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Smallville (season 2)

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The season 2 article of Smallville has potential to become a good article and achive the status. Before it is submited for Good Article status though, the article needs to be looked through and improved. Because of the length of the article, it would be a good idea to have the editors, familiar or not with the series, contribute to the article to achive this milestone. Any advice that is given is appreciated.

Thanks, ChaosMaster_Chat 00:37, 24 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Finetooth comments: Although I've read many Superman comic books and have seen a fair number of Superman movies, I've never watched an episode of Smallville. I'm coming at this therefore with general knowledge of the subject and zero knowledge of this particular TV series. That said, I must confess that I can't bring myself to read this much detail about Smallville and gave up at the end of the "Superman mythology" subsection. Sad to say, my impression is that the article is much too long and includes a great deal of unnecessary detail. At the same time, it lacks a "critical reception" section and depends too heavily on the book by Paul Simpson. The sections from "Production" through "Physical effects", which make up the bulk of the article, rely almost entirely on this single source. Here are a few other comments:

It's often helpful to look at FA articles about similar subjects to see what other editors have done. You'll find articles about TV series at WP:FA#Media. For example, Parks and Recreation (season 1), which is on this list, runs to 60 kilobytes and includes a substantial critical-reception section. You are already at 79 kilobytes, but if you tightened the middle sections, you could expand the "Awards" section by adding what TV critics said about Smallville (season 2). I think both changes would help improve the article. In fact, if I were writing this, I would aim for something more like 60 kilobytes than 80.

Lead

"Season two regular cast members include Tom Welling... " - I stumbled here a bit because of the four modifiers in front of "members". Perhaps "Regular cast members during season two included Tom Welling... "?

"At the end of season one, Eric Johnson left the show as Whitney Fordman." - Suggestion: "At the end of season one, Eric Johnson, who played Whitney Fordman, had left the show."

Heat

"a woman he barely knows, who turns out is able to control men with meteor rock-enhanced pheromones." - The triple-modifier is awkward. Suggestion: "a woman he barely knows, who is able to control men with pheromones enhanced by meteor rock."

Writing

"to run the newly formed writer's room" - Maybe "writers' room" since there were more writers than one?

"because they felt they were still in the process of finding the show's voice" - Tighten to "because they were still seeking the show's voice"?

"The creative pair understood... " - Tighten by deleting "creative"?

The creative pair understood that a writing staff would help "expand [the] show". - Needs a source immediately after the punctuation at the end of the quote.

" ...Jeph Loeb, who spent his first two weeks trying to come up with fresh ideas for new episodes." - Tighten in this way: " ...Jeph Loeb, who spent his first two weeks seeking fresh ideas for new episodes"?

"someone to talk to who was not his parents" - Maybe "someone who was not one of his parents"?

"Even though they had developed a writing team and brought in comic book scribe Jeph Loeb to help facilitate new story ideas... " - Repeats what was already said in the previous paragraph. Generally, the prose in this section could use tightening. I'll stop making line-by-line copyediting suggestions at this point and simply suggest that you enlist the aid of a copyeditor. You might be able to find one through WP:PRV.

Superman mythology

I count 12 repetitions of "red kryptonite" in the third paragraph.

I hope these suggestions prove helpful. If so, please consider reviewing another article, especially one from the PR backlog at WP:PR. That is where I found this one. I don't generally check corrections after my reviews because it's too time-consuming. Please ping me on my talk page if my comments are unclear. Finetooth (talk) 03:03, 30 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Just to clarify initially, the size of the article is misleading. True size is based on readable prose, which makes this article closer to 60kb (give or take a couple). Also, this article is based on Smallville (season 1), the first season page to become featured. There is no problem with relying on a single source for most of the information in the article, so long as it is not the only source (which it isn't). Obviously the prose could use some tightening, but I disagree that it is "overly long" or contains "unnecessary detail". Wordiness I can give you, but the idea is to be comprehensive. If it's a statement that is irrelevant, that's one thing, but details can be really beneficial when it comes to some of the complexities of production. Also, you're comparing it to a 6 episode show (Parks and Recreation), where we have 23 episodes here. Plus, this is a show with a lot more going into production, so you're going to have a lot more information. That said, Chaos and I are trying to acquire some reviews specifically for a couple of the episodes to separate them out. Unfortunately, early seasons of the show did not garner a lot of critical reception for individual episodes. The reception section for the overall season has not been written up yet, but we have the reviews.

All that said, I have implemented all of your suggestions (brought the 13 red-Ks down to 6), and realized that there is more that can be cut or tightened in just the Superman mythology section alone (thus, clearly all over). This will require an extensive re-reading of the page this weekend. I hope that you'll find some time and continue pointing out issues, as people who are unfamiliar with the show are typically the best reviewers. I personally will read over issues because I've seen the show and when something is missing I automatically fill in the answer in my head (but that doesn't help the average reader). BIGNOLE (Contact me) 04:24, 30 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]