-
Search Results
-
In reply to: Once Upon a Quote
(In the Enchanted Forest, Rumpelstiltskin holds up a vial of the bottled ‘true love’.)
Rumpelstiltskin: Behold. The most powerful magic of all…
Prince Charming: True love.
Rumpelstiltskin: Ah! Careful. This is all I have left of it.
Prince Charming: What do you know of true love?
Rumpelstiltskin: Well, not so much as you, perhaps, but not so little as you might think.
Prince Charming: You? You loved someone?
Rumpelstiltskin: It was a brief flicker of light amidst an ocean of darkness.
Prince Charming: What happened?
Rumpelstiltskin: She died. That’s the thing about true love, dearie. It can slip through your fingers. It’s the most powerful magic in the world. The only magic powerful enough to break any curse. It must be protected at all costs.
Prince Charming: I don’t understand. What exactly is it you want me to do?
Rumpelstiltskin: I want you to help me protect it by putting it in a safe place for me. (Rumpelstiltskin produces an egg shaped container, which he puts the vial in.)
Prince Charming: And where is that?
Rumpelstiltskin: Inside the belly of a beast, of course. (Rumpelstiltskin shuts the egg container and tosses it to Prince Charming.)
Prince Charming: Why hide it?
Rumpelstiltskin: Let’s just say, I’m saving it for a rainy day.(Emma and Regina enter Mr. Gold’s Pawn Shop.)
Mr. Gold: Do my eyes deceive me, or is that the look of a believer?
Emma: We need your help.
Mr. Gold: Indeed, you do. It seems quite the tragic ailment has befallen our young friend. I told you, magic comes with a price.
Regina: Henry shouldn’t have to pay it.
Mr. Gold: No, you should, but alas, we are where we are.
Emma: Can you help us?
Mr. Gold: Of course. True love, Miss Swan… The only magic powerful enough to transcend realms and break any curse. Luckily for you, I happen to have bottled some.
Regina: You did?
Mr. Gold: Oh, yes. From strands of your parents’ hair, I made the most powerful potion in all the realm. So powerful, that when I created the dark curse, I placed a single drop on the parchment. Just a little safety valve.
Emma: That’s why I’m the savior. That’s why I can break the curse.
Mr. Gold: Now you’re getting it.
Emma: I don’t care about breaking the curse. All I care about is saving Henry.
Mr. Gold: Which is why it’s your lucky day. I didn’t use all the potion. I saved some… for a rainy day.
Emma: Well, it’s storming like a *****. Where is it?[adrotate group="5"]In reply to: Season Seven B: In Review
<em style=”box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, serif; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.75);”>5) If you could change anything about S7B what would it be?
Let us begin.
My very first change would be at the end of 6B –
no Lucy, no adult Henry. It would have ended with a portal opening in SB before a white rabbit hops through, followed by a mysterious cloaked figure.
Season 7A would not have Older Henry, Lucy, or this version of Cinderella. Their whole romance was boring and the actors had zero chemistry. Instead, Alice would come to Storybrook looking for a cure for her father’s poisoned heart. She would meet Henry and season 7A would have been about our Henry going to FTL to find his own adventure and help Alice cure her father. And although I HATE the whole time nonsense, I would have to find a way for Robin to age up, because I need Madarcher in my life and on my screen (perhaps Alice and Henry try messing with time to stop her father getting poisoned in the first place but instead end up in future Storybrook?)
Henry should have had adventures with these girls and the portal-opening rabbit, their back stories should have been slowly revealed, they should have revisited lots of different realms, and Nook should have been introduced, along the reveal of Gothel as the Big Bad/Alice’s mother. I would have kept Alice as the girl in the tower (I actually thought having a baby to break blood magic was a genius solution to Gothel’s problem! Albeit kinda evil…), along with the plot of Belle dying and Rumple trying to find a way back to her through means of the Guardian.
Gothel should have been the last surviving magical being from what is now the land without magic, after humans slaughtered all the magical creatures – her motive for wanting to end all human life in the LWOM and repopulate it with magical creatures from FTL. Season 7A should have ended with Alice saving her mother by showing her that she was not alone anymore, and that her people were not dead as long as they both were alive. Gothel should have been offered redemption after witnessing the genocide of her people, not condemnation. Season 7A’s finale scene should have been Henry waking up on the streets of Hyperion Heights as a homeless youth with one friend – local ‘crazy girl’ Tilly.
I would have had the cursed personas the same as far as Rumple, Nook, Zelena, and Regina are concerned. Their mission would be to break the curse Drizella put on them. I would like to explore a ‘what if Wish Rumple tried the curse again but with a different witch’ scenario. The key to breaking the curse lies with Alice, who can remember everything, as long as she’s off her pills. Henry breaks the curse by kissing his mother’s forehead and everyone goes back home, but Wish Rumple isn’t done yet.
I liked the idea Wish Rumple had to separate all the characters into different realms, and really liked the scene where Nook won’t let go of Alice even though it was killing him. I think Rumple should have had flashbacks to him letting go of Neil, and that this should be the reason Rumple gives his heart to a dying Nook, not the whole bad bromance thing. Rumple dies and gets reunited with Belle AND NEIL(!!), while Wish Rumple is stripped of his power and sent to another dimension after Alice – who was the Guardian all along – breaks his dagger.
The series should have ended with the whole cast in Storybrooke, with Henry telling a stunned Emma, Hook, Snow, and David all about his adventures before another portal opens up in Granny’s. Ending scene:
Henry: “That’s my cue. I’ll be back in time for Christmas. Wouldn’t want to miss her first, after all” looks down at baby Hope
everyone says goodbye to Henry as he walk through the portal where on the other side Alice, Robin, Nook, the rabbit, and perhaps a newly redeemed Drizella are waiting for him so they can start a new adventure
Emma too quiet for anyone to really hear: “Have fun kid”
portal closes behind Henry as he waves to his family in the cafe
It’s a good close, but also leaves the possibilities open for a spin-off.
"so there’s this new show….."
"there’s lesbians in it"In reply to: The Entire Series: In Review
1) What was your favorite all time episode of OUAT? (feel free to pick more than one if you really can’t decide between a few)
My top 5 episodes are ”Snow Drifts” (S3 Ep 21), ”There’s No Place Like Home” (S3 Ep 22), “Pilot” (S1 Episode 1), ”The Crocodile” (S2 Ep 4) and ”The Song in Your Heart (S6 Ep 20).
2) What was your least favorite all time episode of OUAT? (feel free to pick more than one if you really can’t decide between a few)
My least favourite 5 episodes are ‘”Hyperion Heights” (S7 Season 7 Ep 1), ”The Garden of Forking Path” (S7 Ep 3), ”Ruby Slippers” (S5 Ep 18), ”The Broken Kingdom (S5 Ep 4) and ”The Tower” (S3 Ep 14.
3) What was your favorite and least favorite season of OUAT?
My order of seasons overall:
<ol>
<li>S2</li>
<li>S3</li>
<li>S1</li>
<li>S4</li>
<li>S5</li>
<li>S6</li>
<li>S7</li>
</ol>
Season Two is my favourite season with the introduction of the charming but scoundrel Captain Hook, which brought much needed new life into the show. My least favourite would be the recently finished season 7 as it marked significant changes for the series, as majority of the main cast members would not be returning including; Snow, Charming, Emma Swan and Belle. This season was bit of a mess and without the original cast members and Storybrooke it just doesn’t work. The new characters were terrible and irritating including, Lucy, Jacinda, older Henry and Lady Tremaine. The original cast members of Rumple, Hook and Regina made it half watchable.4) Who was your favorite and least favorite MAJOR (meaning, regular cast member) character?
My favourite character overall would have to be Captain Hook/ Killian Jones in season 2 especially as he is old- fashioned, swashbuckling, sexy, handsome, flirtatious, and adventurous pirate. But in later seasons he became too much of Emma’s puppy dog and I would have liked to have seen more adventures with Hook and given him more storylines. My favourite lines of his includes: “A man unwilling to fight for what he wants, deserves what he gets.” Hook: Normally, I prefer to do other more enjoyable activities with a woman on her back. With my life on the line, you’ve left me no choice. A bit of advice? When I jab you with my sword, you’ll feel it”. Also cheeky funny lines such as, Emma: I don’t want or expect that. I know there’s a lot of history here and a lot of hate. Hook: Actually, I quite fancy you from time to time. When you’re not yelling at me. or Emma: Don’t think I’m taking my eyes off you for a second. Hook: I would despair if you did.
My least favourite would be Zelena or Regina, as both should have been killed off at the end but instead rewarded and in Regina case she became queen of the realms, I mean Regina killed countless villagers, Graham and her own dad Henry only because she wanted to get revenge on Snow White. But overall Zelena was worse and should have been killed off in season 3 and not brought back.
5) Who was your favorite and least favorite MINOR (meaning only made brief appearances, either a single episode or more but never a regular cast member)?
My favourite minor character would be Aurora played by Sarah Bolger, I thought they could have given her more of storyline and maybe in season 7. Also I thought Greg Germann was great as Hades and also Robbie Kay as Peter Pan was very good in that role.
My least favourite minor characters would be Maleficent, Lily, Merlin, and bad King Arthur not a good idea as all were pointless characters.6) What do you think OUAT’s biggest success story was? And what was their biggest mistake?
Once Upon a Time biggest success story would be no one at Abc would have thought it would have reached 155 episodes. With characters from classics like Peter Pan, Alice in Wonderland, Wizard of Oz, and Robin Hood to keep the the story going year after year and keep it fresh as possible is a big achievement.
The biggest failure was Season 7 with most of cast leaving was terrible outcome as for S7 the storyline was softly rebooted and led by an adult Henry Mills played by Andrew J. West. The seventh season begins with several years after the Final Battle, in which Henry leaves Storybrooke in search of his own story, only to find himself in New Fairy Tale Land. The new characters include: Lady Tremaine, Cinderella, Drizella and Gothel. Most of the brand-new characters are dreadful and timeline was confusing especially with Robin who was 23 and only a baby in season 6.
7) Would you recommend OUAT to someone?
Yes but I would say that 1-4 are the best seasons and timelines are a mess in season 7
8) What is the legacy of OUAT?
That the show is about hope in which you can escape your day to day life for over 42 minutes but with sometimes silly storylines, however also with some enjoyable storylines. Also before OUAT it is good for not so well known actors like Lana and Colin who were both excellent as the Evil Queen and Captain Hook and therefore who might do quite well post OUAT. Finally the great fan fiction and fan art are still a big part of the legacy still today.
9) Grade the entire series!
This is hard question so I would break it up and say S1-S3 – A but S4-S6 – B+ and Season 7 – C. The overall series grade I would give it a B+.
In reply to: The Entire Series: In Review
Ahhhhh….seven years…so much to choose from! LOL!
1) What was your favorite all time episode of OUAT? (feel free to pick more than one if you really can’t decide between a few)
Omg…this will probably the toughest, but if I can choose the top three….hmmm…..
- Stable Girl, Skin Deep, Sisters, & Is This Henry Mills….all four of those are tied for me, but at the same time…Stable Girl & Skin Deep will always hold a beautiful & tragic place in my heart because for me that’s technically where this whole tale started…from the Dark One and then to the Evil Queen.
2) What was your least favorite all time episode of OUAT? (feel free to pick more than one if you really can’t decide between a few)
This one’s easy because my least favorite episode hasn’t changed in the course of 7 years, lol!
- Selfless, Brave, & True….hands down, the boringest OUAT Episode to ever air! LOL!
3) What was your favorite and least favorite season of OUAT?
Favorite) Season 1: Anyone whose been here from October of 2011 up until now will tell you that Season 1 is hands down the greatest OUAT Season….EVER!!! No ship wars, no plot holes, no terrible timeline, no lame excuses….just pure original entertainment! Season 1 is and always will be the best season for me!
Least Favorite) Season 4: Omg….this is hardddd….but ummm…if overall half I would say Season 5A…but if I just had to pick a season, it would have to be Season 4! Ingrid & Cruella were the best parts about Season 4…that’s it….everything else was just meh.
4) Who was your favorite and least favorite MAJOR (meaning, regular cast member) character?<u></u>
Favorite Major) Regina Mills, the Evil Queen has been my favorite since October 2011 when she interrupted the wedding with the infamous line: “Sorry I’m Late”. It’s been seven years and I’ve never shifted in my feelings, I just feel personally she was the best overall written character on OUAT. Her redemption was not easy, but that made it real…she backslid but she caught herself, but Regina is such an inspiration for hope and redemption, and her message is as Lana Parrilla once said, “Good can come from broken”. I’m going to miss this character so much, but I know she will always live on in the hearts of all the Evil Regals that her story touched and changed for the better! #LongLiveTheQueen
Least Favorite Major) I wanna say badly Hook, but I think it would be entirely unfair because Season 7 showed that Hook had SOOOOOOOOOO much more potential than the Swan Obsessed guy we got for the last other 5 seasons! So he’s not my least favorite, he’s just not my preferred because of how Adam and Eddy just totally wasted his potential in order to make him obsessed with Emma. But I loved Wish Realm Hook…absolutely loved him and his story with his daughter Alice…yeah….that was really great!!!
5) Who was your favorite and least favorite MINOR (meaning only made brief appearances, either a single episode or more but never a regular cast member)
Favorite Minor) I understand this said minor, but since she was not apart of the other seasons, I’m going with Alice because I could watch a spin off show starring her and Robyn and be just as content, LOL!!! Alice was hilarious, sweet, charming, and just tugged at my heart strings in a way OUAT hasn’t done in a while….so I definitely loved Alice!!!
Least Favorite Minor) Dr. Jekyll….I just….I didn’t like him! I would have preferred Hyde for all of Season 6….but Jekyll….yeah…glad he was gone, just hated Hyde had to go with him.
6) What do you think OUAT’s biggest success story was? And what was their biggest mistake?<u></u>
Biggest Success) The story between the Evil Queen & Snow White will always be one of their greatest successes. We were taken from when they first met, to the betrayal, and slowly down the path of evil and eventually into an all out war between these two women that technically lasted over 30 years if we count the curse, and eventually we saw these same women become not only friends, but family again….they put their lives on the line for one another and taught one another the most important lessons. Regina taught Snow White about True Love & Keeping Faith, and Snow White taught Regina the meaning of Hope and how to accept both the good and evil in her. At the start of the series, they were mortal enemies and toward the end, it was if they were back in a mother and daughter relationship, and that plus the RegalBeliever storyline will always be one of the greatest storyline successes of Once Upon A Time.
Biggest Failure) Too many to legit count LOL!!! But if I just had to pick one….I would say Season 7’s overall storyline. The ending was beautiful but Season 7’s storyline could have been vastly improved!
7) Would you recommend OUAT to someone?
Would I recommend…I’ve been doing it for years. Do I ever try to explain the story, family tree, and overall plot… (Beep) No!!! LOL!!!!
8) What is the legacy of OUAT?<u></u>
In the words of Cinderella: “No matter how your heart is grieving, if you keep on believing…the dream that you wish will come true.” Overall legacy is….happy endings can be real, but they must be fought for and always believed in.
9) Grade the entire series!
S1 is always an A+….S2-4 gotta be a B-….S5-S7 is a C+.
Overall series grade…I’ll say an 88% B+.
<u></u>"If you go as far as you can see...you will then see enough to go even further." - Finn Balor
I sorta agree/disagree with both of your points, HJ and Gaultheria. I think they’re good at worldbuilding in short bursts They aren’t the sort of writers who can maintain a lengthy story that is intricate and has to have established rules in order for the story to flow. But if you think of each arc and season as its own thing and not connected to any other arcs or seasons, they no they aren’t terrible.
I think anyone would have trouble keeping a story premise going for seven years, but that’s not an issue if it gets reset every episode.
And this is where I disagree with you. Look at fantasy novelists who spend years, decades, heck even entire careers in one world that must be carefully maintained in order for the story to progress from A to Z. And usually that’s not collaborative, JKR for instance did not have a writing partner. A and E have each other and entire room full of other writers. TV and books are different mediums but good writers should flesh out their world well in advanced, which is why I think S1 is the most structurally sound–they had years to plot that one. S2 and S3 to an extent benefit from the long prep period for S1. As we got closer to the end, that’s when the cracks began to show and then fall to pieces utterly.
I don’t think the half season arcs are well put together. That was one of the ways in which i really thought that the show was completely falling apart. The first couple episodes were usually okay of each arc, then like one in the middle and then sometimes the end connected to the beginning, but not always. The whole rest of an arc would many times be redundant and boring. Often the ending would be a trick instead of what the arc was building towards which is just bad writing because once you know the trick with no build there is nothing to go back and rewatch and find the hints about because there was no build, there were no hints. The long season arcs were much better on this show, meaning Season 1 and 2.
For me, the biggest change for the half season arcs were that they started giving large portions of the screen time to completely pointless characters. In the first season, it was only Red and Grumpy that got a random episode, all the rest were focused on the regular characters and the development of those characters. They then started giving all this screen time to characters that had no connection to the main characters instead of introducing characters that were going through the same thing that our characters were going through. They gave a bunch of screen time to villains, that always just ended up dead and we always knew they would end up dead. The show just stopped having character development and therefore had no plot. This show hasn’t had a plot in years.
If the writers can’t write character development and can’t write story and can’t write and keep their world building, then they are done. Those are the three things and if they can’t do any of them well then they just need to stop. I actually think it is story they do the best. The idea of let’s make Emma the dark one or showing Emma’s past via Lily or making the dark one dagger be Excalibur or let Emma interact with Elsa who felt like an outcast are all pretty good ideas. The problem is that they have to then be what would Emma do here, what would be her struggles, how would Snow react to Emma being the dark one, and ask all those questions for all the regulars and sort of work out from there and build the narrative around that, and choose what each episode is about based on those questions, and build the world and the objects in the story around the answers to those questions. These writers cannot do that.
I think there three best world building things were probably the apple with the bite in it coming through the hatter’s hat and being used to try and curse Emma. That hatter’s hat being a portal though that was sort of inconsistent and never properly explained. Those and the poppy’s will make you sleep like from Wizard of Oz though that isn’t really something they came up with. They never really did anything to build a language or a culture or any sort of religion or even differences in culture between realms or just anything like that at all. Even the way characters dressed was inconsistent to the world build at times.
World building is hard too. It is so very hard, but the world never felt real, it never felt peopled, because they never built the world. I really think the reason the show lasted this long was entirely on the help they were given in building the world and the characters and the stories in Season 1. They were completely unable to deepen the world build or to figure out what their characters would do next and develop them that way or to even figure out the basic structure of the beginning, the middle, and the end of a story. For me, they can’t be unable to do all of those things and run a show.
In reply to: The Entire Series: In Review
1) What was your favorite all time episode of OUAT?
SKIN DEEP!
2) What was your least favorite all time episode of OUAT?
It’s much harder to pick the very worst of OUAT so I’ll name a few that I know were bad/filler.
3.2 Lost Girl – 3.14 The Tower – 4.11 Heroes and Villains – 4.19 Lily – 5.6 The Bear and the Bow – 5.18 Ruby Slippers – 5.19 Sisters – 6.1 The Savior – 6.19 The Black Fairy – 7.19 Flower Child (honestly looking down the list of S7 episodes it’s hard for me to remember which were the weakest so I went with the recent one I think was badly done).
3) What was your favorite and least favorite season of OUAT?
S1 is #1
The worst is harder again. So much of S4-S7 was so very messy and some of my least favorite things ever happened in S3 and S4. It’s a hard choice but I think I’ll give the dishonorable nod to S5 for ruining both The Dark One mythology and Camelot (read Jiminy’s Journal S5 ending…it helps so much!).
4) Who was your favorite and least favorite MAJOR (meaning, regular cast member) character?
RUMPLE!!!!!! is my favorite.
Least favorite – you know even though I’ve had problems with Regina and Hook’s stories over the years I just had the thought looking back that Zelena actually has added the least to the narrative of all the mains and she in many ways feels tacked on to most of the stories she appears in. Plus she killed Baelfire!
5) Who was your favorite and least favorite MINOR (meaning only made brief appearances, either a single episode or more but never a regular cast member)
Hmmm another tough one. I love the so called minor characters better in some ways then a few of the main ones. I’d pick Baelfire for my #1 if he’s eligible with Granny as my backup.
Least favorite? Lily was pretty pointless in the end. But then again Ursula was a nothing character too. Maybe I’ll go with her.6) What do you think OUAT’s biggest success story was? And what was their biggest mistake?
OUAT has had a few successful twists over the years like Ruby/wolf, Malcolm/Pan, but I think my favorite story in Once was the early story-arc of family (Especially the Stiltskin clan Pan/Rumple/Belle/Baelfire/Emma/Henry) where everyone was related to everyone in some way and all the stories we’d seen so far up through 3a fit together quite nicely. It was really sad that they dropped all of that later in the series.
The biggest mistake is clear and easy – killing Baelfire shifted the entire focus of the series from family to relationSHIPS. There were plenty of others blunders to consider – not making the Dark One myth ancient enough – that egg – almost everything to do with The Author’s Pen – Emma as The Dark One – The Black Fairy – Camelot/Merlin – Maid Marian – Grumpy and Nova being dropped – let’s not forget how baby Robyn was conceived – Hook and Emma being too quickly classed as heroes while Rumple kept getting reset for reasons – everything to do with Rumbelle’s relationship from about 4a until S7 when they started frantically patching for the ending they wanted!
7) Would you recommend OUAT to someone?
I have in the past, but I’d hesitate now. The first few seasons were so good, especially the first! But it did get terribly messy and confusing and frustrating later.
8) What is the legacy of OUAT?
I hope the legacy of Once will be that first season and how well plotted it and all the characters in it were. But I fear the legacy may end up being the confusing plots, lack of real character development that stuck around for more than one episode, and (of course) the ships.
9) Grade the entire series!
S1 is an A+ I’d change almost nothing in it.
But if I have to factor in 4-7 that will bring it down to maybe a C?
In reply to: The Entire Series: In Review
My favorite episode is Episode 122, the finale of Season There was such a good build to that moment and Henry and Emma being the true loves kiss that breaks the curse was great. Magic coming to Storybrooke. Regina being tossed off. Snow and Charming finally having their memories. Emma with a sword and a gun, fighting a dragon. Emma and Regina finally with their memories going at each other. It was just great and it was how a story should be built and how an ending can be so very satisfying and yet still leave an opening for the next arc.
The worst episode, i think i have to pick two. The very last episode 722 was, in my opinion, absolutely terrible and i have said it all elsewhere, but it is just the culmination of everything that is so terrible about this show for me. All of the characters have fallen so far. Emma pretty much barefoot, married, and pregnant with Hook which is disgusting. Fake Henry was wearing the sheriffs badge, so Emma may not even have a job anymore. They are pretending that Regina is some sort of leader which was Emma’s job. Regina as some sort of competent, respected leader and having fake Henry call her mother makes zero sense. Snow and Charming have no part and are not involved in anything as far as we know. Rumpel has been completely disconnected from the family in every way. No mention of Bae, no mention of being Henry’s grandfather, Belle dead, and now Rumpel dead. The timeline shot, the plot nonexistent, and everyone out of character to such an extreme as to be completely unrecognizable as the characters they started as.
The second worst episode would be episode 202, we are both. That plot point makes no sense. They are not both. They are themselves. They are the people they grew up to be and the people they found themselves as and that is their real selves, their fairytale selves, not their fake, hazy memory selves. The whole point was to eventually see the fairytale characters in the real world and we never really got that. This was the first episode with no Emma, or just one scene at the end. This was the first time the show did not work. Disconnecting Emma and Snow from Regina was such a huge mistake that the show never recovered from it. I was so looking forward to seeing Emma interact with everyone now that everyone had their memories and then that was immediately taken away with Emma’s removal from Storybrooke. This is when they first opened the door to Regina being part of the group. People kept calling Regina, Henry’s mom, to the point of confusion. The use of the fake names. This episode is really just the beginning of the end. It is the first time that such huge mistakes were made and the show started its slow downward spiral to what it became.
Season 1 is the only good season of this show.
Favorite major character. Emma was the most realistic and flawed and powerful and strong character. Real Emma, not barefoot and pregnant Emma. Least favorite character. I really dislike the time spent on Rumpel, but Hook ruined my favorite character, so Hook. Rumpel was only ruined by what people thought was happening with him and by the loss of Bae and the disconnection from the family. Hook was boring and was never Emma’s equal and was never good enough for her and should have died in Season 3.
Favorite minor character. Red and Mulan. I guess they were regulars, but they were never given the time. They were both complicated and flawed and could have had great stories if they were actually shown. Least favorite minor character. Arthur was a real waste of screentime. There were so many characters whose stories were hinted at, but were never shown in the right way. That is what i dislike more then the characters.
There is no success here, in my opinion. The biggest mistake was not writing for the characters, as in the characters were written out of character all the time. They needed to allow the characters to react to things and that be the plot and they never did. They needed to show not tell. They needed to write down their timeline. They needed to keep track of the last things the characters did.
I would not recommend this show to anyone. As much as i like Season 1, Season 2 and the rest are so disappointing, that there is no getting over it. There are episodes i liked in some of the later seasons, but it still isn’t worth it.
Ouat’s legacy is how not to write a show.
Fail.
In reply to: The Entire Series: In Review
What was your favorite all time episode of OUAT? (feel free to pick more than one if you really can’t decide between a few)
Skin Deep without a second thought, 2nd place would probably be Manhattan
What was your least favorite all time episode of OUAT? (feel free to pick more than one if you really can’t decide between a few)
Boy this one is hard, I hated Street Rats, Flower Child, Tiny (not as much as I used to but still hated it when I saw it)
What was your favorite and least favorite season of OUAT?
Favorite: Season 1 of course Least Favorite: Season 6A just because of all the horrible Rumbelle crap they wrote.
Who was your favorite and least favorite MAJOR (meaning, regular cast member) character?
Favorite: Rumple Least Favorite: Hook followed closely by post season 4 Emma
Who was your favorite and least favorite MINOR (meaning only made brief appearances, either a single episode or more but never a regular cast member)?
Favorite: Archie. I always loved Archie and thought they could do so much more with his story. He was just an all around good guy.
Least Favorite: Alladin, that whole story arc was horrible and boring.
What do you think OUAT’s biggest success story was? And what was their biggest mistake?
Success Story: Regina. Regina was the number 1 villain from episode 1 on and by the end of the show she was a great hero who preached about not only redemption but hope. The Regina redemption arc was long, difficult, and real and that is what each and every villain should have had to go through to get redeemed. The writers wrote that character perfectly and even when I thought she was a little too judgmental and playing way too much with the “hero club” it was still believable that a person who was a villain and was now considered a hero would go along with their ideas and thoughts even if they were judgmental and one sided.
Biggest Mistake: There were lots of them, but #1 mistake was killing off Bae/Neal. I would have been okay with it if they had done it for a good reason but lets face it they just did not want a love triangle and this was the easiest way to get rid of it. They then compounded the problem with trying to act like he did not exist most of the time and that his death did not effect those around him. Rumple’s quest for power in season 4 and his turn towards darkness would have been much more believable if they connected it to Bae’s death. The struggle of Henry and Rumple’s relationship could have been played out and talked about and that would have made sense. The struggle of Henry to like Hook could have been played out better by just admitting that Henry’s father was Neal and that Henry missed him. I could go on and on about what the writers could have done, but the fact is they took the easiest way out of a mess that they created and then acted like the character never existed except for a brief mention every now and then.
Would you recommend OUAT to someone?
I still would. I loved the show and still love to rewatch the first three seasons back to back and then certain episodes. I would love to rewatch it again with someone who had not seen it and relive all the dynamics.
What is the legacy of OUAT?
I don’t know, I am really not into that kind of stuff. For me personally I think it brought me into fanfic which I love and has carried me into all kinds of other fanfics. I loved this forum and talking about a tv show but I am unsure if I will ever find a show that I will want to talk about as much as I do this one.
Grade the entire series!
Well considering I am still a little obsessed with the show I would have to give it a 90%. I would give season 1-3 a 100% and 4-7 an 80%.
In reply to: Talk Timeline One Last Time
For me, there is just no way to explain it away. Even if we explain away one part of the timeline problem, there is still ten more timeline problems that don’t fit the explanation. This episode really created so many more problems with one of the easiest parts of the show to be consistent with. They really just needed to write it down and they didn’t.
This also, as i said, in no way helps explain why they didn’t call Emma and Snow for help earlier in the season. This was no explanation.
In reply to: The Entire Series: In Review
1) What was your favorite all time episode of OUAT? (feel free to pick more than one if you really can’t decide between a few)
My top three haven’t changed in years: Skin Deep; Manhattan; A Land Without Magic
2) What was your least favorite all time episode of OUAT? (feel free to pick more than one if you really can’t decide between a few)
This one is surprisingly harder because I have least favorites from every arc but trying to figure out which was the worst of the worst required a surprising amount of thought. Here’s what I came up with:
Quiet Minds, Swan Song, The Broken Kingdom
3) What was your favorite and least favorite season of OUAT?
Season One will always be my favorite because it felt complete and the characters felt fleshed out and formed. You can tell Adam and Eddy spent years developing that entire season.
Least favorite is harder; Season 5A is my least favorite arc but overall season is probably Season 4. Looking back there’s almost nothing I enjoyed or would re-watch. I thought Frozen was a total shark jump to pull in ratings (but, hey it worked for a little while) and the Queens of Darkness never got all that much attention.
4) Who was your favorite and least favorite MAJOR (meaning, regular cast member) character?
Favorite: Neal Cassidy. Yes, I know you would expect me to say Rumplestiltskin but the writers tossed him back and forth between slightly redeemed, redeemed, and total villain so often that it’s hard to be completely satisfied by his series story. Neal, though….Neal never disappointed me or angered. I understood Neal in a deeply personal way and his death remains, in my opinion, the biggest mistake in the entire series.
Least Favorite: It probably comes as no surprise but Captain Hook. Now, his Wish Realm counterpart, Nook, I enjoyed a lot. It showed me that when you distance the character from being only an obsessive, creepy love interest and get him back to his original intent of a repentant father figure, he works quite well. But I’ve always felt that Hook got too many free passes, only ever served one purpose, and was written in such a way to show the antiquated views of the writers (and Hollywood in general) when it comes to male/female dynamics.
5) Who was your favorite and least favorite MINOR (meaning only made brief appearances, either a single episode or more but never a regular cast member)?
Favorite minor character: I’m going to slightly cheat and say Alice because even though she was around quite a bit in S7, Rose Reynolds was never a regular contracted star. So much of S3B-S6 would have gone down smoother for me if Alice had been around. I love how quirky and smart and sassy she is. I adore her story with both Rumple and Nook. And her relationship with Robin is 100% ‘shippable. The fact that when I think of Alice in OUAT I think of this Alice and not Sophie Lowe’s…is a big deal.
*Special shout out to Hades for coming in a close second, though. Greg Germann was outstanding in that role. Even if the writers only got parts of Greek mythology right, I was all for Hades.
Least favorite minor character: It would be easy to list every one-off character who ever flitted on our screens and went to Forgotten Character Island forever but I’m going to go with two characters who were supposed to play vital roles but only made my skin crawl or had no development.
King Arthur: what a creep! There’s a reason “Broken Kingdom” is on my least favorite episode list. The second he gave Gwen the Sands of Avalon I was done with everything about him. They could have complicated his story without effectively turning him into a rapist.
Jafar: Look, Naveen Andrews is Jafar and any attempts to tell me otherwise will be met with the rolling of eyes. If the writers were going to recast Jafar then at least give him some sort of backstory and make him worth my time; make him a totally different character from the WL version. The Jafar of OUATinWL was incredible and occupied that special place of villain but sympathetic. This S6 Jafar was completely lackluster and I only vaguely remember what he wanted and what purpose he served.
6) What do you think OUAT’s biggest success story was? And what was their biggest mistake?
The RG who was here in S1 can’t believe she’s saying this but OUAT biggest success story is Regina. She’s not perfect, but I never want characters to be that. She was messy and complicated but I think the writers manage to take her, slowly and over time as one would expect, from the Evil Queen to the Good Queen while mostly keeping her consistent. Her relationship with Snow and Henry and Emma are all meaty and totally watchable.
As for biggest failure, I’ll repeat something I said in another thread: killing Neal Cassidy was the biggest mistake the show ever made. I know it’s no secret that I’m hardcore SwanFire but this isn’t about ships. If the writers chose to got the CS route, then so be it. But killing Neal and then acting as if he didn’t exist and as if his loss wouldn’t complicate their world, their characters, and the interactions between characters was nonsense. Every time Rumple did something incredibly stupid or evil, Neal should have been there. Every time Emma and Regina needed to do something that involved Henry, Neal should have been there. We could have gotten Neal as the unifying factor between OG Hook and Rumple like Alice did with Nook and Rumple. The race to save adult Gideon would have been far more interesting with Neal trying to help his brother see their father in a better light. When the Wish Realm cropped up into existence, they made it so Neal was still Henry’s father but never bothered to explain exactly how that occurred because Neal’s lack of existence was always a problem. There was always a way to keep him alive and involved in the lives of everyone without having to ruin whatever shipping endgame the writers wanted to go with. Neal’s death was a cheap and easy way to get what the writers wanted romantically but without looking ahead even a little bit.
7) Would you recommend OUAT to someone?
Honest answer: yes, but be prepared for diminishing returns the more the show goes on. I would tell them that OUAT can be broken into three different types of show: the great (S1-S3A); the mediocre and often not good (S3B-S6); and the reboot/epilogue (S7). Seeing it all through is a good idea because you can’t appreciate the series finale as much if you didn’t watch the whole kit and kaboodle but to be prepared to really dislike something every single year.
I would also recommend that they stay clear of most of the fandom outside of this little haven where we are mostly well behaved. Never engage on Twitter or Tumblr. Just…save yourself the headache.
8) What is the legacy of OUAT?
There are good legacies and bad ones. I think the good legacy is that previously unknown actors like Lana and Colin are going to do quite well, so long as they avoid being typecasted. Bobby and JMo and Ginny already had established themselves in indie films or TV but in many ways this is Lana and Colin’s big break and they deserve good things post-OUAT.
I also think the fandom is going to be the legacy of OUAT. The good bits are the fan art, the fic, the conversations that arose because of the show. I also think OUAT will go down as having one of the most toxic fandoms ever. The sheer animosity between swaths of this fandom and the stuff that has happened at cons or on Tumblr–the hacking, the stalking, ect–makes my blood boil and my stomach turn. It’s never been “just a TV show” (because no TV show ever is) but the personal assaults and attacks on actual people (the actors too!) is baffling.
9) Grade the entire series!
This is difficult because how do I measure the greatness of S1 against the horror of S5A? I think overall it’s an even split between what I love (S1-3A) and what I hated (S3B-S6) with S7 being pretty even split between the two. I guess in that regard the overall series is gonna get a solid C. It’s a middle ground. Could be better; could have been a heck of a lost worse.
"He was a lot of things to me" "The only conclusion was love"
