Wikipedia:Peer review/Episode 2 (Twin Peaks)/archive1

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Episode 2 (Twin Peaks)[edit]

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This peer review discussion has been closed.
I've listed this article for peer review because I plan on bringing it to FAC within the year. I've assembled pretty much everything relevant I can get my hands on at the moment; though I haven't exhaustively combed JSTOR which I plan on doing this Monday. My main concern is just the flow of information, as the slow growth of the article has meant several trains of thought have been added without any real foresight—this is probably most evident in the "Broadcast and reception" heading, with reviews simply added one after another. I'm also wondering if any significant gaps can be seen in the information present; the episode in question is generally seen as the hallmark of the series and I'm unsure of whether I've been as exhaustive as I feel I have in researching it. If anything seems to have been overlooked I'd need to jump on that quickly.

Thanks in advance; GRAPPLE X 01:48, 29 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

NB: Have now combed JSTOR and Highbeam; short of checking the below-mentioned book that's all sources I've access to exhausted. GRAPPLE X 12:22, 1 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
NB: Have purchased and combed through the Odell & Le Blanc book mentioned below; was of little use for this particular article but I guess I can find use for it elsewhere. GRAPPLE X 15:16, 16 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I'd be happy to give this page a peruse if I may; I've never actually provided a peer review before, so input from others would be of benefit, but nonetheless, I hope I can be of some help. (Midnightblueowl (talk) 17:48, 29 April 2012 (UTC))[reply]

Comments:

Regarding the lead:

  • In your first note, you state "....titles that are now commonly used." But by whom are they commonly used by ? Fans of the series ? Academics writing about the series ? Those producing the DVDs ? Or all of these ? A little clarification here would be welcome.
  • In the second paragraph, you end a sentence with "in a small rural town"; maybe mention that this town is in Washington State, otherwise the reader might ponder where on earth the show is set ?
  • ""Episode 2" has been well-received since its initial broadcast, with critics finding it to be a ground-breaking episode of television, and has since come to be influential to, and parodied by, several subsequent television series". Perhaps this sentence could be restructured to be a little more readable. In particular, the wording of "critics finding it to be a ground-breaking episode of television" feels a little clunky to me. Not an essential alteration, but I think we could come up with an improvement.
    • Thanks for the pointers, I've made an effort to address them here; if anything needs to be further addressed then I'll get on it right away. GRAPPLE X 18:05, 29 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
      • Good job; I'll present a few more suggestions over the next few hours. (Midnightblueowl (talk) 18:07, 29 April 2012 (UTC))[reply]
  • "A priori" is usually italicised. (Midnightblueowl (talk) 18:09, 29 April 2012 (UTC))[reply]

Regarding the plot:

  • "has been shocked by the discovery of the murder of schoolgirl Laura Palmer"; this again feels a bit clunky. Must we have "discovery of the murder of schoolgirl...." or can we simplify that a bit ?
  • " Cooper throws a stone at a bottle placed some distance away, and considers those suspects whose names coincided with him hitting the bottle to be of interest." Again, could that be made a little more readable ?
    • Rewritten both of these. GRAPPLE X 18:52, 29 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Regarding the production section:

  • in the blue quote box, you state "David Lynch on the episode's red herring ending." You could perhaps give a date after that ?
  • Do we need to link to David Lynch here? We don't link to Michael J. Anderson ?
    • Names are linked on their first mention outside of the lead, and in plain text after that. Anderson's linked in the "Plot" section, but the "Production" heading is the first post-lead mention of Lynch. GRAPPLE X 18:52, 29 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Should we refer to the fact that Anderson is a little person; surely that's a significant factor in his portrayal of The Man from Another Place ?
    • I'm not sure, but I could be convinced. I had assumed from the mention of Ronnie Rocket being about a little person that it was implied but I could make it clearer if you think it would help. GRAPPLE X 18:52, 29 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • "Series creator David Lynch..." is used at least twice here. It needn't be used after the first occasion.
    • Culled the second one. GRAPPLE X 18:52, 29 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Maybe include the date that Eraserhead was released in brackets ? 1977 !
    • Date added, but I worded it as "his 1977 debut", not personally keen on brackets. GRAPPLE X 18:52, 29 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • "Anderson has described the process of learning his lines backwards, noting that he first works out the phonemes of each word rather than simply reading it back to front, and that he disregards the inflection of any given word as this helps to bolster the discordant effect of the end result..." The second part of this sentence is in the present tense, but wouldn't the past tense be more applicable here?
    • Rewritten this a little, let me know how it reads now. GRAPPLE X 18:52, 29 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

(Midnightblueowl (talk) 18:15, 29 April 2012 (UTC))[reply]

Regarding the themes section:

  • "...clues or muscle";[19] The fact that the...". In this case, should that "The" actually be "the"... ?
    • Semicolon was meant to be a full stop here, I think; so that's what I changed it to. GRAPPLE X 18:52, 29 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Link to surrealism.

Regarding the broadcast and reception section:

  • "The broadcast inspired several complaints concerning the sexual overtones of a scene in which the characters of Ben and Jerry Horne are eating baguette sandwiches." Does this source specify what these overtones were ? Fellatio ? If it doesn't specify then that's okay though.
    • I'll have a re-read now and add that if I can; I'm pretty sure that's what it is, though the conversation they have while eating is about their youthful sex lives so it might not be as Freudian as it is overt. GRAPPLE X 18:52, 29 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
      • Source doesn't specify, just mentions the "unseemly pleasure" they took in eating. GRAPPLE X 18:56, 29 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • The primary paragraph here could be divided into two fairly easily, and perhaps be the better for it.
    • See this was an issue I was hoping to get opinions on, as I'm not sure how to divide it. There's some, but not much, negative criticism, so I could do an uneven "positive/negative" split; or break it into discussion of the episode as a whole and the dream sequence specifically; or try to break it by the roughly contemporary stuff versus more recent stuff. Which do you feel would work best?
  • "specifically, as having "turned “Twin Peaks” into a water-cooler phenomenon" – stick in a link to water cooler#water cooler effect, otherwise many non-Americans simply won't understand what on Earth such a thing is.
  • "Postminimalism 101 or Absurdism 102" – link to postminimalism and absurdism

(Midnightblueowl (talk) 18:34, 29 April 2012 (UTC))[reply]

Regarding the references:

  • As can be seen from pages I've written (like Dreamtime (Duerr book)), I'm a bit of a stickler for a very neat and tidy footnote section. I think on the whole you've done a good job, although if I may, I'd like to suggest some minor alterations. You reference books in the following manner; "Riches (in Devlin and Biderman), p. 40", and I wonder if a different manner might be preferable. For instance, there is no mention of the year of publication ?
    • I tend only to list the year of publication in the short footnote if there's a need for disambiguation (The X-Files Mythology, Volume 2 – Black Oil has an example of this, several books by the same author). I had been toying with the idea of converting the manual short footnotes to use {{sfn}}, do you feel this would be a worthwhile improvement? GRAPPLE X 19:03, 29 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
      • I personally think that it would be an improvement, but that's more due to my personal opinion on aesthetics; I don't think that there's any Wikipedia policy stating that it is necessary, and I appreciate that it would mean another loads of work for you. (Midnightblueowl (talk) 21:46, 29 April 2012 (UTC))[reply]
        • Done; all the short citations now use either {{sfn}} or are manually coded to match it. I've left the long-form citations as they are; though I have seen other articles using all their citations as sfn refs; does the mix of types work alright or would this latter approach be better? The initial switchover was pretty painless but I'm thinking converting everything would be a pretty hefty task. GRAPPLE X 22:41, 29 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • In the list of cited texts, you state the publishing company but not the place of publication; including such information should not be too difficult and would add to the quality of the article.
    • I'll start working on this now. GRAPPLE X 19:03, 29 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
      • Added. I piped several American locations to only give cities and not states, in order to keep consistency with London and Manchester. GRAPPLE X 19:18, 29 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • This whole section is titled "Footnotes", with the life of books cited being subtitled "References". If I may, I'd like to suggest an alternative. Consider referring to the whole section as "References", within which can be included two sub-sections, entitled "Footnotes" and then "Bibliography"? This is what I did over at Dreamtime (Duerr book) and A Community of Witches and it seems to work there.
    • Did the latter suggestion, used a semi-colon to bold the titles without creating section headers; would level 3 headers look better or does this seem better? GRAPPLE X 19:03, 29 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
      • I personally would go for 3 headers; I just think that it looks bolder and better. (Midnightblueowl (talk) 21:46, 29 April 2012 (UTC))[reply]


Hopefully these may be of some benefit; overall it's a great article and I really enjoyed reading it. I really hope that this goes on to become a Featured Article (17:57, 29 April 2012 (UTC))

  • Thanks a bunch, I really appreciate the help you've given. Don't be afraid to call in a favour in the future if you have reviews needing done elsewhere. GRAPPLE X 19:03, 29 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    • If I do any work on articles regarding the world of David Lynch I'll certainly give you a buzz if you're interested! Oh, and if you have any articles related to The X-Files, Millennium or Twin Peaks (I adore all three, the latter two particularly), gimme a shout, as apart from when I'm away on work I can make time to lend a hand (Midnightblueowl (talk) 21:18, 29 April 2012 (UTC))[reply]
      • I do have a Millennium-related FLC underway but it's got a snowball's chance of promotion due to its small size. I will be working on both Millennium and Twin Peaks first seasons for GA within the coming weeks though. I'll have a look at the book you've mentioned and see if I can glean anything useful from it. Thanks again for your comments. GRAPPLE X 21:52, 29 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Is there anything in Michelle Le Blanc and Colin Odell's book David Lynch (2000) that would be of benefit here ? (Midnightblueowl (talk) 21:42, 29 April 2012 (UTC))[reply]

Crisco 1492 comments
  • "It has since been influential for, and parodied by, several subsequent television series." - Perhaps "It has influenced, and been parodied by, several subsequent television series." To me, "influential for" sounds awkward.
  • brie - Wikilink perhaps?
  • "with Ben winning" - Perhaps a different phrasing? To get rid of the ing
  • "Lawrence Jacoby" - What does he do? (Work related, I mean)
  • Note that in American English whilst should generally be "while"
  • "has always identified himself as an artist first, a man fascinted by spiritual realms who's committed to expressing his inner life" - Word misspelled in the original?
  • Palmer's dance while holding his daughter's picture is "a time-honored metaphor for marriage", an "incestuous roundelay" which hints towards his abusive past. - It is or has been seen as?
  • "Gender, power, and culture in the televisiual world of Twin Peaks: A feminist critique " - Misspelling in the original?
  • "a weirdly All-American supernatural system" - Sic?
  • What makes "Den of Geek" a high quality, reliable source?
  • Strikes me that the second paragraph in reception is a little long. Trim it or split it, perhaps?  — Crisco 1492 (talk) 06:14, 14 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Who plays Ronette Pulaski?
  • The events section seems to lack cause and effect/flow.
  • while working on another film project that was also never made - does it have a title?
  • Other than that, looks okay. Make sure to double check your American English.  — Crisco 1492 (talk) 06:23, 14 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Thanks for having a look at this. I've addressed the prose concerns you've mentioned except for the lack of flow in the "Events" section; I've asked for a copy-edit of the article by the GOCE which will hopefully address this much better than I could manage. As for title of the unfinished film project, it's not given in the source. I would assume it's the same as Ronnie Rocket but I don't want to make that assumption without something to back it up. Den of Geek operates with a dedicated editorial staff, and is owned and operated by Dennis Publishing, a publishing company which operates a number of other reliable outlets. Thanks again for the help. GRAPPLE X 18:11, 14 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    You're welcome and good luck. I think for Den of Geek we could perhaps show it being quoted in mainstream sources; that would go a good way to showing reliability.  — Crisco 1492 (talk) 23:21, 14 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    To be honest, the only instance of that I could find with a Google search was the Forbidden Planet website using a few interviews from the site. The source isn't crucial though, so if an FAC review deems it to be unreliable it wouldn't be hard to lose it. GRAPPLE X 23:53, 14 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    Alrighty. — Crisco 1492 (talk) 01:50, 15 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
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