Talk:List of Pan Am episodes

Iconic - De we need it at all

According to WP:LEDE, the lead "serves as an introduction to the article and a summary of its most important aspects." It further states, "significant information should not appear in the lead if it is not covered in the remainder of the article." This is the list of episodes, not the main article on the series, and so it should concentrate on the episodes, not on whether or not the airline is "iconic" or "once-iconic", something that is not covered in the remainder of the article. It should summarise what follows in the article. The discussion over whether to use "iconic" or "once-iconic" is in danger of becoming as lengthy and silly as "Nancy Hult Ganis as A developer or THE developer" and it doesn't need to be. We had a fairly straight forward introduction that used objective wording, without resorting to peacock terms, and that's all we really needed, right before a currently non-existent section that should talk about this article, but it now has a lot of unnecessary references used to justify non-use of "once". The references don't actually do that though. All justify use of "iconic", while one of them uses "once iconic". None of them directly support, as is required by policy, not using "once". That they omit "once" is not directly supporting its non-use. The simple fact is though, use of "iconic" is not necessary at all, and really should be avoided. Even "world-famous" is unnecessary, since that's not addressed in the rest of the article either. The lede needs to be a lede fit for an episode article. --AussieLegend (talk) 07:22, 17 November 2011 (UTC)

I like AussieLegend's rewrite of the introduction and agree with his or her comments about being an introductory statement. There at least two links in the introduction on which the reader may click to find out more information about the series and an airline that was the dominant world airline decades ago. I have no strong opinion as to whether the adjective "iconic" is used or not used to describe Pan Am. My point has been that, if it is used, then the editor using the term needs to understand that the adjective adds a bias unless its use is supported by an reference/source. Lhb1239 cited a reference which described Pan Am as "once iconic" and not merely "iconic." Lhb1239's use of "iconic" and not "once iconic" reads away from the contents of the reference, and reading away from a reference causes confusion for the reader. AussieLegend, nice job.Television fan (talk) 11:42, 17 November 2011 (UTC)

18–49 rating

Is there an explanation anywhere as to what these numbers man, and how they are derived? Perhaps there should be a link? Regards, Lynbarn (talk) 15:02, 18 November 2011 (UTC)

If there is no explanation for these figures, perhaps they should be removed from the article. Shall I be bold? Regards, Lynbarn (talk) 22:08, 4 December 2011 (UTC)

I don't see why not. Lhb1239 (talk) 03:21, 5 December 2011 (UTC)

I say get rid of the entire ratings section. The viewers in millions section of the episode table is there and properly sourced. The ratings share is a pretty obscure piece of information that most people don't understand or necessarily care about. On top of all that the rank per week section, unlike its counter-part on Once Upon a Time for instance, is completely blank because the ratings are so low that it doesn't appear in the top 25, or even in the top 50 as I understand it. The section is redundant. Without the 18-49 rating and the weekly rank, the section is only repeating information covered by the episode table. SchrutedIt08 (talk) 08:25, 5 December 2011 (UTC)

While most people may not understand it or its importance, both are common measurements. See Neilson ratings. While I agree that it is redundant, it is not my belief that redundancy that is important. It is used as a "commonly cited" measurement. When people speak of television audiences, I hear both measurements mentioned all the time. Since Wikipedia might be referenced by some to research past audiences and "share" of the audience, I believe it should be maintained because the two are commonly used together.Television fan (talk) 14:06, 5 December 2011 (UTC)

SchrutedIt08 and Television fan both have very good points. Without the weekly rank column being used the ratings section only introduces one additional piece of information per episode, which doesn't justify an entire section. While it's not entirely understood (including by me), 18-49 share is a commonly used measurement so there's a case to keep it. Fortunately, it's entirely possible to merge the figures into the main episode table, which is done at other articles. I've been bold and done that,[1] but if it's the decision of this discussion to remove 18-49 share it's simply a matter of undoing that edit. --AussieLegend (talk) 15:17, 5 December 2011 (UTC)

Okay, a found a distinction between the two. I've think we've assumed that the two are correlated -- but they are not. The 18-49 age range is the most important monetarily speaking. The higher the share in the 18-49 range, the greater the network can charge to air commericials. See Neilson ratings#Demographics. As stated, Grey's Anatomy had a higher share in the coveted age range, but CSI had a higher total number of viewers for the same time period.Television fan (talk) 15:39, 5 December 2011 (UTC)

I no longer believe there is a redundancy between the two measures; both provide different, non-correlated measurements important to the television industry.Television fan (talk) 15:45, 5 December 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for the explanations and updates - that makes it, I think, much clearer. No need for me to be bold now! :) Regards, Lynbarn (talk) 16:11, 5 December 2011 (UTC)

Too-long summaries

Has anyone else noticed that the episode summaries are becoming longer with each episode and have started to resemble episode "novelettes" rather than summaries? It's my personal opinion that the other, shorter summaries need to be either expanded or the longer ones need to be pared down (I'm more in favor of them being shorter). Comments? Lhb1239 (talk) 22:46, 18 November 2011 (UTC)

According to to the instructions for {{Episode list}}, episode summaries should be 100-300 words. To date, only the summary for "Unscheduled Departure" exceeds this, at 420 words, after having been whittled down from 429 words by this edit. The next longest, "Truth or Dare" is about 245 words. --AussieLegend (talk) 22:59, 18 November 2011 (UTC)

Nice job, AussieLegend.Television fan (talk) 23:56, 18 November 2011 (UTC)

"Nice job" at what? He didn't do anything (yet). If he had reduced the allowable number of words, that would have been doing something productive. Lhb1239 (talk) 00:37, 19 November 2011 (UTC)

Lhb1239: AussieLegend's 23:50 edit brought it to 299 words. His or her rethinking was a "nice job."Television fan (talk) 00:41, 19 November 2011 (UTC)

14 Episodes?

For a brief period yesterday, number of episodes was changed to 14 before it was changed back to 13. Any objective reference to indicate a fourteenth episode?Television fan (talk) 13:25, 19 November 2011 (UTC)

According to the Futon Critic, there are only 13 episodes.[2] --AussieLegend (talk) 13:46, 19 November 2011 (UTC)

ABC ordered an extra episode bringing the total to 14 episodes. Liam74656 (talk) 16:14, 20 December 2011 (UTC)

Romance Languages

The article ought to say something about the episode "Romance Languages" which was announced by ABC on October 17, 2011 [3] to air on November 6, 2011 but then was pulled. As late as October 26 an ABC press release confirmed the episode would air on November 6 [4]. (Those links are operative as of today but may go dead soon.) I couldn't find much online about the pulling of the episode, just this entry from Clique Clack. Presumably the episode would have been fully shot and in postproduction when the decision was made, which is quite unusual. Mathew5000 (talk) 10:46, 6 January 2012 (UTC)

"Presumably" is the word that causes me to recall WP:CRYSTAL. If the episode airs it would be listed here (of course). At this point, it seems that until there's evidence the episode shooting was even completed, what would there be of interest to say about it? Of course, it all depends on what can be found - if you want to do some digging, maybe form a draft and bring it here to get more opinions? (talk→ LesHB ←track) 16:29, 6 January 2012 (UTC)

Hmmm? WP:CRYSTAL refers to anticipated events; the withdrawal of an announced episode is something that happened in the past. Mathew5000 (talk) 22:32, 6 January 2012 (UTC)

Indeed it does. The promo at the end of "Romance Languages", which is available on YouTube, was not for "Truth or Dare", the episode that aired on November 6 in place of "Romance Languages". Romance Languages was in the episode list until it was removed in this edit. --AussieLegend (talk) 22:42, 6 January 2012 (UTC)

Anticipated future events is exactly what I was referring to when mentioning WP:CRYSTAL. You stated "presumably" in reference to where they were in production with the episode. Unless you no longer have to presume anything, you know via a reliable source that the episode was completed and ready to go, and you also have a air date from a reliable source, then it could be added again to the episode list. At this point, without a reliable source to back up where it was in production and it's going to be aired, I don't see how you could say anything about it other than what Aussie stated above: it was scheduled to air and then was replaced with another episode. WP:CRYSTAL applies because we can't assume it was completed and that it's still going to be aired. For all we know, it's never going to be aired. (talk→ LesHB ←track) 00:53, 7 January 2012 (UTC)