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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 not promoted by SandyGeorgia 17:05, 27 February 2010 [1].

The Chinese Restaurant

[edit]
Nominator(s): --Music26/11 16:39, 3 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
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I am nominating this for featured article because I believe it is now ready for FAC. The biggest concern of the previous FAC was the lack of a "Themes" section wich is now in the article (thanks to Awadewit). All previous concerns are fixed.--Music26/11 16:39, 3 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Comment I would like to point out that I recommended to Music2611 that the "Themes" section be copyedited before this article was nominated (see Talk:The Chinese Restaurant#Themes section. It still needs some work. Awadewit (talk) 16:47, 3 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Media review: One image. Alt text good.

  • License: CC 2.0. Verified.
  • Quality: Acceptable.
  • Usage: Inappropriate. Usage is usually not a concern with free media, but it is not appropriate for an encyclopedia article on a television episode to be illustrated with an image of an actor who does not appear in the episode (it's a quirky idea worthy of Seinfeld, but not Wikipedia, I'm afraid). Apparently the entire episode, or virtually all of it, takes place at a Chinese restaurant—not one of the show's standard sets. It would aid the reader's understanding of the episode substantially if the article included a screenshot illustrating that set and—to the degree possible—the lead characters' primary relation to it.—DCGeist (talk) 22:54, 4 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    • I'd like to second DCGeist's comment about that image. The article needs images, but this one isn't appropriate. Eubulides (talk) 23:22, 6 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
      • I've removed the image for now, but I'm not sure if an image of the set would fit within Wikipedia's non-free image criteria, as there is barely any info regarding the set in relation to the characters or any information on the set for that matter.--Music26/11 15:35, 10 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Comment - Hi, great article, made me wanna re-watch the episode. I noticed that the plot sections says that Elaine approaches "an elderly couple". But there were three couples at the table (totally six persons). P. S. Burton (talk) 17:24, 5 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Comments:

  • Due to "The Chinese Restaurant"'s lack of storyline — is that "' correct? I remember reading somewhere that one should never turn a quoted phrase or title into a possessive.
  • Is it really necessary to specify that the characters are using US dollars? I think anyone who's interested in the article would already know that Seinfeld is an American show. (And if they don't, they can click on the link to the series article.)
  • George is nervous about his girlfriend Tatiana, whom he left during sexual intercourse as he felt he was "not getting enough space". — I thought he left because he had to go to the bathroom, or something like that. Is "not getting enough space" a quote from the episode?
  • Well, I've looked at a few Seinfeld scripts on the internet, and couldn't see that exact phrase. This is what he tells Jerry: "So, we start to fool around, and it's the first time, and it's early in the going. And I begin to perceive this impending... intestinal requirement, whose needs are going to surpass by great lengths anything in the sexual realm. So I know I'm gonna have to stop. And as this is happening I'm thinking, even if I can somehow manage to momentarily... extricate myself from the proceedings and relieve this unstoppable force, I know that that bathroom is not gonna provide me with the privacy that I know I'm going to need... So I finally stop and say, 'Tatiana, I hope you don't take this the wrong way, but I think it would be best if I left.'"
  • Sorry, I was sure it was a quote from the ep. Anyways, I think I misunderstood the dialogue now I read what you've posted. Do you have any suggestion as to how we could re-word it?--Music26/11 16:56, 11 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Maybe... "George is nervous about his girlfriend Tatiana. He left her during sexual intercourse because he needed to use a bathroom and thought hers was too close to her bedroom to provide enough privacy." Zagalejo^^^ 00:42, 12 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Seinfeld also used the replacement discussion the following year when he guest-hosted an episode of NBC's Saturday Night Live. — Do you mean that he used the joke about policemen/garbage? (If so, I would assume he used a modified version of the dialogue, unless he had the entire Seinfeld cast with him on SNL.)
  • I don't really understand your answer... but the source only states that Seinfeld used the monologue when he guest-hosted SNL. It can be removed if it causes too much confusion, as it is a bit trivial.--Music26/11 17:01, 11 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • The relationship between the characters and food is another recurring theme of the series. In Seinfeld, specific food items are associated with individual characters and food itself is a "signifier of social contracts". — This needs some elaboration. How does food serve a as "signifier of social contracts"? Only a couple of specific food items are actually mentioned in the episode.
  • There are all sorts of implied social contracts in this episode - for example, the waiting list and the etiquette that goes along with that in a restaurant. Unfortunately, the source does not expand on these details - the reader has to do it herself. Yes, it is "English-major speak", but it is necessary to include these more sophisticated ideas in TV episode articles. As more scholarship becomes available, we will slowly be able to flesh out the article. Awadewit (talk) 16:36, 13 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Well, with all due respect, I think the last two sentences of the Themes section will just confuse most readers, rather than teach them anything new. The sentences will just come across as a bunch of buzzwords, and ultimately, I don't think this article should be featured with material like that. I understand that that's largely a result of the source, but if the source's argument is so lightly developed, then maybe that argument is not worth mentioning. Zagalejo^^^ 06:34, 14 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Leaving out material from published scholars but including material from newspapers is what gives FAs about TV episodes a bad name. For this article to meet the FA criteria regarding "high-quality" sources, it needs to include what is published by scholars. Furthermore, there is no jargon in those sentences. They simply have more sophisticated ideas than some of the other material in the article. One of the reasons this article failed last time was precisely because it was missing this sort of material. Awadewit (talk) 18:54, 14 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • A few things.
  • 1) Saying that food "signifies social contracts" without providing concrete examples is going to leave readers feeling empty. The fact that Music2611 had to wait for you to explain what the sentence means suggests that others will have difficulties with it.
  • 2) I can only read parts of the "Seinfood" essay on Google Books, but from what I can tell, "The Chinese Restaurant" is only mentioned in a list of episodes with food references in their titles. If that is all there is, then is that essay really worth citing here? The essay would be a good source for "The Couch" or "The Rye", because it does explain the significance of food in those episodes in some detail. But if it only mentions "The Chinese Restaurant" in a list, then we needn't consider it an essential source on that episode.
  • 3) I don't really think the scholars understand the episode any better than the newspaper writers. This isn't The Waste Land. Everyday people are already familiar with restaurant waiting lists. They inherently understand the social dynamics at work; they just may not use the same vocabulary as scholars to describe what is going on. Zagalejo^^^ 20:15, 14 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • I would say, however, to the above point (and wrt the scholarly works I listed below), that an encyclopedic treatment of the topic ought to inform readers that the episode has been the subject of scrutiny in the scholarly literature, regardless of whether we think their analysis surpasses or not that of your run of the mill TV critic. Eusebeus (talk) 20:51, 14 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Just wondering, have you read all of the sources you listed below? Do any of them actually provide an in-depth analysis of this episode—even a paragraph would do—or do they merely mention the episode in passing? Zagalejo^^^ 21:10, 14 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • I've read the sources in the article. They just mention the episode in passing, but this is usually how scholarship begins on a topic. First there is no mention in scholarship of the topic, then there are a few passing references, then essays, then books. As Wikipedia is an evolving encyclopedia, we will reflect those stages. Happily, it is not our job to judge the quality of the scholarship - simply to present it to readers. Awadewit (talk) 22:03, 14 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Vance Durgin of The Orange County Register praised how the show was able to "wrung" so much comedy "out of a simple premise". — The quoted text doesn't fit within the flow of the sentence: "wrung" is a past-tense verb.
  • One more thing I just noticed: David Lavery and Sara Lewis Dunne are presented as the authors of Seinfeld, Masters of Its Domain, but from what I can tell based on a Google Books preview, the book is a collection of essays from many authors. (Lavery and Dunne are the editors, not the only contributors.) Does someone have a copy of the book, so that we can correctly identify the authors of the cited material? Zagalejo^^^ 06:50, 14 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose (for now). First off, well done to the editors who have worked on this article. However, the article observes in the lede a larger significance for this episode, and cites a TV critic from the Sun Sentinel suggesting it expanded the lexical reach of US sitcoms. Well, that Sun Sentinel dog ain't gonna hunt, not with scholarly sources that cite this episode in particular in conjunction with that idea. Here are four:

  1. R Hurd, Taking Seinfeld Seriously: Modernism in Popular Culture. New Literary History, 2006
  2. D Lavery, SL Dunne, Seinfeld, master of its domain: revisiting television's greatest sitcom (2006)
  3. JE Rapf, Doing Nothing: Harry Langdon and the Performance of Absence, Film Quarterly, 2005.
  4. J Mittell Narrative complexity in contemporary American television, Velvet Light Trap, 2006.

There are probably others, but those were turned up in a quick search. My suggestion would be to beef up the significance of this specific show and drop (or aggressively summarise) some of the more trivial TV critic & production stuff and instead situate this within the larger framework suggested by the sources above (i.e. as an example of modernism, breaking boundaries, moving beyond plot etc...). What were the antecedents for a show about nothing? For an episode that had no narrative arc? etc etc... I'm happy to do a more general evaluation and c/e when this article has garnered more substance. As it stands now, this does not do full justice to its topic. Eusebeus (talk) 12:50, 7 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I think it would actually be hard to do what you are suggesting in relation to this episode specifically. I spent quite a bit of time looking through the sources to see if a "Themes" section could be created and most of the sources only mention the episode in passing. Lavery and Dunne is already used in the article, but what they say about this episode in particular is very limited. Awadewit (talk) 03:53, 9 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Support Per last time. Sourcing is fine. Prose is even tighter. Not much more that can be said really. RB88 (T) 12:26, 10 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose for now, as I'd like to see the issues resolved before promotion. Steve T • C Edited from "Comments, leaning weak support" 12:15, 23 February 2010 (UTC) After my first read-through, I was going to offer that weak support, but with some suggestions. However, a more in-depth look revealed too many niggles. Few, if any, would be deal-breakers alone, but taken together they're preventing my support right now. It's not far off, but needs a little more attention. Please feel free to disagree with any of these; I'm completely open to being told I'm wrong:[reply]

Lead
  • Some mild overlinking. An argument could be made for sitcom, maybe, though readers should be expected to know what a protagonist is. I understand the potential difference between the show runner and creator, and why you've linked it, but I think it's unimportant to make the distinction here. Similarly, ask a native English speaker what someone's being the head writer entails and they should be able to tell you. No need to link.
  • "The episode revolves around protagonist Jerry (Jerry Seinfeld) and his friends ... waiting for a table at a Chinese restaurant."—isn't "waiting" a gerund here? I know that will look fine to some, but reading it without the possessive on "friends" jars a lot with me (imagine if it said "The episode revolves around me waiting for"—you'd use "my" instead).
  • "Due to the episode's lack of storyline, NBC executives objected to its broadcast, thinking audiences would be uninterested."—as the statement comes before any mention of the show's "about nothing" concept, this might read oddly to some readers unfamiliar with the episode or the show. The episode clearly has a storyline, just not much of one. Then, the statement that NBC objected to the broadcast is slightly misleading. Judging by the article body, NBC initially objected while it was still at the script stage; the wording here makes it seem as if it had already been made. Taking both these issues, the sentence might be better rendered as, "NBC objected to the episode's production, believing its slender storyline would not interest viewers."
  • Is it standard practice in TV episode infoboxes for the episode no. parameter to give the season and the overall episode number? As it stands, going by the infobox alone gives the impression that this episode is the sixteenth of season two, not the eleventh.
Plot
  • Seinfeld and chums are all linked again here; is there any need for it so soon after the links in the lead? At most, perhaps render the opening sentence, sans links, as: "Jerry (Seinfeld), George (Alexander) and Elaine (Louis-Dreyfus) ..." Same goes for the second link to Plan 9.
Production
  • "In an interview for the Seinfeld first and second season DVD box set, [Richards] commented ..."—is there any need to say where Richards said it? We don’t usually have to, unless the information is contentious in some way. I understand you might want to indicate the comments came after the episode's production, but simply saying, "He later commented . .." would probably do it.
  • "David argued that each character had a storyline; Jerry's story was he recognized a woman but did not know from where, Elaine's story was that she was very hungry and George's story was that he was unable to use the phone."—very clumsily rendered, especially "was he recognized". That these are descriptions of the characters' storylines is implicit after the first mention, so it could read, "David argued that each character had a storyline: Jerry recognized a woman but did not know from where, Elaine was very hungry and George was unable to use the phone."
  • " ... Larry Charles suggested Jerry's storyline to be on his way to Plan 9 from Outer Space, and thus placing the episode in 'real time'"—again, that "Jerry's storyline to be on his way" is very jarring. And what does "placing the episode in 'real time'" mean here? That it provided some kind of mild narrative drive? Could be clearer.
  • "When the NBC executives still objected, David threatened to quit the show if the network would force any major changes upon the script."—clumsy. Try, "NBC executives still objected, but David threatened to quit the show if the network forced major changes to the script."
  • "The Chinese Restaurant" was first read by its cast on December 5, 1990."—if you mean "read through" say it; it has a specific meaning, and "first read by its cast" is non-idiomatic for that purpose. Readers could take it to mean (if they don't follow the link) that this was the first time the cast had even seen the script (which would be odd, as one of them co-wrote it).
  • " ... it took roughly half of the time it usually took for an episode to be filmed. Cast members have remarked that the filming was shorter than on any other episode."—I'm not sure the second setence is needed; it basically repeats what the first is saying.
  • "In the original draft, the three friends also discussed how to spend the long waiting period in the future, with George suggesting they bring a deck of cards and that Jerry bring a jigsaw puzzle with nothing but penguins."—"[comma] with [noun]-ing" reads clumsily, and "that Jerry bring a jigsaw puzzle with nothing but penguins" feels disconnected from the rest of the sentence. Does George suggest that Jerry bring the jigsaw? If so, it might read better as, "In the original draft, the three friends discuss how to spend the long waiting period in the future; George suggests they bring a deck of cards, and says Jerry could bring a jigsaw puzzle featuring penguins."
  • "The scene was later included on the Seinfeld seasons one and two DVD boxset"—ambiguous; does it mean that the episode was re-edited to include the scene, or (most likely, I admit) that the DVD included it independently, as an extra?
  • "receives a table without reservation"—implies something different to your intent, I think. Should be "a reservation" or similar, else it's acting as a qualification rather than something booked in advance.
  • "he is sitting by the door of the restaurant at when George, Jerry and Elaine enter"—stray "at".
Themes
  • "The episode is widely considered to encapsulate Seinfeld's "show about nothing" concept, with The Tampa Tribune critic Walt Belcher calling it ..."—again, it feels clumsy to me to use what Tony1 often refers to as "noun-ing", especially when it comes after the "[comma] with", an often ungainly connector. Try, "The episode is widely considered to encapsulate Seinfeld's "show about nothing" concept; The Tampa Tribune critic Walt Belcher called it ..."
Reception
  • "[the episode] expanded the lexicon of the '90s."—I don't know what this means. Well, I know what the words mean, but the quote is presented without context; there's nothing that tells us how the episode did so. Does the source expand on this at all?
  • " ... referring to it 'the very epitome of ...'"—referring to it as?
  • I wouldn't link to Academic grading in the United States; entertainment publications that use similar grading aren't basing it on any strict academic merits; they're doing so because of the familiarity of the concept to most of their readers. If you want to give it context, perhaps instead say they graded it A− on an A+ to F scale (or whatever it is that Entertainment Weekly uses).

And that's all the weather! This might be a long list, but as I say, none of these problems are major, and I'm sure they can be tackled (or successfully rebutted!) in short order. Otherwise, nice work. Steve T • C 11:56, 17 February 2010 (UTC) Edited 12:15, 23 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose: Can you start the plot section with a sentence that gives a brief overview about the premise of the show? As in, Seinfeld was a popular television situation comedy from 1991 to 1997 (I guessed at those dates) that was initially pitched as "a show about nothing", centering on four friends in New York City and their self-absorbed lives and dysfunctional relationships...or something to that effect.

  • Why did NBC object to the original script?
  • I don't understand this: Vincent Brook, as part of his analysis regarding the influence of Jewish culture on Seinfeld, has said that the episode also conveys the theme of entrapment and confinement in a small space, a recurring theme on the show What does this have to do with being Jewish? How do the writers connect Jewish culture with entrapment and confinement?
  • Watch repetition: Various critics and news sources have praised how the episode defines the show's "show about nothing" concept. This appeared in the preceding section.
  • broke new sitcom ground and expanded the lexicon of the '90s What does this mean? What words or phrases from this show entered our vocabulary?
  • Let me know if you have questions. --Moni3 (talk) 16:19, 19 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
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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