Talk:Line of Duty series 3

Did you know nomination

The following is an archived discussion of the DYK nomination of the article below. Please do not modify this page. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as this nomination's talk page, the article's talk page or Wikipedia talk:Did you know), unless there is consensus to re-open the discussion at this page. No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was: rejected by reviewer, closed by Serial Number 54129 talk 19:20, 21 March 2024 (UTC)

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• ... that Jed Mercurio almost let "The Caddy" live? Source: [1] and [2] Quotes: "Dot’s escape was a bloody affair, and ended with him riddled with bullets, recording his dying declaration for Kate Fleming before passing away" and "Also, at the end of season 3, I seriously considered keeping the Caddy hidden from the rest of the team. Cottan came up with lots of plausible denial, framed Steve and continued within AC-12. But I knew people were desperate for justice."
  • ALT1: ... that Jed Mercurio almost let "The Caddy" live in series 3 of Line of Duty? Source: Same sources as above
  • Reviewed: N/A: First nomination
  • Comment: This is a work of fiction, but the fact considers real-world production information by sourcing a quote from the creator/writer. I believe that should allow it to pass DYKFICTION. I also came up with an alt hook In case the first would be considered an Easter Egg link. This is my first nomination, so I shouldn't need to review another article. I might also be able to try another alt if neither pass DYKFICTION.

5x expanded by TheDoctorWho (talk). Self-nominated at 04:53, 1 February 2024 (UTC). Post-promotion hook changes for this nom will be logged at Template talk:Did you know nominations/Line of Duty (series 3); consider watching this nomination, if it is successful, until the hook appears on the Main Page.

• Right now I have doubts that either hook would make sense or be interesting to those unfamiliar with the show. My suggestion would be to propose more hooks first. Narutolovehinata5 (talk · contributions) 12:37, 11 March 2024 (UTC)
• I'm happy to review, but I agree with Narutolovehinata5. And the nom, of course; you're right the first one's too eggy (by a whole hen house!), and the second one, well, it's still very in-universe. And although it was a great show, our audience is global, while these hooks are aimed at fans of the show. Inside baseball, as it were. Perhaps broaden the hook beyond the show itself? E.g.

• ALT2: ... that series three of Jed Mercurio's police procedural Line of Duty was filmed over several Belfast locations, including the city's oldest building, McHugh's Bar (pictured)?

160 chars, and the opportunity for the picture slot. Note: Belfast has a population of nearly 300K. ——Serial Number 54129 16:49, 17 March 2024 (UTC)

• Comment.@Narutolovehinata5 and TheDoctorWho There are some major issues not yet addressed in terms of the required expansion. In using a manual character count tool, the original prose was 15993 characters. 5xs that would be 79965 characters. The current character count is actually smaller than the original at just 13454 characters, far below the required expansion per WP:DYK5X. This is largely due to the trimming of plot summaries, even though coverage of the game itself has been expanded. However, plot summaries are not excluded from prose counts, and so the original plot summary lengths are factored into the original character count.

Additionally, there seems to be a lot of un-necessary repetition of characters and cast in the lead. What is the point of a detailed cast section if it's going to be repeated in the lead? We don't generally give a full cast list in the lead section for articles on TV shows, films, and video games. Per Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Lead section, the lead should summarize not reproduce a section of the article. There is also a lot of text for a single paragraph in the lead section. There needs to be some serious trimming and copyediting of the lead section to pass the presentability component of the DYK review in my opinion. Given the size of the prose count due to a repeat of the cast list in the lead, that may also have a negative impact of the 5x expansion character count. In my opinion its unlikely the article will be able to be expanded to the necessary size to meet the 5x expansion rule and I am therefore rejecting this hook. I suggest trying for passing a WP:Good article review and then resubmitting once successful. 4meter4 (talk) 17:34, 21 March 2024 (UTC)

GA Review

This review is transcluded from Talk:Line of Duty series 3/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Nominator: TheDoctorWho (talk · contribs) 06:58, 31 January 2024 (UTC)

Reviewer: Pokelego999 (talk · contribs) 19:01, 13 November 2024 (UTC)

This one's been lying in the queue for ages, wow. I'll try to take this one on in the coming days. Has one ever considered Magneton? Pokelego999 (talk) 19:01, 13 November 2024 (UTC)

Six GA Criteria

1. Article is well-written. Only minor mistakes.

2. No OR, all info is cited in the article.

3. Coverage is broad in depth and focus.

4. Article appears neutral, and does not appear to hold a significantly negative nor positive stance on the subject.

5. Article appears stable. Does not appear to have had any major vandalism occur.

6. Article uses one fair use image with proper rationale.

Lead

-What is the Anti-Corruption unit? It can be inferred from the text but I feel stating outright will make it more clear to those unfamiliar with the series and police terminology.  Done

-Was Keeley Hawes's character a main character, recurring character, or a one-off character last season? It's not very clear.

Cast and characters

-Looks good

Episodes

-"Superintendent Ted Hastings agrees to send DC Kate Fleming" Agrees with who? Waldron, or a member of his team?  Done

"When Waldron's team raids another drug house Fleming, who was ordered to remain on another floor, hears a gunshot, and rushes upstairs to find Waldron bleeding out." This sentence feels like two meshed together. I'm pretty sure this is meant to say that Waldron's team was ordered to another floor but went to the next one anyway, but the current wording makes it very unclear what series of events is happening. Reword this.  Done

-"Fleming, shoots the driver" No need for comma.  Done

Production

-Looks good

Release

-Looks good

Reception

-"Reviewing the series premiere for Den of Geek, Louisa Mellor wrote about the depth of Mercurio's writing, noting how Waldron's character was both a dirty cop and a victim." This feels only applicable to the premier rather than the series as a whole. Additionally, its commentary that it's cited for is just a recap of plot info, as this is just a summary of Waldron's character with no elaboration as to how it relates to the depth of writing.

-The bit about the former police detective makes more sense after the reviews, given it is not a review and instead an entirely unrelated incident.  Done

-"observing that two of them together used over forty minutes of screentime." Why is this important? How does this relate to the scenes being investing?

-I feel "admired" isn't quite the right word here (Unless this was a word they used directly in the review). Perhaps something like appreciated?  Done

-"as a riveting area of the series." In what sense?  Done

-"often named "Urgent Exit Required,"" Isn't the name of the episode "Breach"? Why is this alternative name being brought up now? This is just confusing to anyone without knowledge of the alternate name. Either remove it or clarify this somewhere else.

-"while others commended the uncharted territory for a British television series." What kind of uncharted territory? Was the series stepping into it with its coverage? Is it talking about the uncharted territory the characters stepped into?

Overall

-@TheDoctorWho: This is looking good. Most of my points are rather small, but I feel they'll aid with understanding the prose. Ping me when they're done or if you have questions, and I'll get to the spotcheck when everything is addressed. Has one ever considered Magneton? Pokelego999 (talk) 13:05, 14 November 2024 (UTC)

I've addressed a number of these. Hawes was a main character in the previous season, do I need to explicitly add that? Compston, McClure, Dunbar, and Parkinson also returned from the previous series', their status in those just didn't seem as relevant to me given this is a separate series.

Reception sections clearly aren't my strong suit, but to answer your questions:

1. The depth of writing portion was specifically in reference to Waldron being a dirty cop and a victim. While it is plot-ish it wouldn't be plot had Mercurio only written Waldron as one or the other (or neither), and probably wouldn't have been mentioned a mention had Waldron not been both. Sort of backwards compatible if that makes sense? This series was typically reviewed episode by episode rather than overall, which did make writing this a bit difficult, but MOS:TV does say that season articles can go into detail on specific episodes while the overall show page should be more broad.
2. The forty-minutes seemed relevant because it is unusually excessive for police procedurals. The finale was 82 minutes long, using half of your runtime on interrogations allows for further depth and exploration of the characters and their motives, in a typical show of this genre I'd say interrogation scenes are less than ten minutes each. While the forty-minute length was noted in the review, the part about other shows wasn't listed which is why I didn't elaborate further on that in the article.
3. "Urgent Exit Required" is just the name of the final scene(s) of the final episode, not the entire episode itself, which is why it isn't mentioned earlier. I'd be happy to add it earlier on, I just wasn't sure of the best place. But I did want to introduce it before the awards table, since that portion of the episode specifically was nominated for a BAFTA.
4. The "uncharted territory" would be in reference to the major use of firearms in the episode, which is mentioned earlier on in that same sentence. In other words, some critics praised the same part that the other critics thought were unrealistic.

That said, I'd be more than happy to make any further changes to this article that you think need to be made to improve it further, but thought it may help if I answered them first and ask for additional clarification. TheDoctorWho (talk) 01:45, 17 November 2024 (UTC)

@TheDoctorWho:

1: A reader shouldn't have to perform mental gymnastics to understand what the reviewer is saying and why it's important. I'd clarify (If it's stated in the source) why this is important to the writing of the character and series.

2: Again, a casual reader won't know about this precedent before reading this article. They don't know why this runtime is important without the prior context. Try to clarify why this is important or reword this to be more clear.

3: The scenes have specific names? That seems very specific, and likely not relevant to readers, who will just be confused since the scene names aren't mentioned at all in the article, and this specific case isn't clarified as a scene. I'd just keep it simple and refer to it as the last scene of the episode.

4: Still, clarify this. The prior context doesn't make it clear why using guns is unprecedented territory for this show, nor does it clarify why it being unprecedented is important.

My main concern is that the context needed isn't being provided, as casual readers won't know about most of this. I understand your rationale, but I do feel it should be clarified just in case a reader isn't familiar with the above points. Has one ever considered Magneton? Pokelego999 (talk) 04:41, 17 November 2024 (UTC)

Thank you for the additional clarification, I absolutely agree with what you've said, I just wasn't quite sure what you were looking for at first. I'll try to wrap up these last few things over the next three or four days. TheDoctorWho (talk) 03:09, 18 November 2024 (UTC)

@TheDoctorWho Best of luck with your edits, and feel free to take as much time as you need to do them. Has one ever considered Magneton? Pokelego999 (talk) 04:17, 18 November 2024 (UTC)

I've attempted to reword and elaborate further on the things you mentioned. Can you give that section another read-through whenever you get a chance and let me know if anything else needs changed? TheDoctorWho (talk) 19:27, 20 November 2024 (UTC)

@Pokelego999: Just a quick ping in case the reply link above didn't send a notification. TheDoctorWho (talk) 02:09, 23 November 2024 (UTC)

@TheDoctorWho I assume the Reception is what you wanted me to look at? Just looked it over and don't have many issues. Anything else I need to look over? Otherwise I'll begin the spotcheck. Has one ever considered Magneton? Pokelego999 (talk) 05:07, 23 November 2024 (UTC)

@Pokelego999: Yup, reception was the only thing, just wanted to make sure your concerns were addressed. I assume all of the other sections should be good per your comments and my subsequent edits to the initial review. TheDoctorWho (talk) 05:10, 23 November 2024 (UTC)

@TheDoctorWho Spotcheck: Reviewing sources 57, 38, 16, 1, 35, 21, 37, 65, 25, and 17. All sources look good bar two: 25 mentioned the final serial was ninety-minutes long, but does not confirm that the final episode was extended compared to other episodes. 57 does not comment on the final scene's usage of firearms at all, despite smattered mentions of the final scene in question. Fix these two and it should be good to go. Has one ever considered Magneton? Pokelego999 (talk) 05:39, 23 November 2024 (UTC)

@Pokelego999: Source 24 (also attached to that same sentence) verifies the length of all episodes, including the finale. Although it doesn't explicitly use the word "extended", the definition of extended is: "something is longer than usual, either in time or physically". I believe that wording is neutral enough, but could try to reword or hunt down another source if necessary?

Apologies on 57, I get lost quite often when I'm writing and have 15+ tabs open at the same time. That said, I swore a source mentioned it when I was expanding the article, but couldn't locate it just now. I removed just that bit, but left the remainder of the sentence since the source does still talk about how [un]realistic the scene is. TheDoctorWho (talk) 18:28, 23 November 2024 (UTC)

@TheDoctorWho should be good. Happy to pass. Has one ever considered Magneton? Pokelego999 (talk) 05:31, 24 November 2024 (UTC)

Perfect, thank you so much for the review. I appreciate greatly (and hope I didn't give you too much trouble 😅) TheDoctorWho (talk) 05:46, 24 November 2024 (UTC)

@TheDoctorWho no worries! I'm just glad I was able to help review this given how long you've been waiting for it. Keep up the good work and happy editing! Has one ever considered Magneton? Pokelego999 (talk) 05:52, 24 November 2024 (UTC)