One of the best parts of OUAT is that none of their characters are completely good and completely evil. Hook’s decision to turn the page and start acting like a better person can seem quick, but if you really think about it, they showed he had misgivings from the very beginning (ex: Cora wiping out an entire settlement in the EF so she can start executing her plans). Yes, he snaps back and forth in S2, but I think the reasons for this include 1) S2 was all over the place with every character & 2) someone had to go and break his stinkin’ leg 🙂 so I think they had to do a lot of backtracking and reworking the already messy storyline. I know, people are going to argue some of his actions (Belle) but again, #1 & #2. I do believe, when you stop concentrating on the timeline and focus more on the story and characters themselves, the writing does appear tighter. (If you try to follow the story and figure out the timeline, you’re just going to give yourself a massive headache because it’s impossible to follow. )
I think A&E always had some plan for CS to take shape; whether it be, or will be, romantic or platonic is unknown at this point. But sometimes storylines and relationships can change, especially when it turns out certain characters/actors have unexpected chemistry. Jen and Colin are two actors that generally have great chemistry with most of the other characters they interact with, so it’s not surprising they’re going to naturally develop some kind of chemistry with each other. So, no I do not think CS is ‘fan pandering’ any more than OQ, SQ, SF and so on is.
I don’t believe A&E take too much of the ‘feedback,’ for lack of a better word, from any ‘ship, group, person, etc, when writing the story. I mean, when you think about it, imagine what Adam sees when he goes onto something like Twitter – it’s a loud, noisy mess. *Insert Charlie Brown adults-talking here.* How can you possibly weed through the commotion to even figure out who wants what and how can we write to make the fans happy because Suzy Q is going to stop watching if we do this, but Jim Bob is going to stop watching if we do that? It’s ridiculousness to think anyone has control of the story other than the storytellers themselves.
I follow Matt’s article, and I generally respect his opinions on shows he follows – he’s one of the more eloquent tv critics out there. However, he does tend to provide opinion on shows he fully admits he doesn’t even follow, which doesn’t really make sense. So when he says in his response that he doesn’t really follow the show, I pretty much tune out. Unless RG posts here. 😉