Uncyclopedia:Pee Review/Why?:You Should Never Mess with the Space Time Continuum

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Why?:You Should Never Mess with the Space Time Continuum

This was on VFH and had many for votes but didn't made the cut. So I would like to see if there's anything I should imporve on. Heres the review Chief did before it was completed. Indepth please! Thanks!--If you're 555 then I'm Talk What's it like to be a heretic? 01:15, December 19, 2010 (UTC) If you're 555 then I'm Talk What's it like to be a heretic? 01:15, December 19, 2010 (UTC)

As promised, I've begun on this. You'd think I'd have better things to do on Christmas Day. --Black Flamingo 14:35, December 25, 2010 (UTC)

Humour:	6	Ok, so overall this is a decent piece, however there are a few things holding it back that I’ll just talk you through now. Let’s start with the intro. There are two jokes here that I think you could pull of a little better. First off, there’s the “first degree in... science” one. I see what you're trying to do here, you're having the narrator hesitate to imply that he is lying. However, I think you're making it a little too obvious. A subtler approach would be funnier in my opinion, perhaps if you just got rid of the ellipsis (...), and had him talking in plainer language. The ellipsis would probably work if you had the narrator answering a question as to what his degree is. But to have him just announce it doesn't make a whole lot of sense, and doesn't flow well. So it's up to you what you do here, but there are two options for you to consider. The second joke in here that is also a little clumsy is the “capital of South Africa” joke. The way you tell jokes can be very important. Conceptually, it's a good joke, but again a little reworking could help. The bit where the student butts in with a random question sort of comes out of nowhere, and it's a very unsubtle excuse for the South Africa joke. Try introducing this joke better, give it more of a reason to exist. Perhaps have the Professor boast that he can answer "almost" any question the students can put to him, then continue with what you already do. That would dispel any worries as to why the hell any student would ask this question. Apart from that I quite like the intro, and the end is pretty good too. The problem seems to lie in the middle of the article; the main body of the text, which I’ll get to now. The ‘’’Welcome to the Alternate Universe’’’ section is good - the randomness actually kind of works, and sets the scene of the alternate world well. By the time you get to the ‘’’Earth’’’ section, however, it has gone from being excellent to just being ok. In terms of humour, I don't think it's as effective as the previous one. The problem is that most of the jokes are of a similar nature; it's little more than a long list of the absurd things going on in the Universe. By this point however, it feels repetitive, and I'm pretty sure the jokes themselves are a tad lamer (I mean, the bass guitar/bass fish gag is overdone, and the bit about the degradation of language doesn't really work - where are these words the Professor points to actually written?). The article suffers from the same problems much of the way through, actually. The issue is that once you get over the humour from the random stuff that happens in the alternate universe, there's little else to enjoy until the end. The randomness works well in the sense that it sets the scene for this strange new world, but I think you need to go a little further conceptually. In my view, there are a couple of things you could do in regards to this. First of all, I think you need to answer the question you ask in your title; Why you should never mess with the space-time continuum. Now, I realise that the answer is kind of obvious and is explored in your article, but at no point do you actually say "well there you go, that's why you shouldn't do it", with, perhaps, a brief summary of what it actually does. Another good idea would be to go into a bit more depth in terms of the history of the universe. The problem I found was that I had quite high expectations for it, but then when you took me there it was just paragraphs and paragraphs of "differences between our universe and there's", which I eventually tired of. So see what else you can get in here; try to answer some basic questions on it and clear up what's actually going on in there. For instance, was the universe initially like our own? How did it get this way? Who "messed" with the continuum and what was their fate? What is the process for messing with the continuum? Is there any way to put it back? Would our world follow the same pattern if someone were to mess with our continuum? I’m sure you can find some humour in those ideas and hopefully just give the jokes a bit of variation - this is the key here. The final tip I have in terms of this would be to delete little bits here and there - just whatever you're not too confident of. I'm not saying purge large portions or anything, but I think you'd be surprised how much better an article can be if you use a bit more brevity.
Concept:	7	Like I say above, I think the main issue here is just that the middle of the article gets a bit samey, but I already talk about that above. The only other thing that worries me is the sharp turn in your style of humour once they get to the alternate universe. The humour at the beginning and end is largely at the expense of the professor and how unprofessional he is, and then for some reason the middle exclusively focuses on the weirdness of this daft place he takes his students to. What I'm saying here is that would it be nice to see some more jokes about how rubbish a teacher he is in the middle of the article. For example, why the hell would he take a bunch of kids to such a dangerous place? Maybe one of the kids could ask that. Just have a think about other ways you could imply his ineptness.
Prose and formatting:	6	Your prose isn't bad but at times I do feel it's a little clumsy. For instance, take a look at this line: "Well, at least this is healthy, yet just plain stupid." Can you see how that doesn't flow too well? I think the problem is just with the choice of words; instead of "yet" you should probably just be saying "but it is", or something to that effect. There are several occasions throughout the article where I think you just have to choose your words more carefully. I would recommend you read it through a few times and make sure you're wording everything the way you want to. Perhaps even try reading it out loud if you can, as I always find this helps me sort out the flow. The best advice when it comes to writing humour is to make the language as simple as possible (unless the humour lies in the complexity of the language, which isn't the case here) simply because you want to make your jokes as clear and as precise as possible so your reader understands them, and hopefully gets carried along with them in a laughing fit. For the most part your spelling and grammar are absolutely fine, so well done there. There are, however, one or two typos that I noticed, so you should probably also give it another proofread or two once you're finished editing. Two that I noticed are: Welcome "It looks like he's eating comment" - do you mean "a comet?" Earth "people tend use one letter to saw a word" - I think I know what you mean, but you should probably take another look at that.
Images:	5	Your first few images are pretty good and do a nice job of setting the scene. Some of the later ones are a bit weaker in my view however, such as the kitten one. Also, the banana man thing seems a little overused, but that might just be me. So if you can think of better alternatives to these, it might help. The images sort of suffer from the same problem as the jokes in that they all get a tad samey. Try to include something not-related to the randomness of the universe, like maybe a picture of the professor or his students, or even the machine, this "Betty". Obviously try to stay somewhat related to the subject matter, but a little variation would be nice to see. I notice you don't have an opening image, instead just using the Why? template. I would advise against this, and suggest you find a nice big image that establishes your article to go here, and then move the template a bit further down to wherever you have room. Try not to prioritise this over the image (I know a lot of other articles do it, but I just think it's a spoiled opportunity. Your opening image is important to the first impressions and overall feel of the article).
Miscellaneous:	6	My overall gut feeling.
Final Score:	30	Ok, so not a bad article really, but it does just need a bit of a fix up before you try VFH or anything like that again. Ultimately, the key issue here is that a lot of the middle section drags out the randomness joke a little too much, making it feel a bit redundant. So trim it down, add develop your characters or do any of the other things I suggest above, and you should have it in much better shape in no time. If there's anything I've said here that you want me to explain better, or if you want my opinion on anything I might have missed, please let me know and I'll try to help. I hope the review is ok.
Reviewer:	--Black Flamingo 13:32, December 26, 2010 (UTC)