Wikipedia:Peer review/Goodbye, Michael/archive1

Goodbye, Michael

This peer review discussion has been closed.
I've listed this article for peer review because I hope to nominate it for a featured article

Thanks, NoD'ohnuts (talk) 00:10, 22 October 2011 (UTC)

Comments by Bradley0110

Lead

• The non-free image File:Michael and Pam saying goodbye.png has a weak fair-use rationale ("to illustrate an article on the episode") which will not stand up to scrutiny at FAC.
• "The episode aired as an extended 50-minute episode, after having originally meant to be a two-part episode combined with the previous episode "Michael's Last Dundies," but was given its own full extended episode instead." Can this sentence be recast to lose a few "episode"s?
• You should state in the lead that OfficeTally is a fansite.

Synopsis

• This section is OK but the writing could stand to be tighter. Redundancy crops up in some places (e.g. "The party planning committee [...] try to plan a big party" in the first paragraph) that should be weeded out.
• Clunky hyper-formal language is used in the section ("requests the help of Deangelo Vickers (Will Ferrell) to retain them", "He initially expresses disdain", "advises him to minimize his Adam's apple using cover-up"). Smoothing this out can help with the flow and can reduce the overall word count (some 650 when the maximum for this article should be 500).
• The style of writing is overtly sentimental, which parallels the tone of the episode but is ultimately unencyclopedic. Cutting out some minor scene summaries and sticking to the major plot points can help with the this.

Production

• For some reason there's a lot of words devoted to Andy Buckley's non-broadcast appearance - the bit about the photograph on NBC.com is bizzare! Can the part in the second paragraph not just be cut down to "Andy Buckley filmed a scene as David Wallace that was cut from the original airing of the episode but reinstated for an edited two-part rerun three weeks later."?
• "As a goodbye gift, Carell was given a hockey jersey with the #1, his number on the call sheet which was retired." The grammar of this sentence implies that the call sheet was retired, which I don't think was the case. I'm not sure that everyone who reads this article will understand the sports metaphor of retiring numbers. I'm not sure how this could be rewritten - maybe something like "As a goodbye gift, Carell was given a hockey jersey with the #1 — his number on the call sheet. After Carell's departure the number was no longer used."?
• "Michael Ausiello of TVLine reported that the episode would cause Parks and Recreation to also run for an extended time." I can't see what this has to do with this episode.
• The third paragraph features short quotes that could easily be merged into the sentence (rule of thumb: only include a quote if paraphrasing would lose the writer/speaker's intended meaning), e.g. "Greg Daniels stated in an interview with Entertainment Weekly that due to Ferrell's performance and Michael's goodbyes, the episode "ended up being real long" could easily be "Greg Daniels attributed the extended length of the episode to Ferrell's performance and Michael's goodbyes." Likewise "He ended up talking to NBC Entertainment Chairman Robert Greenblatt who "was like, “You do whatever is best.” They really wanted to give Steve the proper goodbye."" could just be "NBC Entertainment Chairman Robert Greenblatt allowed Daniels to "do whatever is best [...] to give Steve [Carell] the proper goodbye."

Cultural references

• This section would be better entitled "Callbacks to previous episodes". If there is any commentary on these callbacks from people connected to the show (e.g. writers, directors) it could be incorporated into the Production section.

Reviews

• "The episode was met with critical acclaim with many critics saying Carell deserved an Emmy for his performance." "Two" is not "many". Myles McNutt said Carell deserved an Emmy for his performance in all seven seasons, not just this episode, as the sentence implies, and Hillary Busis states "If Steve Carell doesn't win an Emmy for "Goodbye, Michael," I have a feeling a lot of disgruntled Office fans are going to shoot their TVs full of holes." which is not the same thing as saying he deserves an Emmy. Basically, the assertion that "many critics [said] Carell deserved an Emmy for his performance" is untrue; One critic said Carell deserved an Emmy for his work on the series.
• As in the Production section, this section features quotes that could easily be paraphrased. "Reception" sections in film, TV and music sections are among the hardest to write because of the temptation to just plonk in various quotes and surround them with "Critic #1 opined this and Critic #2 bemoaned that."

Awards and nomination

• "Carell has been named a big contender to win in the category, by many publications." The tense needs updating now the results have been declared. Again "many publications" appears with reference to only two. TVLine says "The likely sentimental favorite" which isn't quite the same as "big contender". I think this sentence would better as just something like "11 entertainment website writers polled by Gold Derby agreed that Carell would win the category." and then just lose the TVLine reference altogether.

I hope this has given you some pointers for moving forward. Bradley0110 (talk) 12:28, 12 November 2011 (UTC)