Talk:X-Cops

GA Review

This review is transcluded from Talk:X-Cops/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Reviewer: Glimmer721 (talk · contribs) 02:08, 2 March 2012 (UTC)

Will review soon. Glimmer721 ^talk 02:08, 2 March 2012 (UTC)

Comments:

• Link Nielsen Ratings in lead

Done

• "Due to the uniqueness of the episode received positive reviews, with critics praising its humor." Sentence lacks a subject ("of the episode" is a prepositional phrase). I would change it to, "Do to its uniqueness, the episode received positive reviews, with critics praising its humor."

Done

• "Unlike nearly all other episodes of The X-Files, "X-Cops" is also a fictional crossover with COPS." Nearly all episodes? Isn't it the only one? I would just say, "As such, "X-Cops" is a fictional crossover with COPS". However, you may want to mention that it's the only one shot in real-time other than "Triangle"

Done

• Explain who Skinner is (i.e. "their boss")

Done

• Unlike "sunrise" and "dawn"

Done

• "...because they didn't exhibit..." didn't → did not

Done

• Link green-light

Done

• "crack house" should be linked in the plot, and not in "Casting"

Done

• You like "one of the few" to "Triangle"--is this the only other one? If so, just say that.

Done

• "Inspired by the actually show"...actually? Is that a typo, or does it mean something else?

Done

• "On one night, three-and-a-half pages of script were shot in only two hours.[6] The norm for the X-Files is about three to four pages a day." Maybe combine: "One one night, three-and-a-half pages of the script were shot in only two hours, while the normal rate for The X-Files had been three to four pages a day".

Done

• Refs 12, 13, and 14 need publishing dates (they're there)

Done

Placing on hold for 7 days while issues are addressed. Glimmer721 ^talk 03:01, 2 March 2012 (UTC)

OK, I believe I've addressed all the issues.--Gen. Quon (talk) 03:25, 2 March 2012 (UTC)

Review

I've done some copy-editing so far. Feel free to revert anything you don't like. Sarastro1 (talk) 21:26, 1 June 2013 (UTC)

Lead

• "Since its airing, it has been named as one of the best episodes of The X-Files by several reviewers.": This is a touch weak, and may be more effective along the lines of "the episode has been named among the best N episodes".
• "the monster terrorizing people actually feeds on fear": If we are going to use actually here, we need a contrast: it looks like this, but is actually this. The alternative is to cut the "actually" but I'm not sure if you want the contrast or not.
• "Scully is more leery" Not quite encyclopaedic enough.
• "to be shot in real-time": I'm not too sure what this means.
• "receiving a mixed reception": How can he receive a mixed reception if he only pitched it to Carter?
• "when the crew felt that the show would be canceled, Gilligan was given the green-light": Why only at that point?
• "The episode has thematically been analyzed for its use of postmodernism as well as its presentation as if it were real footage": What does "thematically been analyzed" mean? And "its presentation as if it were real footage" does not quite make sense. I know what you mean, but it needs saying more precisely. Perhaps "as if it were reality television"?

  I think I've patched this section up. How does it look?

Plot

• "The episode opens with the standard opening credit sequence": opens … opening
• Do we need to know the theme song?
• And I can't help wondering if the credits information belongs in the plot section or somewhere else.
• And we get a rather awkward "After that, it cuts to Willow Park…" rather than a more standard "At Willow Park…"
• "is accompanied by an embedded Cops film crew": What does embedded mean in this context?
• How did Mulder and Scully get there?
• Although the programme may have been called "Cops", referring to the police as "cops" seems too informal.
• "a flamboyantly gay black couple": I'm struggling to see the relevance of their flamboyance or otherwise, and of their race to the plot of the story.
• "When the agents track down the censored Chantara": Assuming that this means her face was pixellated (and it is better to use the word that hide the link with censored, which has many meanings) in the style of reality TV, this may again be better in a section other than the plot.
• The third paragraph of this section seems to jump from one location to another, and loses focus a little. It is hard to keep track of who is where, and why.
• "The agents think that Steve and Edy may be the entity's next target": Why?
• "Mulder believes that the entity ignored Steve and Edy because they did not exhibit mortal fear. He further states that they have until sunrise to stop it.": Why? And how does he know these things?
• "The agents are unable to enter the room until dawn comes, when the entity disappears and spares Wetzel's life.": Why? We need an explanation for these events.

  I've got most of these issues fixed, I believe. Unfortunately, some of the problems you've noted, such as why Mulder proposes his theory and why the entity disappears at dawn/spares Wetzel's life, are not explained at all in the episode and are left up in the air.--Gen. Quon (Talk) 21:46, 1 June 2013 (UTC)

More to come. Sarastro1 (talk) 21:26, 1 June 2013 (UTC)

Production

• Why is Spotnitz important enough to include his personal opinion? Could he be cut? His little section basically replicates what is around it and removing it would have little effect.
• "Casting director Rick Milikan was tasked with finding individuals who not only could portray cops, but portray believable police officers": Surely this is the same for any part, and any casting director?
• "Not only did he actually film some of the scenes himself—in addition to the shots caught by the show's usual camera operators—but he also brought in Bertram van Munster, a cameraman for Cops, to shoot scenes in order to give the finished product an authentic feel.": Too much going on here. Which "show" are we talking about in the sentence? Also, "Not only ... but also ..." is not the best construction for an encyclopaedia article.
• "to take place in real time": I think we need the same fix as in the lead here.
• "Originally, Gilligan did not want the X-Files logo to appear at any time during the episode. He stressed that he wanted "X-Cops" to be an "episode of Cops that happened to involve Mulder and Scully."[10] The network, fearing that people would not comprehend that "X-Cops" was an X-Files episode, vetoed this idea. A compromise was reached wherein the normal X-Files credits would scroll and the commercial bumpers would feature the X-Files logo in a similar fashion to the Cops logo.": This seems to contradict the plot section, which says that the Cops credits were used at the beginning. Also, what are "commercial bumpers", and how could they feature one logo in a similar way to another. I'm a bit lost here. --Sarastro1 (talk) 08:36, 3 June 2013 (UTC)

  How does it all look now?--Gen. Quon (Talk) 15:19, 3 June 2013 (UTC)

Themes

• ""X-Cops" is an example of The X-Files delving into the postmodern school of thought": Sounds a little uncomfortable, and rather like a thesis. Some rewording needed.
• This is made far worse by then including a dictionary definition of postmodernism. (And FWIW, that doesn't sound much like postmodernism to me, nor does it really describe this episode. Perhaps a rethink is needed here.)
• "the episode, along with many other found footage-type movies and shows, helps to suggest that the "presents are past", that is, despite being promoted as "live TV", the episode is actually depicting a series of past events.": I'm afraid this is incredibly hard to follow.
• "Furthermore, while the episode is written and performed in a self-reflexive and humorous tone, the real-time aspects of "X-Cops" allow the episode to come across in a hyper-realistic way in order to "heighten the sense of realism within the episode"": Ditto. This needs to be made much easier for the reader.
• " On the top-most superficial layer, it functions as an outright parody, mimicking both the stylings of The X-Files as well as Cops. However, on the other layer, she muses, "it's a serious look at validation."": We are again drifting into thesis speak. And the "argues" and "muses" make this look like an essay.
• "Furthermore, since she reasons Mulder's biggest fear is not finding the monster, she points out that he not only fails to find what he is looking for, but he also fails on camera.": Too dense again.

Broadcast and reception

• "It received a Nielsen rating of 9.7, with a 14 share among viewers, meaning that 9.7 percent of all households in the United States, and 14 percent of people watching television at that time, tuned into the episode": To non-US readers, this will not make too much sense. Could it be simplified, or explained further, for example in a note?
• "It originally aired in the United Kingdom and Ireland": Did it also air in Ireland? And on Sky One?
• "Stegall praised the episode and likened the episode's monster to Boggart from the Harry Potter universe": Should this be "a/the Boggart"?
• "writing that the series "did comedy, it was probably the funniest drama ever on television"": This does not quite make sense.
• I think the reviews go into overkill. Do we need to list, and quote from, every review available? Some could perhaps be cut.

That's all for now, but I will re-read the article (possibly early next week) and see if anything else needs addressing. (I have not yet checked the changes since I began the review) Sarastro1 (talk) 21:53, 5 June 2013 (UTC)

Thank you ever so much for doing this. The article looks and reads much better now. I think I've gotten everything that needs to be changed.--Gen. Quon (Talk) 00:30, 6 June 2013 (UTC)

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Real Time

I'm not a wiki editor and have no idea how to do this, I just watched the episode and really enjoyed it so I went to this page to take a look but I came across an error or possibly something that isn't explained properly. The summary and possibly other places on the page mention this is one of only 2 episodes to be shot in real time. I wanted to make sure it was referring to what I understood that to mean, for example, the show 24 and the link to real-time in media stated exactly that, in the summary, it states that a two-hour runtime 'real-time' movie would have a plot that spans 2 hours. The only problem is that it's not, I think you can see this in the plot summary but the episode starts at the beginning of the evening and ends the next morning when the sun comes up. It does all occur within the same evening but spans eight hours, not forty-five minutes. Just as some examples off the top of my head where they go forward in time is immediately after the opening credits as the deputy's backup is there, when they get the arrest warrant and go serve it, when Scully goes to do an autopsy, and after the deputy is waiting too long for Mulder so he goes out on his own again. Hope this helps and serves to make the article better. Thanks — Preceding unsigned comment added by 170.52.83.183 (talk) 08:44, 19 December 2018 (UTC)

- Agreed, the episode takes place over the course of one night, not “real time”, and as there is no source to back this up, I’m inclined to remove this. Joeldelusional (talk) 12:39, 7 June 2022 (UTC)

It's discussed in the "Themes" section. I suppose "real time" isn't the right word--the discussion is basically about how this feels like it's all live TV, when it's really not.--Gen. Quon_[Talk] 13:59, 7 June 2022 (UTC)

I've fully removed this term from the article. It seems an editor way back mistakenly thought that real time means filming as live, when it actually refers to the episode's end presentation. This episode quite explicitly takes place over an entire night, not just an hour. U-Mos (talk) 14:19, 5 November 2023 (UTC)