Talk:List of Southland episodes

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Moved from Article

I moved the episodes from the main article into it's own article. Pic Editor960 (talk) 20:38, 11 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Production "Codes"

I have removed the so-called production "codes" that are actually shorthand versions of the season and episode numbers used by the networks and/or writers and producers. Use of these numbers as displayed are unsourced, do not tell us whether they are the network shorthand for broadcast order or the production number, the order in which the episodes are actually produced (which often appears on the front cover of the script.) Warner Brothers assigns a production code to the episode, which is displayed at the end of the episode. I have removed the numbers inaccurately represented as production codes for several reasons: first, they are not production codes; second, we cannot source whether they are accurate production numbers or just network shorthand (and given two episodes from S1 were shown out of order, it seems likely they are network shorthand, nothing more; and third, the shorthand tells us nothing new over and above the already provided season number and episode number (i.e. 201 is the same as Season Two, episode 1 already in the table.) The numbers are both meaningless and non-notable. Drmargi (talk) 15:56, 17 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Do we really need viewership numbers for every episode?

Personally I don't think it is really necessary to include such figures in the table. I instead propose using a table similar to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Sopranos#Ratings where the information is separate and we only include premier, finale, and average viewership statistics. MrCrackers (talk) 09:34, 9 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Yes. Oppose. That is a summary table. Data is not available for each episode of The Sopranos so that is all that is mentioned. People already chop off the comprehensive table for each season most places they find them because the viewers is deemed enough. Now you want to get rid of even that much just because it is not mentioned on shows where it is not available. What next? Shall episode summaries go? Why not just get rid of episode lists entirely? Not all tv shows on network primetime are really that notable so why not get rid of them? Where does it go from this proposal and where would it end? I again state that i oppose this proposition. delirious & lost ☯ ^~hugs~ 09:59, 9 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The question is what is gained from including the figures? In my opinion their purpose is to show the popularity of the show over time. So why not come up with a better method of presenting the info like a graph? Furthermore isn't the season average more useful than individual figures (observe Season 2 where all the viewer stats were practically the same). There also comes a point where we have to say "this is the information that 99% of people are looking for", which is also why we don't include cast listings for every show with the table. Stop assuming bad faith in my suggestion and melodramatically exaggerating that I'll want to delete summaries/entire shows next. Aside, I also see little purpose of the production codes since they're irrelevant for everyone, unreferenced, and fall under the category of unneeded fancruft. I'd much rather target that waste of space than the viewer stats, but apparently when they were removed (above), someone must have reverted. MrCrackers (talk) 11:21, 9 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Edit: after reviewing other "List of.." pages, it seems clear that viewership numbers is somewhat standardized across various shows (Frineds, How I Met Your Mother, Chuck, House, etc). Furthermore it appears individual episode pages are also the standard, with summaries reserved for season pages, which we don't do here. Therefore I retract my desire to remove viewership figures and would re-propose removing production codes. Frankly I can't think of any situation where anyone would have any interest in a production code, except maybe someone who works on the production of the show and handles raw footage. MrCrackers (talk) 13:34, 9 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

By wonderful coïncidence it is myself who has added (most of) the production codes to Southland. Oddly enough i was going to probably add in ones for Southland season 3 later today (there is a delay in the episodes being shown in Canada). I swear i am not looking to be oppositional but you just keep picking such matters out of some random hat. :) I don't work with raw footage but i have interest in them. drmargi and i have some unresolved matters about them due to choice of language in describing them. If you look at Southland you will see that a few of them are out of order. Shows are not always made in the order they are intended to be broadcast in due to various matters of financing, location availability, crew availability, etc. That said some shows are made to be shown in the order in which they are made but still the broadcaster decides to (sometimes apparently randomly) mix it up because they think they can promote an episode better on a specific night due to other programming and will move the intended 6th episode to be the 2nd to be broadcast. Production codes, while not perfect, often give some explanation to continuity issues that are found. If you look at List of Chase episodes you will see that most of the episodes are relatively in order but that one early episode was among the most recent to be broadcast and is when viewed in the order broadcast by NBC there are serious continuity issues. On the other hand if you look at Wonderfalls#Episodes you will find the episodes are rather out of order but they were meant to be that way. During production on later episodes it was found that there were large gaps in the story development so they took what would have been latter episodes that had yet to be made and wrote episodes that would be placed into early spots in the sequence. It worked but FOX still decided to toss up the broadcast order and so it was a total mess when broadcast. Production codes are actually found in the end credits of 20th Century Fox and Warner Bros. shows. Anything made by ABC Studios/Touchstone or Paramount/CBS/Spelling/Kingworld won't have the production code publicly disclosed. Often the press releases for those shows will have a generic "118" or "203" but it isn't quite the same thing as the uniquely identifiable codes on the WB & TCF shows. Given that they are in the episodes themselves just like writers and directors the are not referenced as the reference would be {{cite episode}} which is redundant and improper use of that citation template.
Individual episode articles are standard on only some of the most popular of shows, many of which are those you so named in raising this matter. Yes, in longer running shows which have more episodes there is often a division to season articles with presentation of the episodes without summary gathered onto the "List of SHOWTITLE episodes" page. There is not sufficient content to have individual episode articles or even season articles for Southland at this time.
People often want to suggest graphs for things. Lots of people suggest graphs. They are however useless in trying to see how well individual episodes perform as it is a pain to make such a detailed graph. Most shows these days have data available to the thousands-of-viewers (1.683 = 1 683 000 viewers). You would have extreme sacrifice in accuracy of the graph for the sake of removing readily understandable table information that is clearly grouped with its associated entry in the article. Looks nice if you don't pick the wrong colours but is more harmful than helpful in presenting understandable and accurate information. Also, ratings information is to be referenced - how would you reference 13 or 20 points in a graph that have 13 or 20 different sources? Tricky huh. Many people have wanted ratings info cut down or entirely removed as being trivial. Considering almost every tv show lives or dies by the ratings entirely removing them from Wikipedia as miscellaneous statistical trivia is something i really do oppose. What you proposed Mr Crackers has been proposed by others, many times. Others have taken the issues rather far. There are some people who really do remove tables of ratings data when they find them because of a section of policy which actually says that putting a large amount of statistical information into a table is often better than prose but the shortcut to that policy is NOSTATS so they literally try to ensure there are NO STATS in Wikipedia. I realise that you are fairly new to Wikipedia and probably are not as bored as i at times to go reading through varies project and noticeboard archives but what you raise are really not new proposals. That you are thinking about it is a good thing. People don't often agree with me. I am a big fan of "consensus can be wrong". I am one of those who understands what the rating and share are but consensus is to essentially 'dumb it down' to the average reader's existing understanding rather than inform and enlighten and educate. So i started my own website on the inspiration to not purge ratings data from the episode guides of my favourite shows. Along with that is including production codes as available. The Sunday episode of glee had one of the worst loss-of-viewers for any post-SuperBowl show; that glee episode wasn't even in the top 20 of post-game shows but the game was the new # 1 for the Super Bowl. Mr Crackers, i hope you are not upset by my sort-of-just-showing-up; i used to be more active on the show but for creative differences i haven't done much of late but it is still in my watchlist and you managed to somewhat randomly hit on two of my more passionate matters. delirious & lost ☯ ^~hugs~ 15:27, 9 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, I somehow manage to watch the same TV as you and drmargi :) I understand your point of view for the inclusion of production codes. However, I consider myself relatively "average joe" on the TV watching front, and I'm surmising that since I had no idea what production codes were useful for previous to your explanation, other people would be equally clueless as well. In all truth, I've never wondered to myself "was this show filmed in the same order it was aired?" and if there is a rare continuity issue I gloss over it.
With that said though, the reason why I shy away from including them is two pronged. First, it's hard to verify production codes especially since it's not common knowledge (at least my common knowledge) what their purpose/source is beyond studio file cabinet-ing. Second, if you die tomorrow then who will pick up the gauntlet and keep adding production codes for new episodes? More seriously, since they're not all that popular/common to know about, we'd be relying on a very dedicated type of editor to maintain this. To this point it appears Wiki guidelines would advise against such specialized information unless it's important to a general audience (with the exception of technical topics), and production codes to me seem useless in 99.9% of cases. I'm not going to fight you if you want to keep them (fighting is tiresome and I'm more interested in adding what I can rather than quibbling), but I'm just voicing my concerns.
Regarding viewership numbers, I think the low-level episode - episode details are only important on the night the episode airs when "what show was most popular tonight" is important. Right now, for example, knowing Southland 2x02 had 5.12 million viewers (made up) doesn't help since I have no idea what else was on that night. However, knowing an average viewership would tell me much more quickly the overall popularity of a show, which can more easily be compared with other programs from the same season era.
RE: graphs. Yes, I agree that graphs oftentimes dumb information down too much and are overemphasized. I also realize that nearly every idea I'll ever have regarding Wiki has probably been debated to death a billion times already. I personally prefer looking at tables of numbers and making my own conclusions rather than relying solely on a graph, but I was just throwing an idea out. MrCrackers (talk) 16:16, 9 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Just to clarify, i have never watched that show about cars. I watch most dramas and some of the comedies. Mr Sunshine is a disappointment. You've discovered the fun of my long response. O no! I'm not the only person who adds production codes. There is at least one person on every TCF & WB show who adds them - see Smallville, The Mentalist, Bones, One Tree Hill, dollhouse, or/and White Collar. I did Drive, Sons Of Tucson, The Whole Truth, Chase, and i think another. The TCF ones are also sourced to a TCF syndication sales site. I would do The Good Guys too but there is the code in the episode and then there is the one in the syndication sales site. While they do align they are coded in two different ways (essentially both old & new style). White Collar, last i looked, used the broadcast code found on the public website for the show. If you don't want to wait for the DVD there are a few places one can find them other than the episodes themselves. White Collar is a TCF show and was listed at the syndication site a little while ago.
Here is a just wild stance to take (because i am Canadian and think the American ratings uses and abuses are a mess): who cares what else was on that night. Relative to other shows on that night, relative to other shows on that channel/network, relative to other episodes of that show, relative to other programming that has been in that time slot... any way you look at it you need to open at least two WP articles to compare. Or go to a site that reports ratings and find the info for that date. These are not "List of SHOW episodes with ratings relative to other cable channels" though it might be fun to try to construct such an article. The show is on TNT and getting 5.12 million viewers is quite respectable (it makes NBC jealous). In truth the 8th episode of Southland had just over 2 million viewers. It is very hard to spin that as a respectable number in the US. How did the 8th episode of rizzoli & isles do? 6.424 million viewers. Which is a better show? S. Which one is designed to appeal to me? R&I. One i watch as a brilliant drama and the other a chick flick with some attempts at crime drama with brilliant actresses and bad writers.
Your "just throwing an idea out" could be one of the most beloved quotes i will ever find here on WP. I thank you. Part of my thing with the numbers is satisfying my own curiosity - is SHOW more popular in Canada or the US? I am just starting to go through Ghost Whisperer but its first season was watched by a greater percentage of the population of Canada than of the US. Likewise NCIS (which actually is most watched in Australia from all data i have). Seasons 2 & 3 of Southland are on premium cable in Canada so there isn't ratings data available. Flashpoint generally does better in Canada when it is not simulcast on CBS in the US. The # 1 show on Monday 1 September 2003 in Canada was Canadian Idol with 2.661 million viewers. There is much you can do with ratings but these are lists of episodes and so only the most universally understood bit of info is presented with each episode in the list. Not that i like it but i would like it even less if less info was included. Every so often i go looking for sources of older ratings info. That is how i came to offer the most comprehensive finals info for Canada ( gotta love the .pdf which can be traced to its source) that is online. But that is another story for another time.
The seasonal rating and share and viewers ought to be in the main article, much like you see in The Sopranos (but not to the exclusion of episode-specific where available). Typically it should be in the "reception" section. Have i missed your point? Is there no such table for Southland? I shall save and go look. delirious & lost ☯ ^~hugs~ 17:41, 9 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Episode descriptions

Most of the episode descriptions are copyright violations from the TNT website. They need to be re-written. Lafe Smith (talk) 18:07, 2 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Unfortunately you are correct. Most of the summaries are either close paraphrases or verbatim copies from TV.com's episode guide or TNT's episode guide. The only two I know for sure aren't violations are 3x06 and 3x09 since I wrote the initial versions, and I didn't even know about the episode guides until just now. However, I don't think all of the material needs to be re-written but instead just needs to be referenced to the original source per WP:PLAGIARISM MrCrackers (talk) 04:47, 3 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Ratings not right

Example, for the episode fallout. It got 2.3 million http://tvbythenumbers.zap2it.com/2012/02/28/ratings-notes-for-cartoon-network-adult-swim-tbs-tnt-nba-all-star-weekend-southland-adventure-time-and-more/122339/ Why is it listed as 1.9. This is the same for the rest of the episodes throughout this current season, they are higher than whats posted. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.251.186.35 (talk) 20:35, 2 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

The ratings are correct. Your understanding of the press release you cite is what's incorrect. Look at what it says:

TNT's acclaimed cop drama Southland scored 2.3 million viewers in Live + 3 delivery last week (1.6 million in Live + Same Day)

First of all, "Fallout" is the February 28 episode, which was broadcast after this press release was issued. This refers to the February 21 episode -- it even says "last week".

Second, you are looking a ratings figure that includes 3 days of DVR viewership, not viewership the night of broadcast (which is Live + Same Day). We include final Live + Same Day viewership for each episode; in the case of the 2/21 episode, that was 1.64 million as cited in the article. You may want to learn to read these press releases more carefully, and study up a bit on how ratings work. --Drmargi (talk) 20:45, 2 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Season Pages

I think this show can have season pages now. 68.44.179.54 (talk) 16:42, 25 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Why? What content can you add that isn't part of the main article and demands season pages. particularly when there's no more than 10 episodes per season? --Drmargi (talk) 17:19, 25 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

He's right. There is too much summary information. 68.44.51.49 (talk) 23:13, 6 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I know it just got canceled, but the article itself is just too long. 68.44.51.49 (talk) 12:38, 11 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]

No, it's not. WP:SIZERULE has very clear rules about splitting articles just for the sake of length. This show would have to reach season seven or eight, maybe even nine, to meet those parameters. Since, as you pointed out, the series was just cancelled, this won't happen. There's no reason at all to create individual season articles now. This article is specifically not too long. -- SchrutedIt08 (talk) 12:49, 11 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Season 5 Episode Summaries

I wrote a episode summary for episodes one and two of season five. The first one was reversed but I put it back exactly as it was. The reason given was because it was too long, SchrutedIt08 saying it should be between 300-350 words. First and foremost, a long summary is better than none at all. For that reason alone the summary shouldn't be reversed. SchrutedIt08 should write his own summary if he feels so inclined. Second, Wikipedia actually says episode summaries should "typically" be between 200-500 words, not a max of 350. (P.S. Zero words is much less than the 300-350 SchrutedIt08 thinks it should be.) ─ Matthewi ^(Talk) • 00:19, 24 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

The word guidelines (MOS:TV#Plot_section) I mentioned above were incorrect. I misunderstood that episode summaries that are on one single article are recommended to be typically 100-200 words, up to 350 for complicated story lines. That being noted, many of season five summaries need edited down. An editor with IP address of 69.204.17.123 edited the summaries but I believe they are way too limited on appropriate details (note: all are well below 100 words.) For that reason I'm going to undo their edits for that but add back their summaries for upcoming episodes; they're more appropriate for a teaser but not summary. I will work at editing down the previous summaries and hope others will do that too. Thanks. ─ Matthewi ^(Talk) • 11:39, 14 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Reverted all edits made by Onelbil. User took edits from several editors that were within guidelines and butchered them down to teaser summaries. Unacceptable "editing" practices without even a Talk comment open for S5 episodes. ─ Matthewi ^(Talk) • 08:10, 27 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

A wordy, verbose and plot spoiling "summary" is worse then no summary at all. The heading on season 5 says it all: This section's plot summary may be too long or excessively detailed. Please help improve it by removing unnecessary details and making it more concise. I have again done this, trying to preserve what identifies he show and doesn't spoil the plot for those who haven't viewed the episode. A quick glance at EVERY OTHER SUMMARY ON VIRTUALLY EVERY OTHER EPISODE GUIDE WOULD CLUE YOU IN. Look at the previous seasons of this show please. This is childish. Quit giving away spoilers and the entire plot of the episode. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.96.166.133 (talk) 07:02, 4 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Perhaps you should familiarize yourself with Wikipedia's guidelines. WP:SPOILER clearly states that that spoilers are perfectly acceptable, and that content shouldn't be removed simply because you think it spoils the plot. It's just common sense that you'll come across spoilers in a section designed to summarize the plot. While I agree that some of the summaries require pruning, Template:Episode list clearly states that summaries should be between 100-300 words, which for the most part these summaries are. If you think the summaries need re-writing, then go ahead, but don't shore them down to a bare-bones under-100 word summary that tells you absolutely nothing about the episode at all. Details are fine, spoilers are fine. You can't remove content because you think it gives away the ending. Also, doing something just because you've seen it on other articles is not a valid reason. -- SchrutedIt08 (talk) 07:28, 4 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]

User (IP 74.96.166.133), You should really listen to SchrutedIt08, and extremely experienced editors (possibly an administrator), about Wikipedia's guidelines. I'm not sure why you're acting the way you are: trying to insult me, etc. Wikipedia is here for us to communicate and collaborate. You seemingly only want to act the way you BELIEVE is appropriate and insult others. Respectfully, you don't even under how the Article Talk page works. You finally wrote a comment about what you're doing on your won Talk page (on your IP Talk Page and your account talk page.) That's not how you discuss. You are obviously very unfamiliar with Wikipedia. I'd love for you to contribute to the site but only if you can act appropriate. I sent to the links before on the actual policy for summaries. Did you read them? Did you even try? ─ Matthewi ^(Talk) • 07:58, 4 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]

This is a pathetic argument. Sadly, each of you won't take anything away from this, but here is a fact. You have botched the summary page for season 5. It is embarrassingly poor. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.96.166.133 (talk) 14:36, 4 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for your feedback. I'm not saying this to be cute, because the insults are childish, but you should really read up on how Wikipedia works. There are guidelines and the Season 5 summary are within those. You obviously don't know much about Wikipedia guidelines because you don't even sign your Talk Page comments among other things. Not knowing is fine but being disruptive and inappropriate is not. I don't understand why you're wanting a fight when your knowledge of Wikipedia is severely lacking. When a veteran editor / administrator (which is a huge bar to overcome) is telling you something and showing you the guidelines but you still think they are the ones that should learn something from you... well, there's a problem with your thinking. \\ If you think the summaries could be updated, great, but butchering them when they're within guidelines isn't the answer. ─ Matthewi ^(Talk) • 15:14, 4 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]

If you don't like it, write better summaries. In the time you've wasted reverting and arguing you could've "improved" the article yourself. -- SchrutedIt08 (talk) 22:48, 4 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]

enough — Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.96.166.133 (talk) 16:36, 5 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not sure what the IP User's (74.96.166.133) issue is but he (or she) seems to think he can command us to stop using this Talk Page to communicate with his command of "enough." Also, IP User continues to not sign his comments (no big deal thanks to SineBot), but then he deletes most all of the previous Talk Page comments made by SchrutedIt08 and myself. I've restored them. The IP User should really take time to learn Wikipedia guidelines. Most importantly he should seek help when needed, communicate with other editors, and realize we are here for the site, not for one person's preferences. ─ Matthewi ^(Talk) • 12:48, 6 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]

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