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It’s interesting that all the characters who got shafted were ‘good’ characters. The same is true with the characters who got assasinated – with the exception of Rumple. I get the impression that OUAT is rather hopeless at making its non-villains interesting, complex, likeable characters.
As for actor contribution, I think they’ve made so many poor decisions that they’ve given up accepting feedback because it would be impossible for them to incorporate most of it.
[adrotate group="5"]There’s a lot of chatter that this is the golden age of the anti-hero on TV. A lot of TV shows are picking grey, morally complex, not necessarily good guys as their leading men/women. You’ve got your Tony Sorpanos, your Don Drapers, you Walter Whites, your Reginas, your Rumples. Even cosmic hero types like The Doctor get heavily shaded, questioning their own goodness (AKA: s8 of DW) and even to a much lesser extent Emma Swan’s own brief internal struggle in this arc. You’ve also got characters who are usually absolutely villains in “regualr” narrative being given a good side–like Lucifer on Fox’s new crime show (which is delightfully charming and you all should watch).
Contrast this to–say–the age of the superhero when superheroes were GOOD. Capital G, full stop. Superman in his red and blue emphasizing American superiority and strength. There were moral complexities in his stories, but you’d never call him “gray” necessarily or question his own hero-hood.
I’ve mused on this before…but I think it’s largely because our world is becoming increasingly grey and complex. I don’t know who the villains/bad guys are anymore, and if you’re living in America then take a look at our current election and the insane gulf that separates the two candidates and the overwhelming responses their supporters and naysayers give out. I think TV is trying very hard to capture this moment in time in which nothing is clear and there are no real heroes. Even those traditional heroes–cops, for one–are being shaded in different lights becuse of racial and class and gender issues.
If our society is telling us that there are no heroes and that anyone can be a villain depending on who’s telling the story, then TV is naturally going to reflect that. And that’s okay because TV is a mirror to society and it should be. But the problem is that OUAT doesn’t know to work through those issues. It just makes the heroes into villains at the drop of a hat (like stealing a baby and infecting it with darkness) and turns villains into sympathetic figures without really sitting with what that actually means.
There’s a great piece by I think the Hulk Critic once who was musing on why movie goers like Loki more than Thor and it came down to that: people respond to antiheroes more because cut and dry heroes don’t exist in our world. So they always fall flat because you can’t flesh out something that isn’t real outside of media.
This is my way of actually rationalizing some of OUAT treatment of their heroes and villains and why they can’t seem to make their non-villains complex or interesting and why the writers quickly bore of them and then in several cases chop them out entirely.
"He was a lot of things to me" "The only conclusion was love"Ironically, it’s the ones who have been killed or cut that have avoided the worst character assassination. I’d be very surprised if at least three of the regulars (RC, GG, JMo) do not have a strained relationship with A&E by this point.
Whenever I think about how JMo talked about going to the library to specifically look up stories about dark characters, so that she could better portray the Dark Swan, I wonder how she feels that all that research on her part was basically wasted. I’d be pretty peeved at the writers if it were me, because for her to go to all that trouble, A&E must have told her that they had something super big and super dark in store for her to play around with. But then she got to play with pretty much none of it. If even someone on JMo’s level may well have this sort of disconnect with the writers in regards to their character, then just imagine what it’s like to be someone like Sean who’s lower on the food chain.
Sean M. basically just said what I think MRJ probably felt but never really said.
I don’t think it’s coincidence that the two actors who have come out and aired their disappointment with how their characters were treated are Brits. The culture is different enough that they’re not gonna spend time trying to be overly PC, or polite, or kiss anyone’s rear end, the way Americans might. That’s not to say that I find people like MRJ to be disingenuous, (because I love the everloving crap outta that guy and consider him and his generous heart to be a gift to humanity), but culturally speaking, there’s a certain air of pretention (for want of a better word) that’s sort of expected, and Brits just don’t have that same filter. Good on Sean for telling it like it is!
I don’t think it’s coincidence that the two actors who have come out and aired their disappointment with how their characters were treated are Brits.
Let`s not forget Merida and Merlin actors that “accidentally” rt and faved tweets from fans that rant about the show.
Or Robert Carlyle that in any interview he gives throws shades at OUAT and the writers, like , he doesnt prepare Rumple anymore bc the writers change story at every episode, or how he didnt agree the Neal`s death, bc MRJ was a great actor that would bring quality to the show, etc.
About MRJ, well if we look for something on his last interview to Matt M, about OUAt, you can see a shades in disguised, as we can see in bold bellow, read that and see if that cant be applied to OUAT.
TVLINE | For starters, what drew you to this project?
It’s not a typical network show. It’s very serialized. It’s not a procedural. There are plenty of network shows that are serialized — I’ve been on them before, as you know — but the weight of the material here gives an actor so much room to make interesting choices. There’s a million ways to do any given scene, as opposed to, paint-by-numbers characters, storytelling. That was an immediate draw.TVLINE | I said in my column that I was surprised that back in Season 3 they didn’t play that triangle harder — have Emma torn between a storybook character and this “regular Joe” that she’d only known as a mortal. Is that something you would have been interested to explore?
To an extent. But generally speaking, love triangles aren’t necessarily what I get excited about. It can be a revelatory device to tell other stories, to see the way people respond in situations like that, how they deal with rejection or whatever….TVLINE | Once Upon a Time Neal ReturnsOn a lighter note, how did your “surprise” Once Upon a Time encore come about?
[The idea of returning] had been broached before, but with everyone’s schedules it’s hard to find windows. I’ve been working pretty consistently the last couple of years, so I didn’t have a lot of time. But when their 100th episode came up, I was finishing up Game of Silence and I did have a window that they were able to work around.Another proof that they really change ideas and plans, bc appears that they had plans to make Neal appear, without UW idea, but we will never know what plans were those, like we never know waht plans they had for Sean, or Will and so many other characters
TVLINE | For example, if scorned, Neal could be tempted to turn to his dad for an assist. He’s got the Dark One in his corner, so does he go down that route to “get the girl”?
The reality is we will never know. I have my thoughts on it — and I don’t think that that is Neal’s style. Neal devoted his life and his being to turning away from that. He’s somebody who could have lived with the pain of that rejection, if it were to come to that, without having to turn to the dark side. Instead he’d use it as a stepping-stone to grow. That’s my take on Neal.This last part, for me also reveals that MRJ didnt knew anything about Neal`s arc, like A&E said they talk with him, maybe bc they also dont have a file about each character and until they may go.
The question, is how they make this drastic changes in the story, since they say they plan the seaon ahead, how can this work? I said on another thread, if they had only one season per year of 13 episodes and film the episodes after having written all scripts, this could help the show, even if it meant to have ouat only on spring, and snother thing that would help ouat and avoid all this chnages, table reads, where all the actors would talk with the producers, directors and writers about the characters and how they should act on the scenes.
Like many of you said, the fact that are to many change storylines that are evident in the actual storyline, example, Dark swan, although i think the big issue there was the fact that Colin decided to do a movie while filming the show, so they had to make him disapear, that way making DS story about hook, to free Colin so UW would make him more free, but of course there are other stories, also in one of the interviews Sean said that, when A&E find out they had another season, they decided to chnage stories, so does this means that they thought S5 would be the last, well that would be fitting, Dark emma being the last season, they even said bf the season start that Dark swan would be a full season thing and could not end in 1st arc like everyone thought.
In the end so many stories that were changed for other stuff and that we will never know and if we do end seeing them again, will not fit on the greater story, bc this forward and then going back, then forward again is a big mess, and i say they may have had a camp on s2 to talk about the season, but they probably dont do it anymore.
Hope Sean, Michael S., MRJ, go to bigger things, i mean MRj is already showing his acting skills, but since GoS will likely be cancelled hope that he finds other things.
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