Wikipedia:Peer review/Homicide: Life on the Street (season 1)/archive1

Homicide: Life on the Street (season 1)

This peer review discussion has been closed.
This article has already passed GA, and is the anchor article for an ongoing GT nomination. I believe it is comprehensive and well sourced, and I'd like to bring it to FA. I was hoping the peer reviewer could not only give it a thorough copy edit, but also give me any thoughts on any areas that may still need work or refining before I bring it to WP:FAC. — Hunter Kahn 14:59, 18 March 2011 (UTC)

Ruhrfisch comments: This looks really good to me - thanks for your work on it. Here are some nitpicky suggestions for improvement.

• In the Lead, should it say Levinson also directed some episodes? This would make more sense when the fourth pararagraph of the lead says he won a DGA award for directing.
• Episode 3 semmary has some typos A man (Larry E. Hull) who claims to have witnesses the shooting and claims he will testify. sounds like it should be something like A man (Larry E. Hull) who claims to have witnessed the shooting says he will testify. and the last sentence makes no sense: Meanwhile, Howard, Felton and Lewis uncover information that about several several outstanding cases...
• Episode 4 first sentence - add "Officer" for clarity? remove last phrase to tighten? [Officer] Thormann has a miraculous recovery and will live, but doctors say he will be blind all his life.
• Watch tense consistency - example from Episode 9 summary Meanwhile, Howard learns her sister's husband has been cheating on her, and Felton surprised Howard by offering her genuine words of comfort. (learns - present tense, surprised - past tense)
• WP:MOSIMAGE says to have images direct the reader's eyes into the page. The image of David Simon looks off the page and should be left justified. The Belzer image should be right justified for the same reason.
• In Conception, it might be help to give the name of the actor portraying the character. So Frank Pembleton (played by Andre Braugher) was based on Detective Harry Edgerton.. I did not watch the show, but I know who most of the actors are, so identifying the characters with the actors who portrayed them would help (especially since they are not identified thus in the lead). This goes for all the major characters in Conception.
• tweak Tim Bayliss was based on the real-life Baltimore detective Tom Pellegrini, who was the primary detective in[vestigating] the 1988 Baltimore slaying of 11-year-old Latonya Kim Wallace.
• Wouldn't he have advised Secor (Bayliss is a fictional character)? Pellegrini provided advice to Bayliss about how to play the role.[26][27]
• In Crew, shouldn't the caption read "executive producer" Film director Barry Levinson was executive director of Homicide: Life on the Street.
• Problem sentence The costumes for that episode were designed by Van Smith designed the costumes for "Gone for Goode", but he also did not return to work on subsequent episodes, where the costumes were handled by Rolande Berman.[35]
• In Cast, should "not" be added here? Barry Levinson and Tom Fontana took the unusual step of [not?] choosing the ethnicity and gender of the characters on the actors they cast, even though the roles were based on real-life detectives.[50]
• I think I would recast this sentence to focus on the race-neutral nature of the role: Thus, Andre Braugher auditioned and was accepted for the role of Frank Pembleton, which, although based on the African-American Detective Harry Edgerton, was not race-specific until Braugher was cast. could instead be something like The role of Frank Pembleton, although based on the African-American Detective Harry Edgerton, was not race-specific until Andre Braugher auditioned and was cast.
• I think Brauer is meant here (not Pembleton, his character) This belief developed in part from Pembleton's poor experience playing Detective Winston Blake on the television series Kojak, ...
• Parallel construction and clarity - would it be better to have this as character and not part? In casting Al "Gee" Giardello, Levinson decided not to make the character Italian-American like the real-life counterpart Gary D'Addario, but rather cast Yaphet Kotto and made the part [character?] a Sicilian-African American.
• Missing word? The first season also introduced several minor characters that would make recurring [appearances?] throughout much of the rest of the series.
• Is the antecedent of who clear in Lee Tergesen played Officer Chris Thormann, a patrolman and close friend to Crosetti who is shot in the head and blinded.
• Reacst Film and theater actor Moses Gunn gave the final performance before his death as Risley Tucker, a murder suspect questioned for 12 hours by Pembleton and Bayliss in "Three Men and Adena".[5] as something like Film and theater actor Moses Gunn's final performance before his death was as Risley Tucker, a murder suspect questioned for 12 hours by Pembleton and Bayliss in "Three Men and Adena".[5]
• Could it just be "leaves trhe officer blind" in Another multi-episode arc involved the near-fatal shooting of Patrolman Chris Thormann, which leaves the officer blinded.?
• FIlming - missing word?? The Recreation Pier Building, a Fells Point [?] built in 1914 which once housed Baltimore's marine police, was used as the set of the police department station, which was the principal set for the show.
• Missing d? The Washington Post television critic Tom Shales called Homicide "the least compromise[d] and the most intense" drama show on television...
• If the word "and" has been inserted here, it needs square brackets [and], not parentheses (and) Eric Kohanik of The Hamilton Spectator called it "the best new series of the midseason", and praised it for not resorting to "silly car chases (and) blazing guns".[80]
• Awkward - strong twice in one sentence 'Many commentators were especially impressed with the strong amount of strong, complex, well-developed and non-stereotypical African American characters like Pembleton, Lewis and Giardello.[75]
• In Ratings should it be made clearer that is was at 9 PM Eastern time (8 PM Central)?
• I made a few copyedits and caught some other typos / problems, but I would get a copyedit before this goes to FAC to make sure all the rough spots have been polished.
• Please make sure that the existing text includes no copyright violations, plagiarism, or close paraphrasing. For more information on this please see Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2009-04-13/Dispatches. (This is a general warning given in all peer reviews, in view of previous problems that have risen over copyvios.)

Hope this helps. If my comments are useful, please consider peer reviewing an article, especially one at Wikipedia:Peer review/backlog (which is how I found this article). I do not watch peer reviews, so if you have questions or comments, please contact me on my talk page. Yours, Ruhrfisch _><>°^° 18:48, 2 April 2011 (UTC)