I’ve been thinking about this a lot since I saw the thread posted. My initial gut reaction was: nothing! I wouldn’t change a thing.
But the more people talked the more I thought about it. My list of things that I would change are less narrative based (I guess) and more dealing with the aftermath certain episodes/moments have caused the fandom. I like peace and getting along more than fighting, lol.
1) Tallahassee. Don’t get me wrong. It’s a great episode. But I consider it to be a watershed moment in the history of the show and its internet fandom. I wish I could go back, sit down with Jane and Christine, and explain to them what this will do to the fans and how in turn the fans fed back into the writing process. I think they needed to extend the scenes between August and Neal because right now everyone has their own interpretation/headcanon of what happens after Neal hears August out. We haven’t seen it and while Adam says we will or has denied on Twitter what some think happens next, we really need to see it, if only to move on with that topic. One of my biggest fears is that they will leave it behind, never return to it, and people will fight over it forever.
2) The Neverland Arc. Again, don’t get me wrong. I thought the first 11 episodes of S3 were quite good, better than the back half of S2 to be sure. But when I really sit and compare S3A to its literary origin, man are there things that are screwy! And yes, that’s the point of ONCE–a reinterpretation of the classics but they are supposed to still be based on those classics. Take Snow and the Evil Queen. They started with Snow White’s story and changed it to fit their agenda (The Evil Queen has a backstory!) BUT they stayed within the perceived tradition of Snow White (the actual Snow White story from the Brothers Grimm is…strange, but A and E used the Disney story as a template): there was an apple and a charming prince and a huntsman and dwarves. It still felt like the Snow White story. The NL/PP story resembled Barrie’s tradition in name only. NO PP and Tink interaction (I will never get over this point); A Captain Hook who isn’t Captain Hook but instead a romantic Hollywood version based on popular depictions of pirates like Captain Jack Sparrow and more to the point a totally watered down version of the Hook/PP history. Making PP Rumple’s father only worked, for me, because of Robbie and Bobby–brothers at least as roots in the Barrie story. I wish A and E would have incorporated more of actual story into their own so it didn’t feel totally alien.
3) Less action, more talk. I’ve said this many times now but A and E think that the way to create watchable TV is through action and violence and big bads. But when you look at their most successful season, it was all internal human drama as opposed to external mythical drama. I love other worlds and seeing villains and heroes from my childhood, but I’m also really tired of the rug sweeping that is happening between our main cast of characters. Snow/Regina/Charming still have so many issues to work out; Hook/Nealfire/Rumple really need to sit down over a cup of tea; Emma/Neal; Emma/Charming/Snow; Rumple and EVERYONE; Regina and EVERYONE. There is so much left unsaid or undone because the writers focus on “the next big thing” that the quieter human moments only happen in between Action A and Action B. And quieter human moments also give us insight into the inner workings of those characters so that we aren’t trying to guess at how they feel or respond and we could come to a consensus about a few issues.