shearman felt that, although their script was derivative, Morgan and Wong had borrowed the most important themes from The Thing and, together with a "well rounded" cast of characters, and created "a pivotal story".

So, after eight days of no feedback here, I must concur with Sarastro1 that the prose isn't ready. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 04:51, 17 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Delegate's closing comment - There has been no activity on the article and no response from the nominator on this page since December 8. Nominators are expected to "make efforts to address objections promptly". As no reason has been offered for this lack of activity, I have decided to archive this nomination.Graham Colm (talk) 10:12, 18 December 2012 (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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