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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 promoted by Graham Beards via FACBot (talk) 16:44, 14 May 2015 [1].

Space Seed

[edit]
Nominator(s): Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs(talk) 20:26, 8 March 2015 (UTC), Miyagawa (talk) 21:52, 8 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]

One of Star Trek: The Original Series most influential episodes, and the origin of Khan Noonien Singh, one of Star Trek's most well-known villains. Article has been through a GA and had a copyedit by Laser Brain. Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs(talk) 20:26, 8 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Comment Not familiar to movie articles, but could the "Legacy" section be expanded? It seems rather bare to me compared to the coverage of earlier sections. Gug01 (talk) 20:16, 9 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Miya and I have looked, and I don't believe there's much missing from that section. The episode had a big impact on subsequent Star Trek episodes, but the enduring legacy of the Khan character and to the franchise mostly comes from Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan. Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs(talk) 22:43, 11 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Take a look here. The image is clearly commercially made. The uploader put a no-copyright claim due to a missing copyright notice. Many of the others in the article appear to be similar. Now if the claim is correct, and images before 1989 do require a copyright notice, then practically every image I've ever used falls into that category (yay!). But I don't think it's right. Maury Markowitz (talk) 14:10, 14 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
As the tag indicates, images before 1977 first published in the US required a copyright notice in order to still be copyrighted in the US now. Other countries/circumstances have other requirements, but that's correct for this article. Nikkimaria (talk) 14:58, 14 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Fascinating! Ok, well I need to go re-label about 100 images... Maury Markowitz (talk) 22:22, 14 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Crisco comments More specific image review:

User:Crisco 1492, I see the photo came from a blog that attributes it to The Greatest Show on Earth (TV series). It aired from 1963-1964 on ABC (US) and the production company was Desilu, who was also the original production company for Star Trek. When I went through original registrations for Star Trek, I found that Desilu had registered nothing but the film Yours, Mine, and Ours from 1966-1969; no registrations but this one in film-nothing in artwork. If this would fix things, I can look through original registrations in film and artwork for 1963 and 1964 for both Desilu and ABC (US). It's doubtful that there are any, but can look. We hope (talk) 15:26, 16 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Bad news-I got as far as original film registrations for 1963-Here's the registration for the program. This is said to have come from The Hanging Man with an airdate in November 1963. We do have at least one PD photo from the program File:Lucille Ball Jack Palance Greatest Show on Earth 1964.JPG, but it has an uncropped front and back with an ABC release. Guess this needs to go for PD. We hope (talk) 16:06, 16 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • I've removed that image from the article. We hope, can I leave it to you to flag this up at Commons? I just realised I don't have a clue how to flag PD issues there! Miyagawa (talk) 09:21, 19 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Images are okay — Crisco 1492 (talk) 11:05, 19 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]

  • Don't need to list the broadcast date twice in the lead
  • references to it appear in episodes of Star Trek: Enterprise - I'd expect that this is a reference to the background (Eugenics Wars, which was also referenced in DS9 with Bashir, BTW; I recall something about how genetic engineering had been outlawed following the Eugenics wars, when Bashir is first found to be genetically enhanced; also, TAS "The Infinite Vulcan" references the Wars) and not "Space Seed" itself, as the episode is set after Enterprise.
  • I've added references to the DS9 episode - I've split the Legacy section into two subsections, one dealing with Khan specifically and so contains TWOK and Into Darkness related material, and the other dealing specifically with the Eugenics Wars. I still need to add "The Infinite Vulcan" related material. Miyagawa (talk) 18:49, 17 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • I've now added "The Infinite Vulcan" - admittedly not much, as the source I have which mentions it only has a plot description for that episode of TAS and no background information. Miyagawa (talk) 09:32, 19 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • Kirk selects McGivers because she specializes in late 20th-century history and culture. - Feels kinda out of sync with the flow of the paragraph. Might want to rework
  • rest of his supermen - superpeople?
  • One element introduced in the second draft that remained in the final version was Kirk marooning Khan and his crew on a new planet. - The character wasn't Khan yet
  • You use "writer" a bit too much in the last paragraph of Writing
  • has never seen "Space Seed" - as of?
  • Contemporary reviews? 70s? The reception section is way too FUTON biased.
  • Well good news, I'm just waiting for my new account to be upgraded to full access. I took a preliminary search and I've already found The Indiana Gazette calling "Space Seed" "a solid piece of science fiction" on February 16, 1967. So this looks like that issue should get solved in the next couple of days. Miyagawa (talk) 00:04, 23 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • I now have access - in fact it wasn't solid, it was good according to the review. I've managed to add two reviews. There were others, but they were identical to the two I've added word for word, or only gave a plot overview. Miyagawa (talk) 18:27, 26 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • her review for Trek Nation. - or her review for TrekNation? One's a documentary, one's a website
    • Fixed - is now linked to TrekNation. Also, I thought I should explain why this particular fansite has been included. Currently it is one of only four fan sites to be linked to from the main Star Trek website, but in fact in the past it had much closer ties. From going back to previous versions of the ST website, they used to use TrekNation as one of their main news pages. So much so that when you clicked on "More News" on a couple of previous designs, it actually took you straight to TrekNation. Miyagawa (talk) 22:36, 16 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • with the exception of the DVD containing "Turnabout Intruder". This featured two versions of the original Star Trek pilot, "The Cage". - that second sentence is probably better as a footnote
  • No mention of the Blish text adaptation? Airing of the remastered version (i.e. non-DVD)?
  • Found it! I hit across the idea of checking for zap2it on archive.org, but when that didn't pan out, I checked the archived official Star Trek website from 2007 and found both the air dates for the remastered versions but also a description about the station releases. I'd figured that UPN had shown it, but apparently they went straight into syndication with the new versions. Miyagawa (talk) 15:59, 19 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • The whole Chekov thing is not included (don't have to include the joke about Khan remembering Chekov in II because he held up the bathroom, but still... it's been discussed quite a bit)
    • The Pavel Chekov article has some references, though I can't vouch for the quality of all of them. I only mention this because it's been termed "the apparent gaffe notorious throughout Star Trek fandom" (i.e. probably worth a sentence, or at least a footnote). — Crisco 1492 (talk) 16:12, 19 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support: great work putting together this article, but I would definitely recommend that the nominator look into archiving the web links that we have here (as I have done, for instance, for Uncle David). Otherwise we may find ourselves in a situation three years down the line where the original link has died, and thus chunks of information will actually have to be removed from this article, and its GA/FA status might be threatened as a result. Better safe than sorry! Midnightblueowl (talk) 20:26, 8 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Comments. As always, feel free to revert my copyediting. - Dank (push to talk)

  • "as of 1993": Do you have information more recent than 1993?
  • "Cox found that as he wrote it after the events were meant to have taken place as predicted by the television series that he had an issue, but instead of describing the Eugenics Wars as a massive World War-style scenario, he described it as going "the X-Files route" by having the Wars being a massive conspiracy that was not discovered until generations had passed.": Give that one another shot.
  • "subsequently": I've generally found the word to be ambiguous in history articles; try substituting "soon", "later", "later on", "consequently", or something more specific.
  • Support on prose per standard disclaimer. These are my edits. - Dank (push to talk) 02:50, 29 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support Marvelous article on a significant television episode. The only change I would like to see concerns the critical reception section – can you add dates or indicate when the reviews were written? It provides context and makes it easier to follow chronologically. Not a big enough concern to avoid supporting though. Ruby 2010/2013 22:02, 4 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • I've added a couple of lines to explain that the second 1960s source was also around the same time as the first, and another line to indicate that the remaining reviewers were several decades after the broadcast. Thanks for the review. Miyagawa (talk) 22:54, 4 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Leaning opposeComments: A few prose issues here and there, and a couple of other things that might need a last little polish. Nothing major, but I don't think we are quite there yet. There seems to be some redundancy. Some of this may be my own personal preference (and feel free to disagree), but I'm not sure the prose is quite tight enough. I think it's easily fixed, but it should at least be considered. Sarastro1 (talk) 21:02, 6 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Lead

  • "attempts to take control of Enterprise to begin a new conquest": The lead does not mention an old conquest, so it is jarring to learn of a new one. Also, would "attempts to seize the Enterprise" be more crisp?
  • "During the writing of the episode numerous changes were made": As written this could mean the changes were made for the Captain Video series.
  • "Changes" used three times in second paragraph of lead.
  • "During the writing of the episode numerous changes were made as producer Bob Justman felt that it would be too expensive to film": A bit clunky, and quite a bit feels redundant. What about "Producer Bob Justman, feeling the episode would be too expensive, made numerous changes to the script."
  • "a request that was turned down by the Writers Guild of America.": Redundancy?
  • "Montalbán was the first choice for Khan": Whose first choice?
  • "Despite being planned as a bottle episode": I wonder should we have a term like this which forces most readers to click a link, rather than just add a word or two more.
  • "On the first broadcast, the episode held second place in the ratings for the first half-hour with 13.12 million viewers. During the second half-hour it was pushed into third place after the Thursday Night Movie began on CBS.": I think I understand why this is here, but it seems to take up a huge chunk of the lead! Can it be simplified? Also, "On the first broadcast" sounds wrong to me ("When first broadcast", or "On its first transmission" sound better to me) but this may be ENGVAR.
  • ""Space Seed" is commonly considered one of the best episodes of the series, having been included in several top ten lists.": Considered by who? Fans and critics and the general public often have different views. Also, "top ten lists" is vague. Top ten what? There are top ten worst episode lists!! Can we be more precise, and whose lists?

Plot:

  • Seems a bit top-heavy to me. Two paragraphs seem to be about the set-up, and I wonder if the balance is correct. But I may very well be wrong, and don't know this episode well enough to be sure. (I think I saw it years ago, but it is vague!)
  • "Its hull identifies it as the SS Botany Bay,": Seems redundant, and may be better merged with the first sentence.
  • "The landing party finds a cargo of 84 humans, 72 of whom are alive in suspended animation after nearly 200 years.": Are the other 12 dead? I wonder if we could somehow reword as "have been in suspended animation for nearly 200 years"?
  • "McGivers identifies the stasis tube containing the body of the group's leader [who]. The male occupant begins to revive, but his life is threatened when his stasis cell begins to fail. Kirk frees him from the cell, and he is taken back to Enterprise for a medical examination.": More redundancy?
  • "In sickbay, the group's leader awakens and attacks McCoy, holding a scalpel to his throat and demanding to know where he is. McCoy responds by suggesting the optimal way to kill him if he wishes to do so. [but is] Impressed by McCoy's [his] bravery, the man puts the scalpel down and introduces himself as "Khan" (Ricardo Montalbán).": I think we are over detailing here, and could cut quite a lot of this.
  • "Khan is given quarters, although his door is locked and an armed guard is posted outside.": What about simply "Khan is placed under guard in quarters"?

There is more to come, but I'll give people a chance to reply and/or violently disagree before I continue! Sarastro1 (talk) 21:02, 6 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Hey Sarastro, thanks for the comments thus far. I've made changes to address most of the above (though in places I used alternate verbiage than what you suggested here.) Only thing I left unchanged I believe is the rating stuff—I understand where you think it seems to take up too much room, but given the half-hour ratings I'm not entirely sure how to simplify it and keep it clear how the ratings were derived. Miya might have an idea. Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs(talk) 16:02, 7 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]
I've trimmed the ratings line in the lead. Miyagawa (talk) 19:28, 8 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Changes looking good. Sarastro1 (talk) 21:07, 8 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Production

  • "Carey Wilber was hired to write a script for an episode of Star Trek": Who hired him?
  • "His work on that show had included the concept of transporting people in suspended animation through space, the episode featuring Greek-era humans being resurrected and the people of the future finding that they have mythological powers. ": Is all this from the same episode? If so, it could probably be combined more economically (e.g. "the episode included the concept of the transportation of Ancient Greek-era [or Ancient humans?] in suspended animation... "etc
  • "and was also involved in writing scripts for Lost in Space and The Time Tunnel around the same time as his work on Star Trek.": Why is this paired with information on his work with Roddenberry? Did they work together on these series? If not, it is odd to combine the information in one sentence.
  • "Wilber's first proposal for the story that became "Space Seed" was dated August 29, 1966, shortly before the first episode of the television series was aired.": Vaguely awkward and possibly unclear; also, we have referred to two television series here, so maybe clarify. Possibly combine with the next sentence?: "In Wilber's first proposal for the story that became "Space Seed", dated August 29, 1966 (shortly before the first episode of Star Trek aired),[5] the villain was Harold Erickson, an ordinary criminal exiled into space."
  • "and the characterization was based on the descriptions from the writer's bible": Unclear. Characterization of who? (Maybe the "characterization of the leads"?) And I assume there was a "writer's bible" specifically for Star Trek, but this should be spelled out for the unaware. I also wonder if it is worth adding quotation marks to make it clear we are not talking about a religious experience!
  • "NBC executives supported the plot for "Space Seed" and Justman made a reassessment, saying that the outline needed to be heavily revised": Supported how? What did Justman reassess? And if he just decided that it needed to be revised, that sounds more like he didn't really change his mind, but just tolerated a decision from his bosses.
  • I've changed that to "NBC executives reviewed the plot for "Space Seed" and approved it, but Justman reassessed the outline, saying that it needed to be heavily revised." The Star Trek executives at that point were sending the potential plots to NBC to review. Of course as the season went on they started pre-empting the responses and putting those episodes into production before permission was received. But that level of detail is more suited to the season articles themselves. Miyagawa (talk) 20:35, 13 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • "In September, Wilber was given a list of suggested changes asking him to remove any mention of the setting, as the producers did not want to say how far in the future Star Trek was set, and to remove the chess scene.": Presumably these were not the only two changes, so perhaps add "including".
  • "Ricardo Montalbán was cast as the genetic superman Khan Noonian Singh, having been the first choice for the role": Cast by who, and whose first choice?
  • "who was not looking to cast an actor of a particular ethnic background due to Roddenberry's vision for the series": This might make a little more sense if the note which follows it is incorporated into the main text; at the moment it is a bit of a non sequitur; should we say something about Montalbán's ethnicity?
  • "Roddenberry, Coon and Wilber's efforts resulted in nearly 60 pages of script across 120 scenes.": Not sure what is being said here. Was this unusual? "Efforts" suggests that this was a deliberate attempt to produce this amount. Correct? Sarastro1 (talk) 21:07, 8 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I've done some copy-editing myself to save time; feel free to revert anything I've messed up, or that you don't like. More to come. Sarastro1 (talk) 21:07, 8 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I've addressed most of the above notes: regarding the "who hired" and "whose first choice" questions, I think it's just "the production" and not specified in the sources themselves (I will not have access to double-check until tomorrow.) Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs(talk) 17:46, 12 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Just one point about the above changes: we still have "featured Greek-era humans"; Greek-era does not really make sense as Greece is a location. You either need an awkward double hyphen Ancient-Greek-Era (it might be Ancient Greek-era, but I'm not sure. I suspect not) or perhaps Hellenic-era/Hellenistic-era. Sarastro1 (talk) 20:52, 12 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]
I've corrected the Greek bit as recommended. Miyagawa (talk) 22:24, 12 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Reception:

  • I'm struggling to see the need to include the first HD broadcast of the episode, especially that is was available to 200 stations. Maybe I'm missing something.
  • I requested the remastering be included. The remastered Star Trek episodes were not just a transfer from film to HD digital, but also included new/reworked special effects (more detail). The amount of changes, I believe, gives it enough significance to be included in the article. — Crisco 1492 (talk) 01:25, 13 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • "Prior to the original broadcast in 1967": Maybe "In a preview of the original broadcast"? (It still described the episode as such after the broadcast, so "prior to" does not really work) Or even cut this phrase altogether and just have "In 1967"?
  • "Also reviewing the episode at the same time": A very odd phrasing here. Maybe alter this and simply start this section with "Reviewers in 1967..." or similar.
  • "Other viewers re-watched and reviewed the episodes several decades after broadcast": Also a little clumsy. Is there a better phrase, such as "More recent reviewers", or "Later reviewers"?Could we also place these reviewers: are they science fiction reviewers, Star Trek reviewers, DVD reviewers...?
  • "ten most under-appreciated elements of Star Trek": Seems a little odd. Given that the reviewers seem to have had nothing but praise and it spawned a film, why is the episode "under-appreciated"?
  • "Sociology professors John and Maria Jose Tenuto from the College of Lake County described "Space Seed" as the most important episode of the original series, because it resulted in a film which ultimately saved the franchise": This seems rather a stretch, to be honest, and reading far too much into the episode. I'm not sure it has a place here, and the episode can't be considered important just because of its effect on a film series over ten years later.

Home media release:

  • "The first adaptation of "Space Seed" was as a re-working into a short story": This seems an odd start to a section about home media, which most readers will assume is DVD/video. Maybe "Home media and other adaptations" for the title?
  • Can we have a date for the Star Trek 2 book? Also, to be pedantic. should it be a novelization rather than a novel?
  • Were no other VHS releases made? I only ask as I remember double episode VHS Star Trek releases in the UK in the late 1980s/early 1990s.
  • The existing cites for VHS cover the releases in the United States. There were also UK VHS releases with multiple episodes on each releases. I know in the early 90s there was a release with two episodes to each tape, but then in the late 90s there was a further release with three to each tape. I have some Star Trek Monthlys (gotta love eBay) from the same time as the three episode releases but sadly not quite early enough. It seems unlikely that I'll get a citation from the British media mentioning these releases, so would it be acceptable to have a direct citation at the release itself? It just seems more likely that I'll be able to dig up that information. Miyagawa (talk) 21:11, 12 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Legacy:

  • "the ages of Khan's followers": Can we specify how these are continuity errors? Too old? Too young? Why?
  • "This was Cox's final Khan-based book, following on from his earlier work about the Eugenics Wars.": We haven't mentioned these other books, why do so here? Probably meaningless to the general reader.
  • The whole Eugenics War section seems to be over-detailed, and belong in a different article rather than one on this episode. In my opinion, this whole section could be cut with little loss to the article.
  • "The events of The Wrath of Khan caused an error in the episode's script": The events of the film cannot cause an error in a script written years later.
They did - the point that part is trying to make is that the writer of the later episode effectively quoted the same line from the film but failed to take into account the difference in the timeline between the film and the episode taking place. So when he said it took place 200 years prior, it actually added an additional hundred years to the setting because the film and the episode were a 100 years apart. Miyagawa (talk) 22:33, 12 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]

That's it from me. I think it's almost there, and did a touch more copy-editing. I'll be happy to switch to support once my final concerns are addressed (or disagreed with) and thank you to the nominators for their patience with my nit-picking. Sarastro1 (talk) 20:52, 12 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Support: There is one main point unaddressed above (the NBC one) and a few minor ones that haven't had a response yet. I'd like to see these at least looked at, but assuming that they are, I am happy to support this now. A nice piece of work, finding so much information and analysis on one television episode. Sarastro1 (talk) 18:09, 13 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Source review - Notes look good. References look good, but ISBNs are inconsistently formatted. That's all I have. --Laser brain (talk) 15:58, 7 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks. All the ISBN-13s have been formatted the same now. Miyagawa (talk) 19:34, 8 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Closing Note - I am confident that any remaining issues will be addressed post-FAC. Graham Beards (talk)

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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