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

[KingOfHearts]

It's okay if a character makes a mistake, but after they "learn their lesson" multiple times, it makes them unlikable. After a while, the mistake becomes natural behavior for the character and not just human error. There's a difference between regretting murdering someone and being a serial killer. What's frustrating is that the audience is hit over a mallet with the "lesson" but it flips backwards not soon after. The writers waste time trying to convince us that what we're watching is development. The characters are always presented with the same problems and rarely anything new. They go from being people to being caricatures thrown into random situations.

Character resets wouldn't be such a big deal if this were a case-of-the-week formula. But this is supposed to be serialized in the same vein as Lost.

[Shanna Marie]

3 hours ago, Rumsy4 said:

In addition to the huge untapped potential in the writing, another huge pet peeve of mine is their tendency to have characters backslide or retconning them into worse versions of themselves.

I think a lot of that has to do with them being so impatient in their writing that they jump ahead to what should be the conclusion for the characters, and then realize they have nowhere to go, so they then have to backtrack or contrive things, or else do a lot of flip-flopping.

So, there's Regina's "redemption," where they jumped straight to Regina being a full-on hero who was best friends with her former victims, only now there's not really anything to do with her because there's not that much room for growth or relationship development. That results in her flip-flopping, teases of her going back to her evil ways (without her really doing it), and bizarre contrivances like splitting herself. If they'd slowed down some and made her redemption more of a process and had developed her relationships with Snow and Emma in stages, they'd have had a lot more material to work with and she would have been on an arc instead of weird loops.

Or there's Rumple and Belle's relationship, where they were so eager to jump to full-on Rumpbelle (and I guess please the 'shippers who got so excited about them in season one) that they went straight to being in a relationship after the curse, with her sleeping in his bed. Never mind that he'd actually become worse since she left him after he refused to let the TLK break his curse. Then they never dealt with such serious issues as her learning that he'd murdered his first wife (and had withheld that truth from her) or the things she saw him do when she was Lacey and didn't have her holding him back because they were too eager to play the "true loves separated" card when he was in Neverland. But since they were already together, the only thing to do with them was keep breaking them up and getting them back together again, over and over again. And yet, they never do actually deal with their issues.

With the Charmings, they never took any time showing them getting used to being together again and dealing with any of the stuff that happened to them because of the curse -- being separated, both of them being with other people, not being able to raise their daughter. Because they missed all the potential there and jumped straight to them being perfectly okay, they resorted to wacky stuff like the eggnapping to create conflict between them and Emma. There was so much room for conflict with Emma that it was unnecessary, but since they'd already made everything okay, they had to throw in new stuff instead of dealing with what was there.

Dark Hook instantly flipping to evil was a season pacing problem. They wasted a lot of time on side stories that went nowhere and had no consequences (like the sanding, Merida), and I guess they also wanted to delay their big "aha!" so they didn't have time to show a more gradual and believable slide. It was a good surprise, no matter when it came, but they seem to like to hold their twists until as late as possible rather than letting them come a little earlier and then really explore the consequences of the twist.

[andromeda331]

2 hours ago, Shanna Marie said:

I think a lot of that has to do with them being so impatient in their writing that they jump ahead to what should be the conclusion for the characters, and then realize they have nowhere to go, so they then have to backtrack or contrive things, or else do a lot of flip-flopping.

So, there's Regina's "redemption," where they jumped straight to Regina being a full-on hero who was best friends with her former victims, only now there's not really anything to do with her because there's not that much room for growth or relationship development. That results in her flip-flopping, teases of her going back to her evil ways (without her really doing it), and bizarre contrivances like splitting herself. If they'd slowed down some and made her redemption more of a process and had developed her relationships with Snow and Emma in stages, they'd have had a lot more material to work with and she would have been on an arc instead of weird loops.

Or there's Rumple and Belle's relationship, where they were so eager to jump to full-on Rumpbelle (and I guess please the 'shippers who got so excited about them in season one) that they went straight to being in a relationship after the curse, with her sleeping in his bed. Never mind that he'd actually become worse since she left him after he refused to let the TLK break his curse. Then they never dealt with such serious issues as her learning that he'd murdered his first wife (and had withheld that truth from her) or the things she saw him do when she was Lacey and didn't have her holding him back because they were too eager to play the "true loves separated" card when he was in Neverland. But since they were already together, the only thing to do with them was keep breaking them up and getting them back together again, over and over again. And yet, they never do actually deal with their issues.

With the Charmings, they never took any time showing them getting used to being together again and dealing with any of the stuff that happened to them because of the curse -- being separated, both of them being with other people, not being able to raise their daughter. Because they missed all the potential there and jumped straight to them being perfectly okay, they resorted to wacky stuff like the eggnapping to create conflict between them and Emma. There was so much room for conflict with Emma that it was unnecessary, but since they'd already made everything okay, they had to throw in new stuff instead of dealing with what was there.

Dark Hook instantly flipping to evil was a season pacing problem. They wasted a lot of time on side stories that went nowhere and had no consequences (like the sanding, Merida), and I guess they also wanted to delay their big "aha!" so they didn't have time to show a more gradual and believable slide. It was a good surprise, no matter when it came, but they seem to like to hold their twists until as late as possible rather than letting them come a little earlier and then really explore the consequences of the twist.

It really does have to do with their impatience. Which stinks because they have so much to work with. Its rare to have so many different characters with issues  for writers to work with.  Had they slowed down and worked through them, they could have spent seasons on the Charming family coming together and dealing with being separated, not being allowed to raise their daughter and Emma who spent her entire life alone and sent to jail by Henry's father. Charming and Snow dealing with Charming being "married" the last year and maybe even Charming being upset that Snow never pulled the trigger and killed Regina back in the Enchanted Force. Maybe Snow could have guilt at not killing Regina who then and went to do something even worse to get back at her, as well as anger at being terrorized for decades, her parents' being murdered, villagers dying for her, and forced to send her daughter away. Plus, with Henry in the mix knowing she can't take out Regina because her grandson was raised by Regina.

Regina for once being forced to deal with the fall out of her actions and angry town because she ripped apart families and murdered people. They had an excellent start to her redemption when she tried to take Henry with her by force only to let him go back to Charming when she realized she was her mother.  Her redemption should have and could have taken a lot longer with a lot more meatier stuff to work with. There's plenty of chances for slip ups. But wanting to be better for her son. Who still sees her as a monster and her own treatment of him. Also, the fall out from her learning her mother ranged for the murder of Snow's mother so Regina would become Queen. That should have had a much bigger impact. A new man in her life should have also brought a lot of material to work with. The first man since Daniel, and any man who liked her should have had issues with her crimes unless he was a criminal himself.

Rumple and Belle both should have a had a lot to work with too. Rumple finally achieves what he's been wanting for centuries finding his son.  The fall out from that, maybe his son is horrified at everything Rumple did to find him. Murdering and arranging everything to find him. The fall out from finally finding his son should have and could have fueled so much more. Or maybe he finds his son only to learn he was dead. Imagine him going to all that work for nothing? Belle who's spent most of her life a prisoner should have fueled stories in addition to navigating a relationship with Rumple. Belle could have made friends with the main cast on her own, maybe helped out with other victims locked up for decades. Maybe even just figure out life since she spent the entire curse locked up  she would have adjusting after that.

There's just so much that they could have done with each character and with the town itself. What do they do now that the Curse was broken? Keep doing the same jobs, changing, make a new government, try to figure out how to get home? Maybe there were many who didn't want to go back to Enchanted Forest, they liked their homes, modern life and had zero interested in going back to being ruled over by Kings and Queens, given how long they were terrorized by the Evil Queen and Rumple.  Even Henry should have had a lot more to do. Finally living with his mom and grandparents, but that should have been an adjustment along with his complex relationship with Regina. She didn't love him but now wants to be better for him.  She raised him but also he was scared of her, but maybe a little hope that she means it. Which would be harder for him to believe when she messes up. Now that the Curse is over he can finally make friends with kids in his class. But he's still different from them because he grew up in the modern world and they were born and grew up in the Enchanted Forest followed by a Curse. By his mother. The writers have so much to work with but choose not to instead wasting all of it. 

[KingOfHearts]

Was it completely necessary for Regina to have her memories in S1? I would think there would be more depth if she was just that bitchy, controlling mother who happened to be mayor. That would have made her more redeemable and relatable. But I guess the writers couldn't do without Graham's murder, arguments with Gold or elaborate Snow revenge plots. I would think Cursed!Regina would burn with the same dislike, but have the better ability to eventually realize how idiotic it all was.

If it were the writers' plan to make her an irredeemable villain, then the route they took was fine. But, if they wanted this three-dimensional human separated from the Evil Queen, she should have had the We Are Both thing going on. Out of all the characters, I believe she would be one of the most interesting if applied with that concept.

Edited September 14, 2016 by KingOfHearts

[Shanna Marie]

On 9/12/2016 at 11:43 PM, andromeda331 said:

Rumple finally achieves what he's been wanting for centuries finding his son.  The fall out from that, maybe his son is horrified at everything Rumple did to find him. Murdering and arranging everything to find him. The fall out from finally finding his son should have and could have fueled so much more.

That utterly baffles me, and I guess it's maybe more writer ADD than impatience. The truth behind why Rumple was engineering all this was one of their better surprise twists. It gave me that "oooooh, now I get it" response, and it even made me sympathize with Rumple a little. And then they totally botched it when Rumple finally found his son. They were too focused on Rumple and "Lacey" and on Neal with Tamara, setting up the storyline they ended up dropping, to actually have Neal and Rumple interacting. Then the impatience kicked in, and they jumped straight to "I love you, Papa," without dealing with all of Neal's anger over the years, without Neal reacting at all to all the horrible things Rumple did to find him, and without addressing the fact that Rumple murdered Neal's mother. They may have retconned that Neal "had no choice" but to ditch Emma, and supposedly that really hurt him, but he did it because she had a destiny to break the curse -- and then it turned out that it was his father who engineered that whole destiny as part of his journey to find him. And then they retconned further that Neal was actively seeking to destroy magic. I just don't get how they could ignore or not notice all the stuff they set up there.

As for their tendency to repeat certain lines in everything they write, I think in general that they aren't good at giving characters distinct voices. Anything that's there comes from the actors' performances. Otherwise, every character pretty much sounds like the writers. If you took the names off and just wrote down the dialogue without context and removed the really obvious things like Rumple's "dearie" or Hook's "mate" and "love," you wouldn't be able to tell who was speaking. They have common phrases that are used by all the characters ("did a number on" pops up a lot). There's not only no real distinction among characters, there's no real difference between the way characters who grew up in a fairy tale world and didn't get the memory implant talk and the way characters who lived in Storybrooke for 28 years talk. There's no real change between the characters in flashbacks and the characters in the present after living in Storybrooke (at least, not since season one, when they seemed to be trying a little). There's no real difference between cultures in the dialogue. There doesn't even seem to be any thought given to word choice and fitting that into the world. For instance, talk of "dating." It irked me when Hook talked to Emma about dating, since he's from another world that's a couple of centuries behind ours in culture and the concept of "dating" and use of that word is relatively recent, but you could kind of handwave that he's been reading magazines to try to catch up with this world and fit in with Emma. But then we had a pre-curse Belle talking about going on a date with Gaston.

[Rumsy4]

I cringe every time an EF character talks so familiarly about dating. Elsa talking about Anna and Kristoff dating was so odd too.

[Amerilla]

On 9/13/2016 at 10:23 PM, KingOfHearts said:

 

Was it completely necessary for Regina to have her memories in S1? I would think there would be more depth if she was just that bitchy, controlling mother who happened to be mayor. That would have made her more redeemable and relatable

 

 

That's a tricky one. The whole premise of Storybrooke-as-punishment for Regina's enemies was tissue-thin from the very start. (Users of magic use magic to take non-magic users to a place with no magic...huh? Coastal Maine? Plumbing? Electricity? Modern medicine? Plenty to eat? How horrible!) I think her having her have no memory would have just underscored, in a different way, how flimsy the whole thing was. As it is, she ended up with the punishment of awareness and the boredom of mayoral paperwork. When your emotional release is serially raping your sheriff, you're not a happy camper.

What I would have done is made it clear that Regina hadn't been in SB much for the first 20 years or so - that she'd been out there, living the high life, nipping in and out of town occasionally to jab at her enemies, refresh her appearance with her magical "juice cleanse" and restock her bank accounts from a stash. I would have made adopting Henry a crossroads for her: choose to live out your life as a regular mom in the real world, or retreat to SB. There would be any number of set-ups to make her choose SB, where she could declare herself mayor and we move forward. Since she would have interacted with the outside world, that would have set up long-term potential "enemies from without" plotlines. Starting with Emma, of course.    

[Shanna Marie]

4 hours ago, Amerilla said:

The whole premise of Storybrooke-as-punishment for Regina's enemies was tissue-thin from the very start. (Users of magic use magic to take non-magic users to a place with no magic...huh? Coastal Maine? Plumbing? Electricity? Modern medicine? Plenty to eat? How horrible!)

Yeah, if you think of that one too much, it kind of kills the whole show. The curse was mostly just handwaving a way to get fairy tale characters into modern America (and then they failed to actually use that concept). Making your enemies live mildly dissatisfying lives without them knowing that they're being punished, while you live a mildly dissatisfying (if luxurious and powerful) life seems like the lamest revenge scheme ever. They seemed to try to give more of a reason for it in season two, when they showed that Regina was no longer able to harm Snow while in their world, but then she didn't try to do anything to Snow once she had her in another world, so it just makes Regina look silly still. Then in season three flashbacks, you got the feeling that Regina didn't actually know the specifics of what the curse would do, just that it would punish her enemies and give her a happy ending, with Rumple selling her a bill of goods in order to carry out his own agenda, but then that also makes her look kind of foolish, if she was willing her murder her father without knowing what she was getting.

It might have worked better if Storybrooke was something the good guys created as their escape route from a curse that would have been truly devastating, and Regina hit them with the memory spells when she realized they were escaping, so they wouldn't know that Emma the Savior was out there (like Zelena did), but the Dark Curse was something else entirely and Storybrooke wasn't what Regina was actually planning. It still could have all been engineered by Rumple if he was the one who clued the good guys in on the escape route, and the escape route that punched through the barriers needed the energy of the Dark Curse to work.

[Mari]

It works a little better if you think of it as Regina getting played by Rumple.  He told her what she needed to hear, so that she would think it was worth casting.

[Shanna Marie]

35 minutes ago, Mari said:

It works a little better if you think of it as Regina getting played by Rumple.  He told her what she needed to hear, so that she would think it was worth casting.

He definitely played her, but you'd think that she'd want more specifics about a curse requiring her to kill the person she loved most. When they showed her waking up in Storybrooke, she was initially pleased by what she found, but she still acted like it was all unexpected. She seemed to have just taken Rumple on faith that she'd be getting her happy ending, without any specifics about what form that would take. Then again, that's consistent with her and the search for the Author to give her a happy ending, without any specifics about what that would look like.

[Camera One]

I thought the whole point for Regina to want to go to the Land Without Magic was that she couldn't hurt Snow in the Enchanted Forest.  There's no way she would otherwise even want to go to a Land Without Magic.  So I still don't buy why she didn't kill Snow in Storybrooke.  I also don't get why she didn't try to rape Charming after Snow ate the apple.

Edited September 16, 2016 by Camera One

[KingOfHearts]

1 hour ago, Camera One said:

I thought the whole point for Regina to want to go to the Land Without Magic was that she couldn't hurt Snow in the Enchanted Forest.  There's no way she would otherwise even want to go to a Land Without Magic.  So I still don't buy why she didn't kill Snow in Storybrooke.  I also don't get why she didn't try to rape Charming after Snow ate the apple.

Any other realm would have worked, I think. Rumple was very precise in saying, "In this realm." But I agree that Regina didn't much reason to go to a Land Without Magic. Magic wasn't here problem - it was the people who didn't have very much of it. Basically, what she needed was a place where she had magic and no one else did.

Quote

Yeah, if you think of that one too much, it kind of kills the whole show. The curse was mostly just handwaving a way to get fairy tale characters into modern America (and then they failed to actually use that concept). Making your enemies live mildly dissatisfying lives without them knowing that they're being punished, while you live a mildly dissatisfying (if luxurious and powerful) life seems like the lamest revenge scheme ever. 

Replying in Continuity.

Edited September 17, 2016 by KingOfHearts

[Mitch]

On 9/13/2016 at 9:23 PM, KingOfHearts said:

Was it completely necessary for Regina to have her memories in S1? I would think there would be more depth if she was just that bitchy, controlling mother who happened to be mayor. That would have made her more redeemable and relatable. But I guess the writers couldn't do without Graham's murder, arguments with Gold or elaborate Snow revenge plots. I would think Cursed!Regina would burn with the same dislike, but have the better ability to eventually realize how idiotic it all was.

If it were the writers' plan to make her an irredeemable villain, then the route they took was fine. But, if they wanted this three-dimensional human separated from the Evil Queen, she should have had the We Are Both thing going on. Out of all the characters, I believe she would be one of the most interesting if applied with that concept.

Yea, I always thought that the redemption would work better with Regina having cursed memories..and wouldn't Rumple have worked that into the curse (without Regina know natch) that the caster would loose their memories too? What would (and did) keep Regina from killing her longtime enemy all those years when he was cursed? Rump wouldn't chance Regina taking advantage of him that way. 

They could have gone with Grahams murder even with Regina regaining her memories because of Emma, just like her starting time and bringing people back to a place where they would actually argue and circumvent Regina...(and give LP a great scene where all the horrible memories come flooding back.) Maybe it was the fight in front of the Mills graves that bring them back, and when Graham gets his memories back he calls Regina on her cell telling her "I remember it all and now your through!"  Giving Regina a more mature and "understandable" reason to kill him..as it was it seemed like a high school girl having a fit.

I also don't think Regina would not have an escape plan in case the curse broke...as in swindling money and investing it in the outside world in case she needed to escape.

[KingOfHearts]

Eddy's favorite episode is apparently 1x07, The Heart is a Lonely Hunter.

Quote

Eddy: "That was a moment where we started to really figure out the show, and we really figured out where we wanted to go. It was an episode that was both dark, yet at the same time it really setup a lot of where we were going. [And] you also saw Emma, and for the very first time you saw a little bit of a crack in her armor."

Adam's favorite episode is 1x22, A Land Without Magic.

Quote

Adam: "We all got together to watch it and at the end of the episode, when the curse breaks, Snow and Charming recognize each other. They run into their arms to kiss. And then we see the magic roll in, and everybody got really excited when the show ended. I remember thinking, 'Oh, no. I really love this show and I hope we can figure out how to keep doing it.'"
Eddy: "I want to change my answer to that."

I found their responses interesting. Their favorites are both in S1 and include major plot movement. Adam's last line highlights how little they knew of what they were going to do after the first season.

[Camera One]

I've read that Thomas Gibson, the actor who was fired from "Criminal Minds" was difficult to work with.  But I was reading his version of events for what led to the physical fight with the Writer which got him fired, and he said:

“We were shooting a scene late one night when I went to Virgil [the writer for "Criminal Minds] and told him there was a line that I thought contradicted an earlier line,” according to Gibson. “He said, ‘Sorry, it’s necessary, and I absolutely have to have it.”

We wonder why there are so many continuity errors on "Once".  I wonder if often, actors just deliver the lines even if they notice something is a contradiction.

Edited September 24, 2016 by Camera One

[RedKeep]

One thing that still baffles me, to a certain degree, is how Horowitz and Kitsis got away with running this show, which is shooting in Vancouver, from Los Angeles on a day to day basis. Whether they'd be open to discussion with/concerns voiced by the actors on set is another question. But there's no chance whatsoever for the cast to actually try to engage in any real dialogue about what works or doesn't work while they're transporting scripts into actual episodes because the writers are in their LA offices while the show's being filmed.

I don't remember the details of where it was said and by whom.... But I seem to have a  memory of at least one original castmember commenting on how they're asked to stick precisely to the lines as they appear in the scripts and the best they can do is offer up different interpretations of how they're being said, allowing the writers to then pick whatever take's closest to what they had in mind in the editing room. Which seems like a fairly complicated process that could easily be avoided. But yeah, wouldn't be surprised if the actors gave up on that by now too and they simply don't put that much thought into it anymore.

[YaddaYadda]

I think some of the writers who penned the episodes actually do go up to Vancouver when they start shooting said episode. I saw a tweet last season from one of the writers saying she was headed up to Vancouver, and her trip coincided with her episode.

What I don't get is that they do have someone who is responsible for the continuity on the show, so that person is failing at it.

[Curio]

I think once in a while a OUAT writer gets to visit the set, but most of the time, they're all in LA. 

9 minutes ago, RedKeep said:

One thing that still baffles me, to a certain degree, is how Horowitz and Kitsis got away with running this show, which is shooting in Vancouver, from Los Angeles on a day to day basis. Whether they'd be open to discussion with/concerns voiced by the actors on set is another question. But there's no chance whatsoever for the cast to actually try to engage in any real dialogue about what works or doesn't work while they're transporting scripts into actual episodes because the writers are in their LA offices while the show's being filmed. [...] But yeah, wouldn't be surprised if the actors gave up on that by now too and they simply don't put that much thought into it anymore.

This is probably what causes a lot of continuity issues. I was listening to a Nerdist Writers podcast and they mentioned that it really helps a TV show if there's at least one writer who's always on set to help interpret the script to the actors or be open to changing the script at the last second if need be. But this show doesn't seem like the type that's very open to improv or actor interpretation anyways.

[Serena]

Lots and lots of shows film in Vancouver while their writers' rooms are in LA. They don't all have OUAT's problems, so I'm assuming it can be done, A&E simply don't know how.

[Rumsy4]

Even with LOST, Damon and Carlton barely ever visited filming (mosty in Hawaii). That's what the director is there for. Plus the actor's personal interpretation and editing. It's not like if A&E were on-site, the continuity issues would get better. They write the inconsistencies. 

[KAOS Agent]

But what about when an actor is just horribly confused about what's written and uncomfortable saying those lines? For example, Ginny ended up being very open about how uncomfortable she was with the adultery conversation in S4. She said she sat down with Lana and they spent 20 minutes trying to come up with some reasonable explanation for why Snow would say those things. She stretched and came up with something, but she sure was quick to jump on a question about it and express how happy she was that viewers also were not comfortable about it and have the chance to explain her own difficulties with the script. If a writer had been on set, Ginny would have had the opportunity to ask them what they were going for and possibly even get it changed slightly to make her more comfortable with what was being said. Allowing actors/writers to have a better understanding of each other's intent with regards to their characters makes for a better show.

[Rumsy4]

Ginny's headcanon was that MM was trying to make Regina feel better. Lbr, if Adam or Eddy had been there, they would have told her that it was adultery. I personally feel that actor interpretation is what makes the show  truly worth watching. It may not be a bad thing for the writers to not be on-site.

Edited September 25, 2016 by Rumsy4

[Curio]

Quote

Kitsis: "For all the spectacle of the show, those are our favorite moments. The moments where it's just quiet between two characters and you get to see the evolution of them."

I want to laugh and cry at the same time. I...just...I can't even respond to this right now. 

Quote

Horowitz: "I love the moment in the premiere when Regina confesses her fear about what it means to not have magic — that's something that you confess to a friend or someone you trust."

I find it interesting he specifically pinpoints that he loves the moment that was a last-second rewrite/reshoot.

Quote

Kitsis: “The fun thing about the six seasons, at least as writers, is you get to revert to that,” Kitsis says. “When Emma has a problem, she reverts back to season 1 — wall goes up, ‘I’ll figure it out myself, I don’t need to tell anyone.’"

I get what he's trying to say here, but isn't the whole point of character progression to not go back to Season 1? I remember reading several interviews from Jennifer last season or in Season 4 where she talked about how proud she was of Emma for not being the same person she used to be in Season 1, and how it's important that she's progressed so far and let so many walls down.

We don't see A&E saying, "What's really exciting for us is to see Regina revert back to season 1—anger comes out, 'I'll just rip this person's heart out and kill them.'" Well, I guess that's probably their whole reasoning for having the Evil Queen in the first place.

Edited September 26, 2016 by Curio

[Free]

On 9/9/2016 at 4:36 PM, Curio said:

It's as if the writers thought Season 2 would be the end of the show, so they were setting Regina up to realize her mother was the real reason behind her suffering and side with the Charmings, but then ABC came in at the last second and let them know the show would be on the air for a few more years, so they didn't want to scrap the Regina/Cora relationship that quickly and awkwardly tried to extend it beyond Season 2. 

It does feel like they've been making things up on the fly since S2, they've rehashed storylines/plots.

 

56 minutes ago, Curio said:

I want to laugh and cry at the same time. I...just...I can't even respond to this right now. 

I find it interesting that he specifically pinpoints that he loves the moment that was a last-second rewrite/reshoot.

I get what he's trying to say here, but isn't the whole point of character progression to not go back to Season 1? I remember reading several interviews from Jennifer last season or in Season 4 where she talked about how proud she was of Emma for not being the same person she used to be in Season 1, and how it's important that she's progressed so far and let so many walls down.

We don't see A&E saying, "What's really exciting for us is to see Regina revert back to season 1—anger comes out, 'I'll just rip this person's heart out and kill them.'" Well, I guess that's probably their whole reasoning for having the Evil Queen in the first place.

The reshoots are problematic because it just causes jarring continuity problems that don't make any sense in the end, it's why the subsequent seasons, especially S5 was a complete and utter mess.

And characters shouldn't regress to S1 on a whim especially if that's their plan with the whole EQ storyline, yikes.

[Writing Wrongs]

The special made me really miss Season 1. I really hate the EQ/Regina split, but it's fun to have EQ back. I'm really curious on how they plan on ending the whole series.

Sidenote: Does Adam ever wear anything other than a black V-neck?

[KingOfHearts]

I love how the title of the recap special was, "Evil Reigns Once More" and the Evil Queen barely made a cameo at the end of the premiere. The writers really hyped her up, but she really had nothing to do with anything. Aladdin was the other headliner (though under-marketed), and it was barely shown too. Heck! Even the Land of Untold Stories! Why did we spend so much time on Morpheus, Robin grief, Zelena and what's eating Emma? We weren't watching for that. We were watching for what the S5 finale set up. (Which, provided so little in the first place...)

Edited September 26, 2016 by KingOfHearts

[Free]

2 hours ago, KingOfHearts said:

I love how the title of the recap special was, "Evil Reigns Once More" and the Evil Queen barely made a cameo at the end of the premiere. The writers really hyped her up, but she really had nothing to do with anything. Aladdin was the other headliner (though under-marketed), and it was barely shown too. Heck! Even the Land of Untold Stories! Why did we spend so much time on Morpheus, Robin grief, Zelena and what's eating Emma? We weren't watching for that. We were watching for what the S5 finale set up. (Which, provided so little in the first place...)

Once again we get boring melodrama subplots the clutter the show, cluttered characters barely getting much screen time, Emma hiding things from everyone for the umpteenth time, oh and Emma might 'die', etc.

Edited September 26, 2016 by Free

[Camera One]

1 hour ago, Rumsy4 said:

Ugh...I know!! They've regressed Emma the way they typically regress their villains. Emma's infamous walls should've been nowhere in sight in the season premiere, literally minutes after all the lessons she supposedly learned in S5. If Emma had a moment of weakness and temptation to regress in the middle of the arc, it would be more excusable. Not at this stage. 

Adam: So, Eddy, what should Emma's character arc be about this season? 

Eddy: I know! The viewers are expecting forward momentum. We'll surprise them by regressing her back to S1! 

 

37 minutes ago, Mathius said:

Actually, given many viewers (mostly anti-CS ones) cried "Bring Season 1 Emma back!", A&E probably think they're giving them what they wanted.

A&E would be idiots if they were using Twitter fans to inform their writing choices (uh... wait a minute...)

Seriously speaking though, I think they did this to Emma because they literally do not know what else to do with her.  If Emma has already overcome her walls, then A&E cannot think of any further character development they can do, so they do the easy thing... revert and go through the same process again.  

When you have a relatively well-adjusted "good" character and need some conflict with the other main characters that lasts multiple episodes, what do you do?  Make them lie to the other main characters.  That was exactly what they did when they could not think of any other conflict for Snowing in 4B, or Charming in 3A.  Without WALLS, Emma becomes as much of a challenge to write for as Snow or Charming, to A&E.  So the question is, which is worse.  Being given a frontburner story (Emma) but having your favorite character's integrity undercut, or being used as a prop (Snow), and having your favorite character's integrity undercut.  

Edited September 27, 2016 by Camera One

[KingOfHearts]

Quote

Seriously speaking though, I think they did this to Emma because they literally do not know what else to do with her.  If Emma has already overcome her walls, then A&E cannot think of any further character development they can do, so they do the easy thing... revert and go through the same process again.  

Well, they could start by letting her be a Savior and help other people with their problems. Not every arc needs to psycho-analyze her under a microscope. The pressure doesn't need to be on what's eating her internally. Without pushing her into new territory, the only things left to be mined are taboo in the writers' room. (Her relationship with her parents, for example.) Getting engaged with Hook or becoming emotionally invested in someone else's situation are both on the table. If her walls have come down, let's see how she'll react to things as this new person.

Edited September 27, 2016 by KingOfHearts

[Camera One]

They probably think they're setting up a huge powerful dilemma, where Emma has to decide whether she wants to help the Untold Stories people, with the knowledge that there's a possibility that one of them could be behind her pending demise.  

Edited September 27, 2016 by Camera One

[Shanna Marie]

The way they handled the Emma secret keeping is yet another case study of that idiot savant writing thing they have going on. They went with the easy and obvious return of the "walls" (we need to include that in the key word count) when they actually already set up some character things that would get the same result while being far more organic and that would have been forward motion rather than reversion. I mentioned this in the episode thread, but the "I love you" doesn't mean the relationship's now a done deal without conflict or troubles if they don't insert contrived conflict. Two very independent people who are used to being on their own are going to have some struggles in figuring out how to manage a relationship on a day-to-day basis. He at least does have some experience in being in a long-term relationship, but it was ages ago. She's never been in a relationship like this. The closest she's come was maybe a few months with Neal when she was a kid. She doesn't know how to be part of a couple. Meanwhile, her growing up in foster care and being bounced around would probably have taught her to keep her problems to herself because the kids with issues are more likely to be shipped off to some other foster home. She wouldn't have felt safe letting the people in her life know what was going on with her, so she's had zero practice in going to someone and telling them something is wrong with her. It's not just "walls." She's lacking the skill set. At the same time, he's used to being responsible for other people and their well-being as part of his crew. It's been his job for his entire adult life to keep an eye on his crew, notice if something is up, and then do something about it before it becomes a bigger problem. Even in the Navy, he seemed to be the executive officer, the one who dealt with the crew while his brother managed the ship. So it's his instinct to notice the very beginnings of anything that might be a problem and get to the bottom of it. They've got all kinds of ingredients for relationship drama there that they don't even try to deal with.

Then there's the problem that they aren't letting the characters act like people, don't seem to be putting themselves in their characters' shoes and imagining what they might feel, think, or do. Emma has just got Hook back after he was dead. There was a grave, and everything. He's been through hell (literally). He now has memories of dying three times. That's got to leave some psychological scars. He became the thing he hated most. He was tortured. He was reunited with his brother and had to part from him again. He missed being reunited with Milah and learned that she'd been even further destroyed. You'd think this would have an impact on him, and you'd think Emma would be concerned about him. It was hard to believe in the finale that she'd have let him out of her sight to run after Henry. You'd think she'd have dragged him with her. And then she had to deal with the possibility that he was trapped in another world forever and got him back again -- so why would he have come back to Maine in a different car? You'd think she'd have separated Henry and Violet (the kid deserved a grounding of some sort) or let Regina ride in the other car with her sister rather than be separated from Hook yet again (and that would have at least allowed us to believe that someone from the Land of Untold Stories crew could have briefed Emma on what had happened). Flowing forward into this episode, you then would have got the sense of her being worried about him and not wanting to give him anything else to deal with. Independent person not used to being able to lean on anyone+boyfriend with a tendency to want to jump in and solve problems+boyfriend with raging PTSD who's had just about all he can take for a while=a far better reason to play the "I'm fine, there's nothing wrong" card. Not to mention, it was overkill for people to be all that concerned about her in this episode, so the writers' strings were showing there. Any real person would have just thought she was tired after all that driving rather than freaking out to the point of sending a shrink.

[Free]

8 hours ago, Shanna Marie said:

The way they handled the Emma secret keeping is yet another case study of that idiot savant writing thing they have going on. They went with the easy and obvious return of the "walls" (we need to include that in the key word count) when they actually already set up some character things that would get the same result while being far more organic and that would have been forward motion rather than reversion. I mentioned this in the episode thread, but the "I love you" doesn't mean the relationship's now a done deal without conflict or troubles if they don't insert contrived conflict. Two very independent people who are used to being on their own are going to have some struggles in figuring out how to manage a relationship on a day-to-day basis. He at least does have some experience in being in a long-term relationship, but it was ages ago. She's never been in a relationship like this. The closest she's come was maybe a few months with Neal when she was a kid. She doesn't know how to be part of a couple. Meanwhile, her growing up in foster care and being bounced around would probably have taught her to keep her problems to herself because the kids with issues are more likely to be shipped off to some other foster home. She wouldn't have felt safe letting the people in her life know what was going on with her, so she's had zero practice in going to someone and telling them something is wrong with her. It's not just "walls." She's lacking the skill set. At the same time, he's used to being responsible for other people and their well-being as part of his crew. It's been his job for his entire adult life to keep an eye on his crew, notice if something is up, and then do something about it before it becomes a bigger problem. Even in the Navy, he seemed to be the executive officer, the one who dealt with the crew while his brother managed the ship. So it's his instinct to notice the very beginnings of anything that might be a problem and get to the bottom of it. They've got all kinds of ingredients for relationship drama there that they don't even try to deal with.

Then there's the problem that they aren't letting the characters act like people, don't seem to be putting themselves in their characters' shoes and imagining what they might feel, think, or do. Emma has just got Hook back after he was dead. There was a grave, and everything. He's been through hell (literally). He now has memories of dying three times. That's got to leave some psychological scars. He became the thing he hated most. He was tortured. He was reunited with his brother and had to part from him again. He missed being reunited with Milah and learned that she'd been even further destroyed. You'd think this would have an impact on him, and you'd think Emma would be concerned about him. It was hard to believe in the finale that she'd have let him out of her sight to run after Henry. You'd think she'd have dragged him with her. And then she had to deal with the possibility that he was trapped in another world forever and got him back again -- so why would he have come back to Maine in a different car? You'd think she'd have separated Henry and Violet (the kid deserved a grounding of some sort) or let Regina ride in the other car with her sister rather than be separated from Hook yet again (and that would have at least allowed us to believe that someone from the Land of Untold Stories crew could have briefed Emma on what had happened). Flowing forward into this episode, you then would have got the sense of her being worried about him and not wanting to give him anything else to deal with. Independent person not used to being able to lean on anyone+boyfriend with a tendency to want to jump in and solve problems+boyfriend with raging PTSD who's had just about all he can take for a while=a far better reason to play the "I'm fine, there's nothing wrong" card. Not to mention, it was overkill for people to be all that concerned about her in this episode, so the writers' strings were showing there. Any real person would have just thought she was tired after all that driving rather than freaking out to the point of sending a shrink.

I'm so sick and tired of her walls, it's season 6 and she already went through being a Dark One and going through the Underworld so it feels like they've been winging it for the past couple seasons especially with this random Jekyll/Hyde stuff after going through all that.

[Curio]

The Shield creator and Timeless showrunner says TV is too 'dark'

I think Adam & Eddy need to read this. Dark does not always equal good, and this show has gotten way too dark over the years. They still claim it's about hope, but I need to see more swashbuckling on my screen and characters laughing and having fun.

[Mathius]

Agreed.  The show did dark well in its earlier days (such as in 3A), but 4B and onward has just been relentlessly bleak.

[Camera One]

I like Shawn Ryan's remarks that there is a misconception that dark = smart and everything else is not smart.  But Eric Kripke's "Revolution" was the most depressingly bland series I've ever watched.  

For a show about fairy tales, "Once" is depressing because the story doesn't let the main characters be smart and proactive and kickass fun.  They don't have a moment to spare between death, death and more death.  The "hope" stuff is all talk and no action.  When the characters keep talking about hope, but practically everything they do is pointless or backfires, then there's nothing hopeful about the story.  

[daxx]

I always use this Joss Whedon quote.

"Make it dark, make it grim, make it tough, but then, for the love of God, tell a joke.”

Once often forgets, for the love of god make a joke.

[Camera One]

To the Writers, they probably thought they did lighten it up quite a bit this Season 6 premiere.  The "fun" moments would include:
- sitcom music as Regina returned to a messy home with Zelena and the baby
- Regina's witty remarks like describing her sister as "Something with red hair and a fondness for pointy hats"
- the romance of Beauty and the Beast
- the end shot of The Evil Queen grinning like a bobcat

[KAOS Agent]

I was really disappointed that they ended the Regina/Zelena roommate situation after essentially one scene. Even that one was angsty since Zelena lost a meaningful parting gift for Regina and gave it an undertone of sadness. To keep it lighter, it would have needed Zelena to have messed up something more minor, but would be the type of thing that irks a new roommate. Still, it had the potential to be a bit of a lighter storyline for a few episodes. It allows for relationship development and still provides opportunity for some comedy. Oddly, Regina & Zelena moving in together was hyped by the writers. How does one scene rate even a mention as far as the plot is concerned?  

[KingOfHearts]

8 hours ago, KAOS Agent said:

I was really disappointed that they ended the Regina/Zelena roommate situation after essentially one scene. Even that one was angsty since Zelena lost a meaningful parting gift for Regina and gave it an undertone of sadness. To keep it lighter, it would have needed Zelena to have messed up something more minor, but would be the type of thing that irks a new roommate. Still, it had the potential to be a bit of a lighter storyline for a few episodes. It allows for relationship development and still provides opportunity for some comedy. Oddly, Regina & Zelena moving in together was hyped by the writers. How does one scene rate even a mention as far as the plot is concerned?  

A&E: "What do you want? 42 minutes of hugging?"

[Shanna Marie]

I think that the main problem with the darkness on this show is that the writers don't do dark very well. They always seem to balk from actually addressing what they set up, either just ignoring it or resolving it way too easily, and that robs it of everything that makes darkness interesting in storytelling. The whole point of doing dark is showing how characters are coping with it and affected by it, which gives it dramatic weight, and then if you're not going to be totally grim about it, there's the catharsis of rising above it and overcoming it, using the darkness as a contrast to the light. But because they shy away from consequences and rush on to the next story, the result is something that has all the depth and impact of a Road Runner cartoon -- the coyote flattens against a wall, peels himself off, and is fine in the next scene; the coyote blows himself up and is back to his usual tricks in the next scene; the coyote gets an anvil dropped on his head, staggers around making accordion noises, and is back to normal in the next scene.

Weirdly, with these writers, I don't get the feeling that they're falling into the "dark=good" delusion. I don't think they think what they're doing is actually all that dark. They're stuck on the "wouldn't it be cool" and always trying to top themselves, and they think that because it's all fantasy, it doesn't really count. Remember the way they reacted to the people complaining about the fact that Zelena was raping Robin -- there were tweets about how even a kid would know this isn't real, and it was about magic, so it's not really rape. So they write a story line about a woman murdering another woman, then impersonating her to live as a family with that woman's husband and young child, getting pregnant, having her victim's husband's baby, then that man is murdered by her current boyfriend -- and then they write a scene in which she hugs the now-orphaned young child of her victims that they seem to see as a heartwarming "awwww" moment without realizing how dark and twisted it really is. When you look at what's going on there, it's creepier than anything in Game of Thrones, except maybe the twincest and murders to keep it secret. All of Hook's deaths have been about the Big, Dramatic Moment, or else setting up the next story line (the way to make Hook a Dark One, the excuse for the Underworld plot), and they don't even think about how having memories of dying multiple times would affect a person or how people would really react to someone they saw die and then later be buried (assuming anyone went to his funeral -- another case of the characters acting like they'd read the whole script and reacting like they already knew the outcome) walk into the local diner.

[Mathius]

Adam even once said this prior to the S6 premiere, after Comic-Con: 

Quote

 I think it's the Once Upon a Time tone, which is to say that dark things happen, but it never gets bleak, which is the difference we always draw. Despite how dark and scary things can get, there's always a hopefulness at the core of the storytelling.

What show has he been watching for the past year and a half?  Because I'd like to see that show.

Quote

They're stuck on the "wouldn't it be cool" and always trying to top themselves, and they think that because it's all fantasy, it doesn't really count.

THIS.  They seem to believe it's just a fairy tale show with fairy tale characters, forgetting it's about fairy tale characters as real people.  That was the big draw: that these characters were three-dimensional human beings.  But now they seem to paradoxically believe that because it's fantasy, then can heap all this drama on them without having them act like real people, yet at the same time also are sincerely convinced that they've "deepened" and "developed" the characters season by season, particularly Regina (who is actually one of the more repetitive and stagnating characters in the cast.)

Edited October 1, 2016 by Mathius

[Curio]

1 hour ago, Shanna Marie said:

I think that the main problem with the darkness on this show is that the writers don't do dark very well. They always seem to balk from actually addressing what they set up, either just ignoring it or resolving it way too easily, and that robs it of everything that makes darkness interesting in storytelling.

 

Yep. Also, Colin's answer to a recent interview is pretty fitting for this conversation:

Quote

Do you have any theories about who is under the hood?
Colin: "I haven’t got a clue actually, and I’m dying to find out, but they won’t tell me. Who do you think it is?"
I think it might be an existential crisis sort of thing and Emma will kill herself, but that’s a little dark for Once Upon a Time.
Colin: “Once Upon a Time is pretty dark. I mean, I’ve died three times — four times? We do rip out hearts from living people, so I don’t think that’s terribly dark. That’s a good one."

 

I think the website misinterpreted Colin's answer about ripping hearts out because I doubt he'd say it's not dark. 

Edited October 1, 2016 by Curio

[KingOfHearts]

Ripping out hearts would be much darker if it wasn't done very often. We've seen it so many times that it's gone from tearing out organs to the generic death-by-magic mechanism. When it was a Regina/Cora/Rumple thing, it gave them so edge. But then everyone and their dog started doing it. Sometimes, it wasn't even to control or kill. It's become a not-so-gruesome norm in the magical realms.

[InsertWordHere]

I think he was saying that the theory of Emma fighting herself isn't too dark for this show, not that the heart ripping isn't dark. 

[Curio]

12 minutes ago, InsertWordHere said:

I think he was saying that the theory of Emma fighting herself isn't too dark for this show, not that the heart ripping isn't dark. 

Ah, that makes more sense.

[Shanna Marie]

1 hour ago, InsertWordHere said:

I think he was saying that the theory of Emma fighting herself isn't too dark for this show, not that the heart ripping isn't dark. 

Yeah, that was my read -- the interviewer suggested that Emma fighting herself might be too dark for this show, to which Colin essentially replied, "Seriously? Have you been watching?" And you beat me to that quote because I was coming here to quote it on this thread, since it was so appropriate to the discussion. At least Colin remembers that Hook's died multiple times, and he considers that to be dark, so maybe he'll work in some subtext that shows Hook is affected, even if the scripts ignore it.

Also, there was the quote from the writers about hope that's now on the previous page, so I'm too lazy to go back and quote it, but I think they think they're giving "hope" by balking about following through on the darkness, when instead that's a lot of what robs us of the hope, or at least the emotional catharsis that keeps the darkness from being a downer. They're bad about showing the actual dark stuff without giving us the emotional release of a reaction to it or the hope from recovering from it or getting justice. So, like in season 4 when Rumple was controlling Hook with his heart, we did get some sense of justice when Rumple was kicked out of town, but then he got back in town and had Belle back sympathizing with him by the end of the season. We didn't get to see any sympathy or comfort for Hook's suffering. There's a reason that "hurt/comfort" is such a fanfic trope, and for most people it's not about the "hurt" part. If a character dies, we want to feel the sense of loss, the sense that this person mattered to other people, even if he's not dead for good (since the characters shouldn't have read ahead in the scripts). I don't necessarily want to see Hook struggling with PTSD for a season, but as many times as he's died, I want his pain and trauma acknowledged. I wouldn't mind seeing him seek out Archie, or admitting that he has nightmares about being tortured by Hades. Dismissing suffering isn't "hope" to me. Seeing fictional characters go through things, face their pain, and then prevail is what gives viewers hope. 

[Serena]

13 hours ago, KingOfHearts said:

Ripping out hearts would be much darker if it wasn't done very often. We've seen it so many times that it's gone from tearing out organs to the generic death-by-magic mechanism. When it was a Regina/Cora/Rumple thing, it gave them so edge. But then everyone and their dog started doing it. Sometimes, it wasn't even to control or kill. It's become a not-so-gruesome norm in the magical realms.

Yeah, when Regina did it to Graham it was shocking and upsetting. Now it's like... someone's heart got ripped out, must be Sunday.

[Rumsy4]

Quote

I'm kind of perversely looking forward to how they butcher all the classics they've never read.

This is a Show that "twists" fairy tale characters, but when the twist is done as to bear little or no resemblance to the original, it seems more like fraudulent name-dropping. The writers have done this before--with Rapunzel for instance. However, while butchering fairy tales and disney characters was one thing, butchering classic literature just makes the writers look ignorant and ill-read. 

The writers could have just had some original character in the same role as Dantes, and it would have made no difference. I guess the writers are afraid to not include famous names. I don't have issues with people using classics and putting a spin on them. But I don't understand why the ONCE writers failed to put in any effort to connect Dantes with his background or core character from the novel. 

The writers seem to be more sloppy with twists in recent seasons. While the writers butchered Arthurian mythology, it did derive from the original enough to be recognizable as a twist. The UW myth was more sloppily done. Those greek gods in the Show had little to do with Greek mythology, but at least it was inspired by the Disney movie (which also had little to do with the original myths). Dorothy was poorly adapted. Captain Silver was another pointless namedrop. Jekyll/Hyde definitely seems better attempted in comparison, but we shall see... I hope some of the other classics are better adapted than what we saw with Dantes. 

Edited October 5, 2016 by Rumsy4

[KingOfHearts]

Quote

Seems like there's general boredom and fatigue among the fans AND the writers. The show keeps going back to the same old well and not exploring or concentrating on things that might actually get the fandom excited. There's no buzz at all this season. Even CS fans, who I feel tend to be the most positive & excitable, aren't chattering; of course, there's next to nothing in spoilers to chatter about. Plus the show has gotten so dark and grim and hopeless, that has to cause a depression in fandom zeitgeist as well.

There's nothing really exciting going on with the characters themselves. Emma may be prophesied to die, but she's got plot armor and we saw in 5B that death is relative. Regina fighting the Evil Queen is nothing new and EQ herself is just your standard scenery-chewing antagonist. The characters aren't moving into any unfamiliar territory. Fans aren't hyped because there's nothing to write home about. Nobody cares about LoUS, Emma's walls, Rumpbelle's drama or Regina's angst. We've been dealing with most of that for the past five seasons.

Since the writers refuse the change the status quo in any way, shape, or form, it's only downhill from here.

[tennisgurl]

In the end, the writers are stuck in a never ending loop, doing the exact same things over and over, until everyone is so bored they start to start praying for someone new to shake things up, only to find out that they, too, are boring. Its kind of like the Welcome to Storybrooke episode, where every character is cursed to do the same thing, over and over, until everyone has lost it. 

What just kills me about this show, is that is just as so much potential, and, I know I harp about this constantly, but we have endless possible stories and genres and legends and mythologies and books and movies and ALL OF FICTION EVER basically, and they just do...nothing. The Count of Monte Cristo is one of the great stories of revenge, and a classic work of literature, and what do we get? The Count acting totally out of character (stabbing a guy in the middle of a room? Really?), and is basically just used as a Red Shirt who will never be mentioned again, scarified on the altar of Regina. No wonder so many fans are bored. What is there to really talk about. Emma puts up walls. Rumple screws with people. Snow lectures about hope and props up Regina. Henry is annoying and has terrible taste in movies. Regina angsts. Classic characters are treated like crap. Rinse and repeat. 

Honestly, I used to hope that I would get to see my favorite characters and genres pop in this show, but now? I dread seeing them dragged through the mud.