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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.
[adrotate group="5"]"He was a lot of things to me" "The only conclusion was love"Anything with that god awful Dr. Facilier & Regina romance they tried selling us.
It’s a shame they tied him romantically to Regina; given that Wish Rumple ended up being the final villain, Facilier should have been stripped of the nonsense romance stuff and introduced much earlier to parallel the him and Wish Rumple and their quest for the dagger.
"He was a lot of things to me" "The only conclusion was love"I promise as soon as I get word about what is happening with the forums, I’ll let everyone know.
"He was a lot of things to me" "The only conclusion was love"One last time, eh? Here are the ratings for every season (and mid season) opener
Season One Premiere Ratings : 4.0 (“The Pilot”)
Season One Finale Ratings: 3.3 (“A Land Without Magic”)
Season Two Premiere Ratings: 3.9 (“Broken”)
Season Two Final Ratings: 2.3 (“…And Straight On ‘Till Morning”)
Season Three-A Premiere Ratings: 2.6 (“The Heart Of The Truest Believer”)
Season Three-A Finale Ratings: 1.9 (“Going Home”)
Season Three-B Premiere Ratings: 2.4 (“New York City Serenade”)
Season Three-B Finale Ratings : 2.3 (“Snow Drifts”/”There’s No Place Like Home”)
Season Four-A Premiere Ratings: 3.5 (“A Tale Of Two Sisters”)
Season Four-A Finale Ratings: 1.7 (“Heroes and Villains”)
Season Four-B Premiere Ratings: 2.2 (“Darkness On The Edge Of Town”)
Season Four-B Finale Ratings: 1.8 (“Operation Mongoose Part 1 and Part 2”)
Season Five-A Premiere Ratings: 1.8 (“The Dark Swan”)
Season Five-A Finale Ratings: 1.3 (“Swan Song”)
Season Five-B Premiere Ratings: 1.3 (“Souls of the Departed”)
Season Five-B Finale Ratings 1.2 (“Only You/ An Untold Story”)
Season Six-A Premiere Ratings: 1.3 (“The Savior”)
Season Six-A Finale Ratings: .9 (“Wish You Were Here”)
Season Six-B Premiere Ratings: .9 (“Tougher Than The Rest”)
Season Six-B Finale Ratings: .9 (“The Final Battle part 1 and 2”)
Season Seven-A Premiere Ratings: .7 (“Hyperion Heights”)
Season Seven-A Finale Ratings: .5 (“The Eighth Witch”)
Season Seven-B Premiere Ratings: .4 (“Secret Garden”)
Season Seven-B Finale Ratings: .5 (“Leaving Storybrooke”)
"He was a lot of things to me" "The only conclusion was love"0.5 demo and 2.32 million viewers. Too bad it couldn’t at least crack a 0.6 or higher.
At least it ended steady. Glad it didn’t drop down to a .4
"He was a lot of things to me" "The only conclusion was love"My guess (and it’s really only that!) is that it works like this?
1) Young Henry leaves SB at the age of 18 in the year 2018, lets say in September to match the S7 premiere date.
2) A lot of time time passes normally. Henry is now in his mid thirties when he meets Cinderella in the EF 2.0. When we see Regina, OG Hook, and Emma come to his rescue in 702, it is now Octoberish 2025-2027. Emma is having an extremely late-in-life pregnancy. This also explains why Robyn is so much older when Gothel transports her to the EF 2.0
3) Emma and OG Hook return to SB 2025-2027; this Emma and Hook are not the same ones we saw in the series finale. They are off living in the last 2020s unaware of everything that is happening.
4) The Curse is cast and it sends everyone in the EF 2.0 to HH and back in time, to pre-September 2018. It’s a random guess but let’s say six months prior, so March 2018.
5) Old Henry calls Young Henry on his graduation, which would roughly be May 2018.
6) Alice and Robyn travel via bean to SB in May of 2018. 2018Regina and 2018Emma are with recently graduated Henry on a road trip. Emma is not yet pregnant (and wont be for another 20 yrs). Baby Neal would now be about 5ish and Robyin 4ish.
7) Regina unites all the realms by bringing them to SB in May of 2018. Emma and Hook become parents much earlier than 2028 Emma did (no one has aged much from the time of unification to the time of coronation)
A big rub here is what happens when 2018!Regina and 2018!Emma come home to 2018!SB to discover that there’s a 2028!Regina, thirty year old Henry, young Wish Henry…..Are there now 2 Reginas in SB?
"He was a lot of things to me" "The only conclusion was love"Blue – I’m sad she didn’t have a bigger role
Yeah, but it’s also hilarious that of all the characters ever it’s Sneaky Blue Fairy who ends up trapped in her own realm of terrible.
"He was a lot of things to me" "The only conclusion was love"Ooh, is Lily’s ethnicity a live topic again?
Very much so lol!
"He was a lot of things to me" "The only conclusion was love"It spoils what could have been a beautiful moment between him and Regina when they never had a positive relationship before he died
I get where you’re coming from with most of your Rumple post. Resetting him has always been their default position (sorta like with Emma). But I don’t agree with the quote above. They had a complicated relationship but it’s also been a father/daughter, student/mentor kind. They’ve used each other, threatened each other, but also helped and supported each other and think of each other as family even if it’s like, super complicated.
"He was a lot of things to me" "The only conclusion was love"
