The Writers of OUAT: Because, Um, Magic, That's Why

[Curio]

5 minutes ago, YaddaYadda said:

But why is the focus on Regina's pain instead of Belle's pain or even Neal's pain?

Because, whether we like it or not—and no matter how many times the writers try to claim this show is an "ensemble"—OUAT is half Regina's. Ever since Season 2 ended, Snow got kicked out of the "Cool Girl's Club" and Emma and Regina share co-lead status now. Because of this, Regina gets all the long and flowery script descriptions where Adam & Eddy can barely contain their favoritism ("It's almost too much, even for our Queen."), while Snow, David, Belle, and Neal are just afterthoughts. It's always going to be Regina's pain over the others, sometimes even Emma. (See Regina's 5B finale Pity Party Monologue in Dead Neal's apartment.)

[Shanna Marie]

And we have yet more proof that these writers don't think about how normal human beings, or even these characters, would react to a situation. Why would anyone other than Neal and Belle be mourning Rumple? I don't necessarily expect them to be dancing around and singing a rousing chorus of "Ding-dong, the Dark One is dead," since he did sacrifice himself and out of respect for Neal and Belle, and Henry as his grandson, but he's largely responsible for most of the harm that's come to them. Regina shouldn't see him as a mentor and friend because he was only faking that so he could manipulate her into casting the curse (as she knew by that point, or should have known). As she said in a later episode, he made her into the Evil Queen. She murdered her father because of his manipulation. He sent the wraith after her. Would she be grieving at all when he died? He made Snow and David jump through all kinds of hoops so he could use them. The normal human reaction would have been to focus on comforting Belle and maybe reassuring Henry, while Neal grappled with some seriously mixed feelings. So maybe Snow and David tending to Belle while Regina and Emma focus on Henry, and Hook gives Neal a pat on the shoulder -- and all of them maybe a little in shock, but not truly grieving.

[sharky]

Well, to be fair, it's also Belle. Let's be honest: there's a hierarchy to these characters. To me, Emma, Regina and Gold are the main ones. I think the Charmings were as well, but have been pushed back in the ensemble a bit because of the less-than-meaty storylines they can give a pregnant Ginnifer. Then you have the next tier of characters. At the time, that was Neal, Belle and Hook (although he's obviously been pushed up). You can't focus on everyone. So instead you push the story along with the main people in your ensemble.

And of course, for that episode, there was ALOT going on. If you put it into context, instead of just a pulled script page, it probably makes more sense.

[KingOfHearts]

I'm not sure why Snow was pushed to the background after S2. The writers turned her into a babymaking grandma. She used to have an edge that gave her nuance and depth, but it was taken away. (Especially once Snowflake was born.) 

Quote

And of course, for that episode, there was ALOT going on. If you put it into context, instead of just a pulled script page, it probably makes more sense.

There was far less focus on Regina in that scene than the script implied. Of course she got her reaction shot and Neal asked her to finish the job they were set out to do (rightly so), but that was for plot reasons, not REC reasons.

[Rumsy4]

3 hours ago, AnotherCastle said:

Re: The Belle moment in Going Home:

There is a fan on tumblr who does collect scripts and sometimes shares scans of scenes (same person who put the full Skin Deep script online, so I'm pretty sure it's legit). She has deleted her original posts but the pics are still online on tumblr. Looks like in the script David was suppose to reach out to Belle but it changed during filming for whatever reason, maybe because looking at the script they wanted the focus to be on Regina rather than Rumple's loved ones:

Thanks for sharing! 

2 hours ago, Curio said:

Because, whether we like it or not—and no matter how many times the writers try to claim this show is an "ensemble"—OUAT is half Regina's. Ever since Season 2 ended, Snow got kicked out of the "Cool Girl's Club" and Emma and Regina share co-lead status now. Because of this, Regina gets all the long and flowery script descriptions where Adam & Eddy can barely contain their favoritism ("It's almost too much, even for our Queen."), while Snow, David, Belle, and Neal are just afterthoughts. It's always going to be Regina's pain over the others, sometimes even Emma. (See Regina's 5B finale Pity Party Monologue in Dead Neal's apartment.)

Boom. There's the reason. 

2 hours ago, Shanna Marie said:

Regina shouldn't see him as a mentor and friend because he was only faking that so he could manipulate her into casting the curse (as she knew by that point, or should have known). As she said in a later episode, he made her into the Evil Queen. She murdered her father because of his manipulation. He sent the wraith after her. Would she be grieving at all when he died?

I can see Regina having mixed feelings about Rumple. He was her mentor, and he also manipulated her. I don't have a problem per se with Regina feeling grief over Rumple's death. Some bonds are too strong to break. Even Rumple seems to care the most for Regina outside of himself, Henry, and Belle (which is not saying much, but...). In a way, it's as toxic and complex a relationship as the one between Regina and Snow. 

1 hour ago, KingOfHearts said:

There was far less focus on Regina in that scene than the script implied. 

At the very least, it shows how much the writers focus on exploring Regina's inner motivations than that of other charatcers. As someone else mentioned, the longest scene exploring someone's inner conflicts and motivations in S5 was Regina's light vs dark monologue to Emma in the S5 finale, and it had nothing to do with the rest of the season. I definitely think these scenes are examples of how the writers' obsession with Regina short-changes their writing for other charatcers. In their desire to give more depth/importance to Regina, they throw other charatcers under the bus (re: shots scene). 

[sharky]

2 hours ago, KingOfHearts said:

I'm not sure why Snow was pushed to the background after S2. The writers turned her into a babymaking grandma. She used to have an edge that gave her nuance and depth, but it was taken away. (Especially once Snowflake was born.) 

I think part of it is the writers don't know what to do with a pregnant actress. There are plenty of way to limit their roles while still giving them a storyline. There are plenty of props and clothes that can cover up a pregnancy. But now we have one baby and another on the way and it's obvious that the writers don't know what to do. So better to just marginalize all of that. I'm hoping once everyone gets back that they'll have something figured out for Snow. I've lost all hope for Belle. There is just so much wrong with that character at this point that adding a baby is just going to be a wash.

[Camera One]

LOL at the entire paragraph describing Regina's shock at seeing the death of her "friend and mentor".  What the hell?  You would need to be a mind reader to get that out of the scene.

From the script, after the Regina bit... "Turning to Neal.  Who's also in shock".   Congrats, you got the Afterthoughts Award.

[maryle]

I understand better why Regina as that long monologues in the final that even Emma never had or probably will.

That too just too bad!

[Camera One]

That detailed description would gave Lana information about how to act the scene.  Everyone else would need to make up their headcanon, I guess.

David places a comforting hand on Belle's shoulder.  How long should I hold my hand here, he wondered.  How many words have I said to Belle?  What the hell did she see in Rumplestiltskin?

Mary Margaret stared in shock.  She just remembered she left the oven on in the loft.  Were her muffins burned?  Just like she almost burned at the stake?  She glances over at Regina, who looked devastated.  I really should comfort her.  Or should I not?  Or should I?  Or should I not?  Won't she just snap at me?  Would I be okay with that?  Do I like being Mary Margaret or Snow?  Let's put that on pause for a few more seasons.

[Shanna Marie]

According to just about every screenwriting book or seminar I've seen, you're not supposed to put stuff like what the characters are feeling into the script, unless it's counter to what's implied by the action or dialogue (like non-obvious sarcasm). Then again, I guess you'd need script directions to tell you that Regina would be that torn up about the death of the person for whom her mother was killed to keep him alive, who manipulated her into killing her own father to cast the curse, and who sent a wraith to kill her.

Although the Regina focus didn't come through in the final episode, it is interesting that they made a point of calling out how Rumple's death affected Regina in the script -- more so than his own son. That does show is pretty clearly what their priorities are.

[Rumsy4]

14 minutes ago, Shanna Marie said:

According to just about every screenwriting book or seminar I've seen, you're not supposed to put stuff like what the characters are feeling into the script, unless it's counter to what's implied by the action or dialogue (like non-obvious sarcasm). 

That sounds odd to me. Why should they not put in information relevant and helpful to the actor?

[Shanna Marie]

2 minutes ago, Rumsy4 said:

That sounds odd to me. Why should they not put in information relevant and helpful to the actor?

Because that's the sort of thing that's up to the director and actor to figure out for themselves as part of their interpretation. Using this scene as an example, Lana should know her character and her character's relationship to Rumple well enough to show how Regina would react to Rumple's death. The script doesn't need to spell it out. It's considered "duh!" writing and the mark of an amateur (though I guess once you're running a show, you don't have to follow the rules). There was nothing in that description that was something an actor wouldn't have been able to come up with without being guided by the script. Meanwhile, it's up to the director to figure out the camera angles and who to focus on, and then they can put together different angles from the various takes in editing. You only put a direction in the script if a particular reaction is absolutely essential to the plot working and/or it goes contrary to what you'd assume from reading the dialogue. You can put specific actions, like Belle falling to her knees, but you don't say something like "Regina is sad about the loss of her friend and mentor," unless that's really important to the plot and not what we would have expected. So, say, if they'd had an antagonistic relationship all along and then Regina burst into tears at his death and we later learned that the antagonism was to mask an ongoing affair, you'd put the bursting into tears in the script because it goes counter to what we've been seeing and what would be natural to assume, and it's important to the plot to get that specific reaction, so both actor and director need to know to get that reaction in. But you generally don't have to tell actors to act stunned or sorrowful when they've just watched someone die. In fact, I just got a newsletter from a major screenwriting instructor whose article of the month was about how you shouldn't spell out characters' thoughts in the script. If you want to write interior monologue, become a novelist. This is really where the "show, don't tell" thing came from (advice that's usually right, though often overused and not always correct, but it actually came from screenwriting). If you've done your job and created a vivid character and written specific action and sharp dialogue that conveys the story and the character, you don't have to spell things like thoughts and feelings out to the actors.

[KingOfHearts]

That in-depth description of Regina's feelings sounds like they were stroking their fetish. A&E wanted to write themselves inside her brain because they loved it in there so much.

Quote

One of my recent pet peeves I've noticed when I read OUAT script snippets is when they write, "Character X is touched Character Y did something." It's Season 5+, shouldn't the writers trust their actors to make the judgement call on whether or not Character X is actually touched?

Yeah, it's written like we're in S1 and the actors are still trying to figure out the intricacies of their characters.

Quote

Adam & Eddy's tendency to write Regina's thoughts so specifically isn't necessarily a good thing, though. It might also be the reason why there are so many interesting unscripted moments between Hook and Emma, because if they're not being given very flowery descriptions in the scripts like Regina does, they have a lot more room to interpret their characters' actions/behaviors and add their own spin to a scene. 

This might have to do with why Captain Swan is fluid and organic and why Regina's writing is always so rigidly plot-driven. Regina is always feeling whatever A&E need her to feel in any given moment. The S5 finale is a perfect example. The whole "the Evil Queen is still inside me" crap didn't fit in at all. Because the writers were planning the Jekyll/Hyde split, they had to divide her psyche into two distinct flavors. But, given how Regina's developed over the past couple of seasons, this is a complete backflip. It really undermines Robin's death and her grieving process. Her flip-flopping is a direct effect of the on-demand emotional expectations in the scripts.

Lana doesn't seem very in-tune with her character either at times. What she has requested and discussed in interviews over the years have been more of her desires and thinking than Regina's. (For instance, Regina didn't want or need a boyfriend.) She follows that "wouldn't it be cool if" mentality, which is probably why A&E are so fond of her.

Edited June 23, 2016 by KingOfHearts

[Curio]

One of my recent pet peeves I've noticed when I read OUAT script snippets is when they write, "Character X is touched Character Y did something." It's Season 5+, shouldn't the writers trust their actors to make the judgement call on whether or not Character X is actually touched? One particular instance I can think of is the script tease from "Swan Song" that got cut out of the episode where Regina offered to go to the Underworld. In Adam & Eddy's script, they gave Emma a screen direction that says she's "touched" by Regina's offer. Shouldn't that be Jennifer Morrison's call? If Adam & Eddy didn't force that emotion into the script, I could see her interpreting Regina's offer to go to the Underworld as more of a shock or surprise rather than being "touched." I can imagine an in-character Emma giving raised eyebrows and a "wait, for real?" look, but because Adam & Eddy wrote the word "touched," Jen would have had to specifically interpret it that way and potentially change how she would initially perform it.

Adam & Eddy's tendency to write Regina's thoughts so specifically isn't necessarily a good thing, though. It might also be the reason why there are so many interesting unscripted moments between Hook and Emma, because if they're not being given very flowery descriptions in the scripts like Regina does, they have a lot more room to interpret their characters' actions/behaviors and add their own spin to a scene. 

Edited June 23, 2016 by Curio

[Rumsy4]

50 minutes ago, Shanna Marie said:

Because that's the sort of thing that's up to the director and actor to figure out for themselves as part of their interpretation. Using this scene as an example, Lana should know her character and her character's relationship to Rumple well enough to show how Regina would react to Rumple's death. The script doesn't need to spell it out. ... In fact, I just got a newsletter from a major screenwriting instructor whose article of the month was about how you shouldn't spell out characters' thoughts in the script. If you want to write interior monologue, become a novelist. This is really where the "show, don't tell" thing came from (advice that's usually right, though often overused and not always correct, but it actually came from screenwriting). If you've done your job and created a vivid character and written specific action and sharp dialogue that conveys the story and the character, you don't have to spell things like thoughts and feelings out to the actors.

Interesting. I guess if you have defined the character well through all the scripts, you wouldn't need to put in too many additional cues. 

[YaddaYadda]

37 minutes ago, Curio said:

One of my recent pet peeves I've noticed when I read OUAT script snippets is when they write, "Character X is touched Character Y did something." It's Season 5+, shouldn't the writers trust their actors to make the judgement call on whether or not Character X is actually touched? One particular instance I can think of is the script tease from "Swan Song" that got cut out of the episode where Regina offered to go to the Underworld. In Adam & Eddy's script, they gave Emma a screen direction that says she's "touched" by Regina's offer. Shouldn't that be Jennifer Morrison's call? If Adam & Eddy didn't force that emotion into the script, I could see her interpreting Regina's offer to go to the Underworld as more of a shock or surprise rather than being "touched." I can imagine an in-character Emma giving raised eyebrows and a "wait, for real?" look, but because Adam & Eddy wrote the word "touched," Jen would have had to specifically interpret it that way and potentially change how she would initially perform it.

Adam & Eddy's tendency to write Regina's thoughts so specifically isn't necessarily a good thing, though. It might also be the reason why there are so many interesting unscripted moments between Hook and Emma, because if they're not being given very flowery descriptions in the scripts like Regina does, they have a lot more room to interpret their characters' actions/behaviors and add their own spin to a scene. 

I see it as them trying to force something as opposed to letting it happen organically. 

[Camera One]

I suppose if a writer is very anal-retentive and wants everything exactly as they envision it, they may not be open to having the director and/or the actors decide or figure it out.  A&E wanted Emma to be obviously touched, since the story they clearly wanted to tell was Emma and Regina's growing closeness and friendship.  It would be a waste of time for them to sift through a thousand takes with a thousand different ways Emma reacts if they know exactly how they want her to respond.

[Curio]

That's kind of the point I was trying to make—after five years of the actors becoming more comfortable in their character's roles, you'd think they would know what direction the writers want to take a scene/episode/arc because they're the ones who live and breathe the characters every day. With the specific example of Emma reacting to Regina's offer in Swan Song, I still don't sense an organic connection between the characters. As an outsider who only has the on-screen canon to use with no written script cues, the characters I'm shown on screen wouldn't have reacted the same way Adam & Eddy wrote their emotional cue in the script. My initial instinct is that an in-character Emma wouldn't be all that "touched" by Regina offering to go to the Underworld because Emma made a huge sacrifice for Regina in the Season 4 finale and was never actually thanked for it. So instead of a realistic human reaction like, "Well, you do kind of owe me after I took on the darkness for you," Adam & Eddy have to write an inorganic emotional beat just to fit their specific plot they want to write for in that moment...and because of the REC.

A good writing team shouldn't have to include the words "Emma is touched" because if everything they wrote leading up to that moment makes logical sense, the actors will probably portray it fairly close to what the writers had in mind. That's why television is a collaborative medium. If it's an important plot point like Emma going off to forgive her parents at the end of 4B and the writers really need Emma to emotionally react a certain way to Snow, then I can understand giving a very specific emotional beat. But just a 2-second shot of Emma reacting to Regina in the loft shouldn't call for a specific emotional reaction—a small moment like that should be up to the actor and director to decide. And if the actor doesn't portray it exactly the way the writer wants? Well, maybe that's a sign that something in the writing needs to change and become more organic.

I wish I was a fly on the wall when Ginny was reading the emotional beats she was forced to follow during the "cheating is okay" chat with Regina in 4A. I got the sense from Ginny's interview that she had a tough time initially understanding why her character was reacting that way, and if there were certain words like "touched" or "she's pained for her friend," I can see why she felt boxed in. If it was just the dialogue straight up on the page with no emotional direction, maybe she would have played the scene more sarcastically or something because she knows her character's history with Regina and the slut-shaming in Season 1. But I'd bet that there were some very specific emotional beats in there.

Quote

I suppose if a writer is very anal-retentive and wants everything exactly as they envision it, they may not be open to having the director and/or the actors decide or figure it out.

The best way to solve this is to have a designated writer on set who can consult with the director and actors while they film. Unfortunately, because of the Los Angeles/Vancouver location issue, that's probably not feasible...but it would really improve the show's continuity.

Edited June 23, 2016 by Curio

[Camera One]

The Writers create an atmosphere where the actors can't predict/aren't told what will happen because it's such a surprise.  Including how their characters would react to any given situation, I guess.  

[KingOfHearts]

2 hours ago, Camera One said:

The Writers create an atmosphere where the actors can't predict/aren't told what will happen because it's such a surprise.  Including how their characters would react to any given situation, I guess.  

While I believe it's bad practice to write for surprises as much as A&E do, they should go about it more creatively in order to make it fit the characters. With Dark Swan, for example, her "evil" persona could have stemmed from her actually embracing the darkness for legitimate reasons. Those feelings of rejection should have haunted her very core. But instead we got a convoluted Dark Ones plot involving memory loss and make-it-up-as-you-go Excalibur mechanics. I'm alright with shocking twists and turns, such as the S1 or 3A cliffhangers. But they shouldn't require OOC actions or silly contrivances to function. 

[Camera One]

Strangely, Dark Swan's actions did fit Emma's character (with a few exceptions listed below), since she didn't actually do anything evil in Storybrooke.  Her only embrace of "evil" was believing they should kill Zelena, which makes sense given Zelena (and Arthur) were who screwed everyone over.  

There were just too many other ways in which Emma could have played the game more intelligently, including making herself actually look like Emma, but erasing everyone's memory that she was the Dark One in the first place.  They could still have surprised us by revealing that Emma was still the Dark One but so was Hook.  Instead of having Dark Swan misleadingly act like a bad guy (because why would Emma risk letting the Furies get Robin?  or tie Merida to the front of a car?) for half a season.  That's what made the whole arc feel pointless.

Edited June 24, 2016 by Camera One

[KingOfHearts]

3 hours ago, Camera One said:

Strangely, Dark Swan's actions did fit Emma's character (with a few exceptions listed below), since she didn't actually do anything evil in Storybrooke.  Her only embrace of "evil" was believing they should kill Zelena, which makes sense given Zelena (and Arthur) were who screwed everyone over.  

Most of them were, but the big twist was that Emma had turned into Dark Swan and supposedly embraced the darkness. That whole ending scene in 5x01 where she stones Sleepy and strokes Snow's cheek would have been so much more weighted if it were who she truly became. It's the "Oh my gosh! Evil Emma!" element that didn't fit. (Which is a large part of the fact Storybrooke was unnecessary up until 5x08.)

Edited June 24, 2016 by KingOfHearts

[Shanna Marie]

9 minutes ago, KingOfHearts said:

It's the "Oh my gosh! Evil Emma!" element that didn't fit.

That's the problem, that they wrote for the aha moment, to give that shock, but once we knew what was really happening, it didn't really make sense, given Emma's plans and goals. To get that cool revelation of totally (but not really) Dark Emma, it required Idiot Plotting, since that was the worst thing she could have done to achieve her goal. She wasn't angry at her family (unless maybe she was a little mad that they tried to talk her out of tethering Hook to Excalibur, except she didn't seem to be once we saw what happened). She had no reason to be angry at the dwarfs. It was all for the benefit of the audience, to make us wonder what happened. It wasn't what the character -- or any reasonably intelligent person -- would do.

I'm seeing the discussion of recent events on Game of Thrones, with people complaining that a certain thing was done because it was cool and the writers were aiming for a surprise (that wasn't), but making that thing happen required the characters to do stupid things, some of which were out of character, and I find myself thinking, "Oh, honey, if only you knew ..." based on OUAT, where that's pretty much the standard for the writing.

[Camera One]

I definitely agree.  I think the Writers would claim that Emma stoning the dwarf and stroking Snow's cheek like a creep was her way of making sure her family and friends stay away from her, so they wouldn't discover the truth and so she could try to fix things on her own instead of working together which always works out soooooooo well.   So for me, more egregious were the things that nobody else saw but were totally unnecessary, like tying Merida to the front of the car, even though she had magic.  That was for the sole reveal of Emma's "secret weapon" and the sight gag.  

[Shanna Marie]

There's "keeping everyone at a distance" and then there's wearing a big, flashy button that says "Ask me about my evil schemes!" The way she was acting, she was practically begging Hook to dig into what happened to her and what she was up to. She could have been more or less normal but needing time alone.

[KingOfHearts]

Quote

That was for the sole reveal of Emma's "secret weapon" and the sight gag.  

"I need you to make him... brave." Wouldn't be surprised if that whole scene was written just for that line to be said. 

Quote

There's "keeping everyone at a distance" and then there's wearing a big, flashy button that says "Ask me about my evil schemes!" The way she was acting, she was practically begging Hook to dig into what happened to her and what she was up to. She could have been more or less normal but needing time alone.

Yes. Emma could have been pretended she lost her memories too, but "winking" to the audience that something wasn't right. So the whole time, the audience would know she's hiding something, but only that she's a Dark One - not that she made Hook one as well.

Edited June 24, 2016 by KingOfHearts

[Camera One]

Quote

There's "keeping everyone at a distance" and then there's wearing a big, flashy button that says "Ask me about my evil schemes!"

LOL, heroes aren't exactly the brightest bulbs in the box on this show.

Edited June 24, 2016 by Camera One

[maryle]

Well, A and E ride again!  I never thought about Sinbad but I love it ! And Shereazade can go so many way. CS google on I even find some thing to love about it!  It does peak my interest more than Hydes and Evil Queen because it is so let field. So Untold story could be a good time!!

[Shanna Marie]

14 hours ago, Camera One said:

LOL, heroes aren't exactly the brightest bulbs in the box on this show.

The villains aren't much better. A lot of the evil schemes are mostly foiled by the villains' own stupidity. Regina gets partial credit -- since Rumple was planning the Savior back door loophole to the curse, he probably would have warned the Charmings about it even if Regina hadn't made her splashy public announcement that within a year or so she'd be doing something awful, giving them plenty of time to plan. But then she led to her own downfall by trying to put Emma under a sleeping curse when Emma had already announced her plan to leave town. If Regina had just let her leave town and had been willing to give her occasional access to Henry, the curse wouldn't have been broken. Zelena foiled her own plan by telling the good guys all about it, giving them a chance to stop her, and then when she got a do-over with the memory spell, she did it again by turning people into flying monkeys, basically letting them know that the Wicked Witch was in town. Maybe she was trying to keep anyone from leaving town and reaching Emma, but the people who got monkeyfied weren't people who'd be contacting Emma, and she kept doing it after Emma was in town. That basically was waving a red flag to alert everyone in town that there was a threat. If she hadn't done that, it was possible that she could have done what she needed to cast the time travel spell while everyone was sidetracked on trying to figure out what was up with the curse.

Ingrid was a great villain, but if you look at her story, her actions make little sense. Her goal was to get Emma and Elsa to reject everyone else and love her, with the three of them pulling together as magical sisters. But then all her actions led to them resisting that even more. There was no point to freezing Marian to try to frame Elsa, since she was a newcomer in town and her fate was unlikely to rouse the townspeople to avenge her, and the giant ice walls surrounding the town were enough to make people suspicious of a human icemaker. That was clearly the writers getting Marian out of the way for Robin and Regina. Threatening Emma's family and friends and openly trying to turn Emma against her family only made her know what was going on. If Ingrid had just hung out in her ice cream shop, claimed to have a backup generator for the power outage, and cast the Shattered Sight spell without letting Emma know about it, then maybe Emma might have been disillusioned about the way she saw people acting. Or not. But with her knowing what Ingrid was up to, it was guaranteed that nothing was going to change her mind.

This is what happens when you write to create cool moments without thinking about what people would really do and what steps they'd take toward their goals. People have to be stupid or behave out of character to make the cool moments happen, and then the cool moments end up having little to do with the outcome (like Emma's Dark Swan act at the beginning of the season), so it just looks even dumber.

[Camera One]

Quote

 but if you look at her story, her actions make little sense.

Quote

This is what happens when you write to create cool moments without thinking about what people would really do and what steps they'd take toward their goals.

That's one of the major problems with the writing on the show.  Much is written for pure intrigue.  In hindsight, many things make little sense.  But by the time the season is ending, most people have forgotten all the pointless teases along the way. I know the friend I watch with is that way.  Though one thing she did remember in 5A was "Wait a minute... why did they have to find Nimue again?"  

She's visiting again soon so I might get to marathon 5B.

Edited June 24, 2016 by Camera One

[KingOfHearts]

Quote

That's one of the major problems with the writing on the show.  Much is written for pure intrigue.  In hindsight, many things make little sense.  But by the time the season is ending, most people have forgotten all the pointless teases along the way. I know the friend I watch with is that way.  Though one thing she did remember in 5A was "Wait a minute... why did they have to find Nimue again?"  

Remember Ingrid and Rumple's conversation in the woods? The audience sure didn't by the time 4x10 came around.

Edited June 24, 2016 by KingOfHearts

[Curio]

You might as well ignore all the vague villainous threats in the beginning episodes because they're meaningless by the end of the season.

[Camera One]

We can probably forget half of what Hyde said in the finale.  Remember The Apprentice Version 4B vs. The Apprentice Version 5A.

[YaddaYadda]

Sounds like Adam is still writing the premiere (6x01). I always thought they were a good 2 episodes ahead in the writing before they started filming. 

I also know what you guys will zero in on regarding that tweet.

Edited June 24, 2016 by YaddaYadda

[Shanna Marie]

Quote

“As always with this show,” Kitsis adds, “once the audience gets onto what we’re doing, we have to change it.”

I was going to say that this explains so much about the writing of the show, if they have to change once the audience gets into something, but on second glance, it said "onto," which I suppose means once the audience figures it out. And that makes little sense -- if the audience has figured out what you're doing, it's probably too late to change it because they have to have seen it to figure it out, and by the time the early episodes have aired, the later episodes are already being filmed. Or do they mean the audience thinks the show is going one way, and they have to make it be something else? But they haven't done that. Each arc has followed a fairly predictable pattern. The character centric episodes even tend to line up, arc to arc. I guess maybe he means that they switch plots so quickly that we don't have time to get bored with them, but that's not even necessarily true, and it also means that they skip past things that needed more development or they skip over things entirely.

[Curio]

I think he means that the audience has generally come to accept that the show's formula for the past few seasons has been: 1) New villain is introduced, 2) Each main character gets a centric, leading up to a 3) Penultimate episode that actually defeats the villain, and the finale is 4) Completely unrelated to the main arc. Eddy made that joke about Hyde not coming in for 11 episodes and then being defeated, which is how 6A would have gone if they went with the usual formula.

But what ends up happening is that they overcompensate and do drastic "surprise twists" that come out of nowhere with no build up. They try to keep the show a mystery by never showing their cards, which is ironically a tactic they always do, so it's now become a predictable joke that we know that they won't give us the information we need until the very end. 

Honestly, if there's a well-written show, I don't mind catching onto what's happening if the clues are slowly dropped along the way. The viewer likes to solve the mystery along the way, and part of the thrill of finding out the answer is seeing if you were right. If they feel the need to change constantly because they don't want viewers guessing what they're doing, it's a sign to me that the writing and story itself isn't strong enough on its own. If the show was more character-driven and less plot-driven, they wouldn't feel the constant need to surprise us at every turn because there's plenty of story left to tell with the characters just interacting with each other and growing their relationships.

Edited June 28, 2016 by Curio

[Camera One]

Eddy made that joke about Hyde not coming in for 11 episodes and then being defeated, which is how 6A would have gone if they went with the usual formula.

I actually think it's not the usual formula that's the problem.  It's how they plot out, pace, and develop (or underdevelop) both mythology and characterization, which is the real problem.  As usual, he thinks taking a sharp right turn is what will make a good story.  The problem goes so much deeper than that.

[KingOfHearts]

I don't hate the formula either. In 3A and 5B it worked well. Like Camera One said, the problem is on how it's executed. 5A, 4A, and 4B all had serious pacing issues. They would get choppy with instances like The Bear King immediately following Birth. Slowing down midway with some character centrics is fine, but they should benefit whatever character is showcased with some actual development.

[Curio]

I have a feeling The Bear King was a last-minute decision forced onto the writers by ABC, and because of scheduling or timing issues, they had to put it in the worst spot possible in the episode lineup.

But I don't understand why there have to be "centrics" and awful pacing to begin with. Merida didn't have to stick out like a sore thumb and be paired randomly with Belle on a side adventure that didn't mean much in the long run. Merida could have interacted with Robin Hood because it makes sense that they might have had an archery past together, and we could have learned Robin's backstory on why he felt that he was responsible for Marian's death. (Oh wow, a plot detail we'll never know the story to...) Same idea with Snow, who is another archer. If it makes sense that two characters might interact with each other, then let them interact! Don't avoid it just because it seems like the "obvious" choice. If it seems obvious, then you did your job as a writer by properly setting it up! (Conversely, be careful pairing two characters together because it's the least obvious choice. I'm looking at you, Regina, invading Hook's flashback about his father.)

I get that this is an ensemble show, but there are plenty of other shows with just as large of a main cast (sometimes larger) and they balance all the characters without making the episodes too centric-focused. VEEP has a great main cast with Selina, Amy, Dan, Ben, Gary, Sue, Mike, Jonah, Kent, Catherine, Richard...their cast is huge. And yet I know that I'll always see a decent portion of that cast week after week. There isn't the special "Gary" episode, or the "Dan" episode, or the "Ben" episode, they all just interact with each other with fairly even screen time and importance. Obviously some of the characters are more important than the others, but I never feel like the supporting characters are short-changed like I do on this show. As I said above, a lot of that comes down to a focus on character-driven stories versus plot-driven stories.

Edited June 29, 2016 by Curio

[YaddaYadda]

Quote

I get that this is an ensemble show, but there are plenty of other shows with just as large of a main cast (sometimes larger) and they balance all the characters without making them too centric-focused. VEEP has a great main cast with Selina, Amy, Dan, Ben, Gary, Sue, Mike, Jonah, Kent, Catherine, Richard...their cast is huge. And yet I know that I'll always see a decent portion of that cast week after week. There isn't the special "Gary" episode, or the "Dan" episode, or the "Ben" episode, they all just interact with each other with fairly even screen time and importance. Obviously some of the characters are more important than the others, but I never feel like the supporting characters are short-changed like I do on this show. As I said above, a lot of that comes down to a focus on character-driven stories versus plot-driven stories.

I feel like the writers put the centrics in because they don't know what to write. This is why I rage against the flashbacks. VEEP is 30 minutes (if that), and 10 episodes a year, it's a bit different than Once, but at the same time, we know the characters so well, we understand the dynamics at play between the different characters, and in 30 minute show, that has had a lot less than 100 episodes, ALL the characters have interacted.

Hook and Snow have barely spoken. As far as I'm concerned, those two don't have a relationship. Belle has no relationships outside of Rumple, and maybe Hook, and Leroy. Instead of doing flashbacks and centrics, they should really focus on building relationships. This is 6 seasons in, and more than 100 episodes in, and there are main characters that have never interacted. 

[Katherine]

5 hours ago, Curio said:

I think he means that the audience has generally come to accept that the show's formula for the past few seasons has been: 1) New villain is introduced, 2) Each main character gets a centric, leading up to a 3) Penultimate episode that actually defeats the villain, and the finale is 4) Completely unrelated to the main arc. Eddy made that joke about Hyde not coming in for 11 episodes and then being defeated, which is how 6A would have gone if they went with the usual formula.

But what ends up happening is that they overcompensate and do drastic "surprise twists" that come out of nowhere with no build up. They try to keep the show a mystery by never showing their cards, which is ironically a tactic they always do, so it's now become a predictable joke that we know that they won't give us the information we need until the very end. 

Honestly, if there's a well-written show, I don't mind catching onto what's happening if the clues are slowly dropped along the way. The viewer likes to solve the mystery along the way, and part of the thrill of finding out the answer is seeing if you were right. If they feel the need to change constantly because they don't want viewers guessing what they're doing, it's a sign to me that the writing and story itself isn't strong enough on its own. If the show was more character-driven and less plot-driven, they wouldn't feel the constant need to surprise us at every turn because there's plenty of story left to tell with the characters just interacting with each other and growing their relationships.

Well said! I have two main issues with the writing on this show. The first is that the writers have very thin skin when it comes to their fans. They handle criticism poorly and end up trying to please everyone in order to avoid more criticism, but this comes at the expense of the meatiest parts of the story. In my mind, CS in 5B is a good example of this. The arc started out by mirroring CS with Snowing, but the writers received a lot of criticism from a portion of the fandom, so they backed off and ended the arc with a 30 second reunion.

The second issue is that, as Curio articulated, the writers are obsessed with surprising the audience with random twists. It's like they confuse shock value with good writing. But they're completely misinterpreting their audience. I doubt most fans are watching a fluffy fairytale show for the brilliant twists and plot!plot!plot! I would guess that the majority of fans fell in love with this show because of the characters and the potential of the relationship-driven stories. I also think fan criticism is another issue here. The writers receive criticism based on speculation so they decide to go in another direction in order to prove those fans wrong. I wonder if the reason we got Ruby Slippers instead of Mulan Rouge was simply that the writers knew everyone was expecting Mulan Rouge.

[Camera One]

Quote

But I don't understand why there have to be "centrics" and awful pacing to begin with.

The reason is it's what the writers are used to, and it's a comfortable format for them.  It's the exact format they used in "Lost".  Their new show "Dead of Summer":

Spoiler

Interviewer: Both Once Upon a Time and Lost are very flashback-heavy. How much of that is going to be part of Dead of Summer?

Kitsis: One hundred percent. … We are going to be flashing back to where these characters were before they got to camp. Do they have a secret? Is there something haunting them? What did they come to camp with? Every episode we’re going to be exploring a character’s flashback and life pre-camp.

  Having said that, "Lost", at least in their first few seasons, was able to use centrics while still allowing characters to grow and develop and act like real people in the B or C plot even when the episode wasn't their centric.  That has not been the case with "Once" since the first season.  For some of the "main" characters, the centric is the ONLY time they get to act like a real human being.  So again, it's not necessarily the format which is the constraint, but the way it's handled.  It's like A&E use the centric method to get the boring characters out of the way and to fulfil their "quota".

Quote

Merida didn't have to stick out like a sore thumb and be paired randomly with Belle on a side adventure that didn't mean much in the long run.

That explains this because Belle "needed" a centric, and Merida needed an inspirational cheerleader.  I agree fellow archers Robin Hood and Snow would have made more sense, but given how abrasive Merida was, it wouldn't have been much better.  The Writers rely on luck of the draw casting.  

Quote

As I said above, a lot of that comes down to a focus on character-driven stories versus plot-driven stories.

Well said.  That essentially is the main problem.  It's almost always characters serving a plot.

Edited June 29, 2016 by Camera One

[Serena]

I hope Dead of Summer is a success because I like Elizabeth Lail, but ugh, flashbacks again. 

[Curio]

7 hours ago, Serena said:

I hope Dead of Summer is a success 

I wouldn't get your hopes up...

Quote

Los Angeles Times
As with an Ikea product, each of these parts makes some sort of sense when viewed on its own, but the proof is in the assembly, and the creative team appears to have lost the Allen wrench that would make this possible. Using the narrative equivalent of duct tape, they attempt to stick one implausible scene/event to another, over and over again, until whatever shape they originally had in mind becomes a leaning, creaking, misshapen jumble that might be frightening if it weren’t so obviously made of, you know, duct tape.  

Quote

The Hollywood Reporter
The series lacks the tonal consistency and pervasive fun to achieve even a low level of Scooby-Doo-ishness, but deciding "We're being this bad intentionally" at least covers a few sins. I suspect, though, that Dead of Summer is just run-of-the-mill unintentionally bad — a mishmash of genres and structures and stock characters that maybe aspires to something original and falls flat. 

Quote

Variety
At the very least, while escaping the dog days of summer inside with the air-conditioning, there’s plenty of fun to be had in laughing at how bad it is.

Quote

A.V. Club
Each counselor is a gloss on a stock type quickly refuted by a portentous history, and even the more capable actors [...] are frequently defeated by the clumsy dialogue. Within 20 minutes, someone’s dead, but because the show must go on, this camp doesn’t even pause for a funeral.

I bolded the quotes that could easily apply to OUAT. (Yes, that entire Los Angeles Times quote needed to be bolded.) I have to chuckle at some of the reviews I'm reading because it's obvious the journalists haven't paid attention to A&E's writing on OUAT for a few years now. A lot of the reporters seem to be surprised that Dead of Summer is so bad because it comes from "prestigious" Lost writers, and surely OUAT must be good if it's still on the air. But for those of us who have actually kept up with OUAT all five seasons and have meticulously picked apart its writing, these reviews come as no surprise. Dead of Summer is basically OUAT without the amazing actors to enhance the cheesy writing.

I also had to laugh at this piece from the A.V. Club review:

Quote

There’s a silly delight to be had in playing “guess the upcoming plotline”—the series has so many Chekhov’s guns it pulls off the mantle between seemingly each commercial break, it could easily rob the entire cast of a more well-rounded show.

Just like with OUAT, it appears that A&E are introducing Chekov's Arsenal, only to (most likely) ignore most of the tools and introduce something random later on. I want to pat the reporter on the head and say, "Listen, I know you think you might be able to guess the upcoming plotline, and I know that there are so many Chekhov guns lying around, but trust me...it's all useless."

Is it bad that I'm okay with Dead of Summer tanking? It's obvious that OUAT will never get new showrunners, so I'd rather have A&E focusing all of their time on this cheesy show instead of spreading their time too thin and making two mediocre shows at the same time.

Edited June 29, 2016 by Curio

[Rumsy4]

Quote

As always with this show,” Kitsis adds, “once the audience gets onto what we’re doing, we have to change it.”

Yeah--A&E rely way too much on twists and turns. But in this specific instance, Eddy's words are code for "our abc overlords made us switch back from the split-season format, and we're trying to save face by taking credit for it".

I'm perversely overjoyed at the criticism for Dead of Summer. I have a feeling A&E are convinced they're great writers and anyone who criticizes OUAT is too biased one way or the other. I hope it will now enter into their heads to wonder if their writing really is cliched and hackneyed. 

Edited June 29, 2016 by Rumsy4

[YaddaYadda]

I've kind of been laughing everytime I see A&E called master storytellers. 

Because they're really not. 

They're two people who had this awesome idea, and have no clue how to execute. It's sad, but they're not capable. Imagine if those guys had been doing Game of Thrones instead? It's a fantasy world, there's 5 books out. They would have managed to fuck that up pretty badly, I'm sure. GRRM, sit down, let us take over, we know what we're doing.

What I can't with A&E, and especially the E in A&E is the arrogance. At this point, the reason I even still bother with Once is the characters that I'm really attached to. And being part of this community makes it a bit more difficult to quit.

[Camera One]

Those quotes were spot on, Curio. 

Even if "Dead of Summer" was great, A&E style of setup prevents the show from becoming a long-term series where characters can develop and grow over multiple seasons.  All their surprise twist reveals via flashback will be done by the end of Season 1, and then what?  The survivors come back to camp the following year, and someone brings magic back?  They only seem to have the ability to write for the short-term titillation, though from those reviews, apparently even not that.

Edited June 29, 2016 by Camera One

[Curio]

4 hours ago, Rumsy4 said:

I'm perversely overjoyed at the criticism for Dead of Summer. I have a feeling A&E are convinced they're great writers and anyone who criticizes OUAT is too biased one way or the other. I hope it will now enter into their heads to wonder if their writing really is cliched and hackneyed. 

In a weird way, it's nice to see some brutally honest reviews that say exactly what we've been discussing in this thread. Sometimes it seems like journalists are too afraid to attack OUAT with the biting criticism it deserves because it's been on the air so long and still gets relatively decent ratings for the network, but seeing these Dead of Summer reviews gives me a sense of validation that my criticism of the writing on OUAT isn't all in my head.

Edited June 29, 2016 by Curio

[KingOfHearts]

The clunky writing in DoS was more apparent because A&E didn't have the "it's just fairy tales" excuse. The teenagers were more like stereotypes than real 80s youth. (Pretty much the Breakfast Club without the satire.) So, again, the writers were more interested in iconography than depth. But they don't capitalize on the campiness, so that intent falls flat. 

As with Chekov's Arsenal mentioned above, I kept waiting for payoff that never happened.

[YaddaYadda]

At this point, I think it might get a bit difficult for them to get their own shows after Once folds. I think they gave them Dead of Summer on Freeform to see if they could possibly give them another show after Once is done. But I think that ship is slowly sailing. 

I didn't even bother tuning in to see what their new show looks like because they said they would use the same formula as they do with Once. Since I'm not interested, I decided not to put myself through the aggravation.

I don't know how many episodes they have for Dead of Summer, but they seem to be writing with only one other writer thus far (Ian Goldberg). The first episode was written by him and A&E. 3 writers for something that sounds kind of awful.

I hope they keep busy with that, and leave the main show alone even though they did write 6x01.