Talk:Timewasters

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A fact from Timewasters appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the Did you know column on 9 October 2021 (check views). The text of the entry was as follows:

Did you know... that racially themed time-travel comedy Timewasters was developed under the working title Black to the Future?

A record of the entry may be seen at Wikipedia:Recent additions/2021/October. The nomination discussion and review may be seen at Template:Did you know nominations/Timewasters.

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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: promoted by Theleekycauldron (talk) 22:39, 28 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

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Comment or view
Article history

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... that racially themed time-travel comedy Timewasters was developed under the working title Black to the Future? Source: Royal Television Society: "Timewasters blends jokes, jazz and time travel to tackle big themes such as racism" ... “I came up with a title, Black to the Future.” ... "the theme of blackness is so embedded in the show".

Reviewed: Operation Crossfire Hurricane
Comment: Requesting 9 October 2021, the 4th anniversary of its premiere.

Moved to mainspace by Reidgreg (talk) and Zanimum (talk). Nominated by Reidgreg (talk) at 04:33, 31 August 2021 (UTC).[reply]

This article is new enough, long enough, reasonably well written and sourced. Earwigs suggests no copyvio. The hook is interesting and is mentioned in the article. A QPQ has been provided. However, Reidgreg, I'm not seeing that it was developed with Black to the Future as a working title, just that at one point the creator had come up with that name-- the source gives no timeline for Universal's intervention. Is there something I'm missing? Eddie891 ^Talk _Work 18:52, 31 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
- Good point! I'm not sure exactly when the title changed. It was Black to the Future during development. It probably came to Universal's attention either when they were shopping the spec script around to studios or when they tried to register the name. There are a few different sources (not all cited) that mention it being called Black to the Future, I'll try to look through them and add a more definitive statement to the article. Will ping you here when done. – Reidgreg (talk) 19:48, 31 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
- @Eddie891: I found three existing references in the article which give better support for the statement. None of them specifically call it a "working title" but I think it fits the definition. I put them all at the end of the sentence (where one of them was already present). Since it's a surprising DYK fact, I hope that's okay and it doesn't look like overcitation. For convenience of review, here are the supporting statements: (2) "CarsonRenaissance" [inews interview with Taylor:] "It was originally called 'Black to the Future', I thought, 'that's a show I can sell'" (Universal Studios didn't: they threatened to sue, so he was forced changed it). (9) "BCGInterview" [British Comedy Guide] The show started life at the script stage with the title Black To The Future, however a certain movie studio didn't approve of that title, so it was changed to Blackwards, before everyone settled on the title Timewasters. (10) "KhaleeliSubverted" [The Guardian:] In the ITV2 series a south London jazz quartet find themselves stranded in the 1920s after getting into a lift in a rundown block of flats – a set-up that writer Daniel Lawrence Taylor says originally inspired the cheeky title Black to the Future, before Universal ruled it out. – Reidgreg (talk) 23:24, 31 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  - Thanks, that's good enough for me! Eddie891 ^Talk _Work 23:47, 31 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

To T:DYK/P6