AshhyOut

They already have a couple of options as stop gaps before AI hits. The Fred Savage/Gervais kid game show would probably be perfect after AFHV. There's also Kyra's Ten Days in the Valley 10-episode miniseries. I think both were thought to be for the summer but obviously they're not on the schedule so they'll have to air sometime. ABC is also in a bidding war for a miniseries reboot of Roseanne. Not sure how that all shakes out for ABC Sundays in terms of fit but they do have stuff in their stock that could air during just the fall. If they put the kiddie game show after AFHV then Once would have to move to 9pm or 10pm even. I guess the decision there would be, would a 0.6 ish or lower show be acceptable in those slots vs some other alternative? Which also means that they've completely given up during that time and I don't know what Channing is thinking but it seems silly to me to just use any air slots as burn-off. Isn't the point is to try to find something that works vs. giving up? They already spent the big bucks on development season, might as well take a risk. I don't think this will ever happen. Whether AI works out or not, ABC is banking on it being big which means it can be used to launch a show. They wouldn't waste it on Once. I do think Once was set for renewal before they got AI. I wonder why they don't just move it to Freeform. That sounds like it would work out the best.

I think they were. I don't think Dungey could've been any more upfront than she was back in Jan when she straight up said, A&E pitched a reboot and Once's main stories would be wrapped up. That's exactly what's happening. Pretty obvious ABC told A&E the show wasn't viable anymore at their price point and A&E decided to pitch a cheaper show instead of ending up at the unemployed line. Not that I blame A&E either cause who wants to be unemployed? It sounds like they were pretty on board with a cheaper S7 but were keeping some options open. So what else could Dungey have done? If A&E hadn't pitched a cheaper reboot and decided they were done, 100% they would've announced a series finale. If they weren't open to a possible S7 there's no reason they would keep that under wraps either and act like they were. With 80% of the cast jumping ship, it wouldn't even be their fault! They could just say cast and crew decided it was the end. I really don't think they made a concrete decision and was keeping it a secret. I think they were still deciding and were coming down on the renew side while still going after American Idol and playing around around with other things. Robert is done. I've always thought the Vancouver paps had a legit source when they said everyone was done except for Colin and Lana. They said Rebecca and Josh/Ginny straight up told them they were done. They didn't say who told them Jared, Emilie, Robert and JMo were done too but they included them in the "gone" list a long time ago. I don't see why they would lie about the others.

Nope sorry. That doesn't fly for me when mostly everything on this show is "backed into a corner" or "pressured" into doing. Mostly everything Regina, Rumple, Cora, etc has been framed as "backed into a corner" or "pressured." But I don't see the majority of this board giving Regina or Rumple any breaks for that. That's just double standards. If Emma is to share in the blame because she backed Hook into a corner then I guess there can't be anymore complaints about Regina because 10 year old Snow and Cora backed her into a corner and they should share the blame for the path Regina subsequently took. Oh and let's not forget Neal. He was pressured by August to leave Emma too and since Emma backed him into a corner to let her go retrieve those watches, then Emma and Neal are equally at fault, with a side of August. Even this. This is exactly what A&E and Regina stans say about Lana. That Lana is such a fantastic actress that she makes you feel her pain and misery when she cries. Not really. Her actions are real and grounded enough. People who live together go through each other's stuff all the time. It's a bad thing for sure but it happens. I don't think he was obviously drunk. He was drinking but no way believe that a couple of shots would put him under considering all the drinking he does. And she thought he was in agony over the proposal. Yeah that's in character too. This is the guy who confessed that his "darkest" secret was kissing her and realizing that he could fall for her. I'm pretty sure the dude looked like he was in agony then too. That's why she said let me make it easy for you. Combine with her excitement over finding the ring? Yeah she was oblivious and probably a bit selfish due to her excitement but that's real too. Yes it is. But then again so is Hook. He always asks her to trust him but he himself has never trusted her. He wants her to share her feelings and problems with him but he then he doesn't do that either. And before anyone says she never asks, she has asked him plenty of times, "what's wrong" and not once has he given her the truth until forced to. If the response to this is, well just asking "what's wrong" isn't good enough, she should push harder, that's not really Emma. She's not a let me get in your space and force you to tell me what's wrong pushy type. (Unless it's Regina but we know everyone is out of character when it comes to her.) That contradiction is completely the nature of their relationship since Day 1 and has never changed. Because they have the exact same issues, they have the same specific needs but their own personal issues keep them from fulfilling it for the other. I don't know if this is relatable either but it certainly is out of character for Hook. The guy who kept mementos of people he killed? Now he wants to erase his memories and right in their home by the front door where anyone can walk in at anytime? Ok yeah yeah, he was in agony and desperate so that was his response but that excuse could be used for anyone and anywhere too but the focus seems to be on Emma's OOC. By the way I don't find Emma sympathetic but neither is Hook. They're both flawed and it doesn't help that their flaws are practically identical. I do appreciate that A&E let them both be flawed but it's not something I care to watch especially with mediocre writers. This is why I said their story is "realistic" but makes for crappy tv entertainment. They only work as the "adventure" couple who does things and once in a while throw in some fluffly romantic moment. Anytime this show wants to get "deep" and focus on their relationship, they and their story sucks. So maybe A&E had it right with the let them just fight monsters.

Hook's a grown ass man. Forced into proposing and took away his agency? What? How? She magic'ed him or compelled him to proposing? No she put him in a difficult situation and he himself, CHOSE to propose under those circumstances. Even JM and Colin said this. There was no force of any sort involved. I now see where the Regina fans are coming from. She was forced to become "evil" too right? I mean Cora forced her to get marry to Leopold, she had no choice to do something differently. Rumple forced her to learn dark magic and to cast the Dark Curse and she had no choice to walk away at any point. Because Cora and Rumple put her in extremely difficult situations, she was forced. No agency whatsoever. And oh yeah for sure damn those evil Whites. It's all Snow's fault. If only she hadn't told that secret, and got the whole ball rolling. Just like if only Emma hadn't been nosy digging through his stuff and got that whole ball rolling. Note, I'm not saying Emma isn't wrong. She is but it doesn't negate Hook's wrong. By saying that she forced him to do something is putting all the responsibility and blame on her. Also her being nosy, while wrong, seems to have eclipsed Hook killing her granddad and lying to her. Which is exactly the moves A&E pull with Regina. They make the other party wrong too, have Regina cry prettily and all of a sudden the other party's crime eclipses her crimes. Seems to be pretty effective. Hmm does this mean we have to stop bashing A&E?

What faith and respect? Hook doesn't have faith in Emma. He asks for her trust all the time, from the first moment they met as strangers and he never gives her that trust either. It goes both ways. He's never ever voluntarily confided in her about anything. They have the same story over and over again, both of them. Emma hides something, it comes out, she apologizes and swears no more secrets and Hook is usually standing right there being a hypocrite keeping his own secret. That's respect? Of course he's like "I'm so horrible" yadda yadda and angst over hiding his secret so that's ok, it comes out and Emma's like so? Kiss. End of story, repeat. And yes a knee-jerk reaction is childish and immature and taking his stuff out to the shed is the stuff drama queens are made of. Emma is childish and immature. That's always been established onscreen and she herself admitted it. Practically all the characters have called her out on that. She's never quit feeling like that orphaned kid everyone left and Hook hasn't overcome his issue either. Emma isn't smart and has never been smart! We're talking about the chick that got bamboozled by Sidney here and spent an entire freaking season getting outsmarted by Regina. None of these characters are smart! Well why didn't Hook have more faith in Emma? Since they've been in a relationship, when has she ever not forgiven him about anything? Well at least Zelena's fun and she's hasn't had a centric or real screentime in forever. And dealing with the main character's relationship is tired and has been over done. I mean this taking out his stuff to the shed stuff is dealing with their relationship. Who wants to watch that. Hook and Emma's problems while realistic don't make for riveting tv. Just like it should be obvious to Hook that Emma wouldn't ever not "forgive" him? Even when they weren't in a relationship she didn't hold a grudge or cut him off from her life.

People have some insane standards for Emma. I don't see the big deal about her taking his stuff to the shed. It's practically the equivalent of someone unfollowing their SO on instagram and deleting all their pictures immediately after a fight, in other words a knee-jerk reaction to an extremely emotional event. It's not about that. Was anyone this pissed at Hook for not having faith in Emma forgiving him? I mean after all the times she forgave him or simply didn't care what he did, plus she went to hell and was ready to die in the Underworld for him. It's the same difference. All I saw was, "well Hook is extremely self-loathing so it's understandable that he didn't want to tell Emma even if he was wrong." In other words it wasn't about faith in Emma, it was about his issues. The same way this isn't really about Hook, it's about Emma's issues. Yeah they both have the same type of personal issues that affect their relationship. Imagine that. Calling for unconditional faith or the level of faith that Hook fans want or whatever would be Belle. And Belle gets bashed all the time for Rumbelle. And Snow, Emma and co. gets bashed all the time for never having a realistic reaction to Regina or allowed to be mad at her. Well here you go, a realistic reaction.

Yes well the problem here is A&E sees Regina as their Elsa. I do remember them saying as much and then the Disney Frozen folks stepped in and we got what we got. The irony here is that original recipe Elsa did sound remarkably like Regina but then they heard Let It Go and overhauled her character by dumping all the villainous acts. They of course recognized there's a clear thick line, practically a wall!, between misunderstood and villain. A&E don't. Probably because they admitted that Regina is their self-insert but that doesn't explain the other folks. The actors, or some of them anyway also seem to be capable of drawing that line unlike A&E. Elizabeth Mitchell and Robert has never shied away from calling their characters outright villains. Robert's always said Rumple doesn't deserve a happy ending and shouldn't get one. EM said something like you can feel bad for Ingrid but she's a psycho and has to go. I wonder how their conversations go. Like did Robert just stop talking to A&E? And not just them but I wonder about their conversations with Ginny and co. too. A: Yes Ginny, Snow is evil because she refused to eat Regina's lasagna. Brilliant twist right? But you know, I'd have to give it to A&E. They sold the hell out of their bullshit because a huge chunk of people bought it.

It'd be funny if Gideon is really Rumple in disguise and Emma is really Regina. I really can't picture them excluding Rumple out of the last battle or whatever. Right but the Regina switches place with Emma and is the ultimate hero is exactly what they would pull. Henry TLK Regina is also something they would do that they think would make up for the S1 Emma and Henry thing. But they won't keep her dead for real. Maybe that little girl is Regina de-aged? I know they cast one already but they changed Baelfires too. I expect the fight not to be much better than what we've already seen. They don't have that big of a budget and they can't or won't hire a real choreographer for the fight or a director with that kind of know-how. Mostly it involves a lot of standing around with the actors having their hands in the air.

Me either. I tend to believe the Vancouver pap who said only Lana and Colin were on board and the rest were gone. If the Lana thing is true, then ABC isn't renewing it. They're not going to have a reboot with only Colin as the holdover, with Lana and Colin possibly but not just Colin. If they loved him that much, the better option by far would be to move him to another show. That being said, still can't believe we're going to have a big chunk of time devoted to 2 new characters on a series finale.

Yeah me too. I also side eye JM's comment about not deciding until ABC does because actors sign contracts all the time without knowing the fate of their show. Speaking of the Castle situation, Nathan renewed his contract without an official renewal of Castle. Because what if the network is like, well we're not renewing a show until we get the actors on a favorable contract and nail down the numbers? See the problem? No. Sunday is the most watched night of the week. It has the biggest viewing levels by far even during the the non-NFL season. That's why all the big special events are always on Sundays.

I know A&E claimed this because to them this is Once Upon a Regina but their scripts that show up onscreen says something different. EQ was Snow's. Rumple/Gold is Emma's. They've always tied Rumple's stories way closer to Emma's half-assed arcs than Regina. He's the one that made her his "Savior" for the curse, there's that Neal thing, the Dark Ones megapalooza, the stupid hat succubus plus hooking up with the Snow Queen, the nonsensical Rumple trying to get the Queens of Darkness to make Emma dark thing, and Gideon his other kid is the one prophesized to kill her? Not to mention he's Hook's main enemy? So yeah I still say the Final Battle is Rumple vs Emma, with Regina ultimately saving the day cause that's the way A&E rolls. Speaking of Neal, they went to so much trouble to make everyone related you'd think they'd throw a line in there about Gideon trying to kill his half-brother's baby momma. And when was the last time Rumple asked about his grandkid? The non-magic team, Snowing and Hook, should be making a million inflatable Baelfire dolls to gaslight Rumple.

I don't know if this is a family show and I don't think ABC does either since S2, and not counting the Frozen detour. I'd say it was more of a CW or Freeform show, demos wise. The tweens, teens, and the bulk of it the young adults crowd which is why the HH numbers are so low but they're held up in the demos. Their HH numbers wouldn't be so low if they were getting families. They would've also gotten a big hit from NBC's Little Big Shots but they didn't. And oh yeah, they can't keep the AFHV crowd. I also don't think the execs are keeping close tabs on this show, again, aside from Frozen and the initial concept. I think I remember Channing, or one of the other ABC execs talking about how they specifically wanted lighter shows this development season and that they realize the edgy stuff works better on cable than network. And I think it shows with their "dramadies." Nothing about this show screams light. A&E are the epitome of trying too hard to be "edgy" that its just farcical. I think I just saw about the most joyless proposal on TV ever on Once. The show itself looks like they cut the lighting budget and have a crew of 2 standing around with flashlights. Does that sound like execs are hovering over A&E's shoulders? I think A&E throw out the "this show is about hope" for the execs and they take it at face value. I don't think Disney with its revival of live action movies raking in billions of dollars take more than a glance at a dinky show watched by 2 million people and ABC Studios have other priorities. I think Channing with this show was more like, "make the math work," not "make the stories work." Because if anybody was paying attention, they'd know what was wrong with this show in a second. Hollywood star power and production aside, if anybody cared, you don't think they'd ask, hey why are our fairy tale movies breaking all sorts of box office records but nobody wants to watch fairy tales on tv?

Oh yeah for sure. I think Quantico looks the worse now because there's nothing else they can do there to improve ratings. Moving it behind Bachelor and DWTS was the best they could do and it didn't work. Nothing else is going to revive it now. To be fair, it is really hard for new viewers to pick up a serialized drama which is why they tried a "reboot" and billing it as less serialized, but it was already too late. As for the pilots, I think the new Marc Cherry one and Libby & Malcolm are sure bets. To me, the comedy pilots look stronger than the dramas. At least they got quite a few TV veterans on their comedy pilots so that's something. On the drama side, it's interesting that they're billing a good number of them as "dramadies."

The Dark Curse has been cheapened so I hope they don't go there again. I mean couldn't Rump channel ex-DO Hook and crush Emma's heart, the way Hook did with Merlin? Or vice versa, channel ex-DO Emma and crush Hook or Henry's heart? I forgot, how did Hook's dark curse get broken?

What is interesting is that if you look at the Live+7 numbers, Once, Quantico and AOS are pretty much even with one another. So more people are DVR'ing Quantico and AOS, while not many bother to even record Once any longer. Now I know that doesn't matter because it's not C3 or C7 numbers which is what brings in the money. But if you assume the same percentage of people don't fast forward commercials across all 3 shows, that the higher total DVR viewing in Quantico and AOS might be enough to close the gap with Once or make the difference much smaller. At the very least I think that the declining DVR numbers on top of the live numbers don't bode well for Once or a reboot, which is really just a soap opera. Soap viewers are hard-core loyal but once they break that habit, it's impossible to get them back. And it looks like more and more are breaking the Once habit. The audience isn't changing how they watch Once, they're just not watching at all. Dumping some of the cast would be that final push for some to finally take it off completely. Is the money they're saving with a cheaper cast going to make up for lower ratings? I still say their best bet would be to move it to Freeform or maybe they can sell it off to CW or another cable channel like Nashville/CMT. But I don't know how that selling thing works.