A Thread for All Seasons: This Story Is Over, But Still Goes On.

[Shanna Marie]

Looking at some of the suggestions people have made in the "Woulda Coulda Shoulda" thread, I started wondering, how important was it for the guest characters and villains to be "iconic" characters?

That seems to have been the issue with them not doing the lesser known fairytales and pretty much ignoring anything that Disney hadn't done. A lot of the promo was around the guest characters. But were the guest characters that important to the audience? I'd think that by the time you're in season three or so of a series, the people who are watching are there for the regular characters, not the guest characters. Maybe a really high-profile guest might get attention, but your core audience is there to watch the development of the regular characters and their relationships. Did this series undermine itself by being so focused on the "iconic" guests that it forgot its regulars? The one time the guest characters seem to have really boosted ratings was when they brought in the Frozen characters, but the ratings tanked pretty quickly after that, and I think ended up lower than they were before Frozen, so not only did the Frozen stuff not bring in new viewers who stuck around, it lost some existing viewers. Not that Frozen itself was at fault. There was some real crap around the Frozen stuff (cryptsex!), and to some extent the ending of that arc was the primary shark jump of the series.

In season one, they were dealing with one of the more iconic stories, the first Disney princess, with Snow White, but they didn't really go with the iconography. Our Snow was nothing like movie Snow, aside from the one scene in which she had a similar dress and hair style -- and it seemed to be intended tongue-in-cheek, since that was when she went after the bluebird with a broom. While Regina had a lot in common with her movie counterpart, they didn't really go full-on in making her look like her. I don't think there was ever any big "look who our guest character is!" hype that season. They did promote Captain Hook coming to the show in season 2, but I don't feel like they were going overboard with being iconic then. There was Mulan and Aurora, but they were different from their movie counterparts and not hyped much. Hook was totally unlike any version we'd seen of that character. Cora was pretty much an original character (since we hardly saw her in Queen of Hearts mode on this show).

I think the leaning in to "iconic" started in season three, when they built a whole arc around Peter Pan being the villain. Then there was the whole Wicked vs. Evil thing. Then Frozen. Then they started throwing in a bunch of stuff, like with the Queens of Darkness and later Camelot plus Merida.

So, would the show have worked better if they'd focused more on the main characters instead of hyping the guests? And if they'd done that, could they have done lesser-known characters? Or maybe they could have used familiar characters without tying them so closely to their familiar forms.

[tennisgurl]

On 3/21/2021 at 3:06 PM, Shanna Marie said:

There was some real crap around the Frozen stuff (cryptsex!), and to some extent the ending of that arc was the primary shark jump of the series.

It was so weird that they had the whole cryptsex subplot in the middle of the frozen arc. They obviously brought the Frozen characters in to try and get people interested in the show again after the ratings slumped, as Frozen was (and still is) a huge modern franchise in the way that most of the more classic Disney movies aren't, and it did seem to have worked at first. They did get a ratings bump, probably from people who were Frozen fans, or were former watchers who got bored of the show but came back again to see what they were doing with this, and the Frozen arc was actually pretty good, helped presumably by team Disney sending their own people in to make sure they weren't screwing up one of their cash cows. The thing is, Frozen is very much a family franchise. Its huge business in the kids toy and costume market, has a lot of spin off kids books and cartoons and such, this is a very family friendly property in a very Disney way with a big audience made of young kids and their parents, and Once at that point was still, at least sort of, marketing themselves as a family friendly show. Not very much swearing, not much (obvious anyway) sexual content, the violence was pretty bloodless, had lots of Disney characters and a cute plucky kid as a main character, parents could feel pretty good letting their Frozen loving kids watch this show based on the previous seasons and how the show was marketed. Can you imagine how those parents must have felt watching two major characters banging in a cemetery while everyone cheers that the mans wife is dying? That between Ana teaching important lessons and Kristof having cute one sided chats with Sven the Reindeer they will have a man committing adultery with a woman who almost murdered his current wife and is tickled pink that she's now in a coma? Did they have to tell the kids not only what they were up to in those crypts, but explain what a crypt even is? No wonder all the new viewers ended up tuning out soon after, parents probably felt lied to and kids must have just been confused. Kids and families would not want this, so of course they all changed the channel to something where parents don't have to show their kids the magic of rape by fraud and adultery. Of course A&E see no problem with this because Regina can do no wrong for them, but any new viewer would find this whole plot to be dull and confusing at best and mean spirited and creepy at worst. What a waste of a possible new audience, sacrificed at the altar of Regina. 

The show got way too into its guest characters, especially as the show went on and it just became more and more desperate to get viewers back, but it never really knew what to do with them. They hyped up people like Merida and Aladdin and Jasmine, but after their big debuts and their one backstory episode, they were shuttled off to the side to focus on Regina's tears or Belle insisting that Rumple is a great guy as be betrays everyone again. So people who came in to see the new featured characters wont get much about them and will get stuck with a bunch of convoluted melodrama with characters they don't know, and the long time fans are stuck with these new characters who steal the spotlight from their favorites and usually don't have much of a point anyway. 

[Camera One]

On 3/21/2021 at 1:06 PM, Shanna Marie said:

So, would the show have worked better if they'd focused more on the main characters instead of hyping the guests? And if they'd done that, could they have done lesser-known characters? Or maybe they could have used familiar characters without tying them so closely to their familiar forms.

That's a good question, but in a lot of arcs (especially "Frozen", "Queens of Darkness"), it was the guest star distractions which made the show palatable.  

The worst season (Season 6) was "focused" more on the main characters instead of hyping the guests.  The villains were Regina #2 and A&E Originals like Gideon and Fiona. 

A lot of their guest star cameos could have been substituted with another.  How many lines would need to be changed if Mulan was replaced with Merida in Season 2?  Or if Jasmine in Season 6 was replaced with Swiss Aurora #2?  

[Shanna Marie]

4 hours ago, Camera One said:

That's a good question, but in a lot of arcs (especially "Frozen", "Queens of Darkness"), it was the guest star distractions which made the show palatable.  

Very good point. But I wasn't necessarily thinking no guest stars in prominent roles, just wondering whether the guest characters had to be "iconic" to work. Could it have worked to maybe have the princess from "The Princess and the Pea" staying at Granny's and griping about the beds or have Baba Yaga as the villain, even though they weren't in Disney movies and aren't as well-known? If the audience is watching for the regulars, then it shouldn't really matter who the guest characters are, as long as the guest characters mean good stories for the regulars.

I feel like to some extent they started to use the guests as a crutch, and they went with "iconic" out of laziness. You don't need to develop a character and do any real writing if you just stick them in their famous Disney version costume. Then you can coast on what the people who wrote the character in the first place created and the audience will feel they already know everything.

5 hours ago, Camera One said:

The worst season (Season 6) was "focused" more on the main characters instead of hyping the guests.

Though they did try to throw in all the Aladdin stuff, too. I feel like those characters got hyped, even though they were barely used. It's like they were using that for promo but not really using the characters in the show. And by then maybe they thought their own Evil Queen was iconic in her own right.

5 hours ago, Camera One said:

A lot of their guest star cameos could have been substituted with another.  How many lines would need to be changed if Mulan was replaced with Merida in Season 2? 

I think that was the real problem. Change the wig and the costume so that it's a different character, and it wouldn't change anything. All of the "Hey look, it's that famous Disney character!" guest stars were more or less interchangeable. They were costumes and wigs without substance.

[Camera One]

17 minutes ago, Shanna Marie said:

Very good point. But I wasn't necessarily thinking no guest stars in prominent roles, just wondering whether the guest characters had to be "iconic" to work. Could it have worked to maybe have the princess from "The Princess and the Pea" staying at Granny's and griping about the beds or have Baba Yaga as the villain, even though they weren't in Disney movies and aren't as well-known?

As they ran out of Disney characters, I think they sort of did that towards the end, by dipping into literary characters, for example, with the Count of Monte Cristo.  Most people probably don't even know that story but they didn't need to - it was just some angry character out for revenge.  The Princess and the Pea example may have been one of their inconsequential Easter Eggs, like with Jack & Jill's baby that Rumple stole to lure the Black Fairy (which ended up on the cutting room floor, I think).  

Quote

If the audience is watching for the regulars, then it shouldn't really matter who the guest characters are, as long as the guest characters mean good stories for the regulars.

By a certain point, I'm not sure the audience was actually watching for the regulars.  With characters like Snow and Charming, what was there left to watch for?  Even for me, practically the only thing to look forward to was Disney properties and how they would mangle them in their cul de sac.  

And by Season 7, they got to the point where they had to REPEAT the iconic characters... another Cinderella, another Alice, another Blind Witch, another Rapunzel, etc. 

It would have been nice to see lesser known fairy tales, folktales, myths as guest stars (though A&E are hardly well-read enough for that to be a reality), but the problems were way bigger when there was nowhere else for the protagonists to go.

Edited March 23, 2021 by Camera One

[KingOfHearts]

15 hours ago, Camera One said:

And by Season 7, they got to the point where they had to REPEAT the iconic characters... another Cinderella, another Alice, another Blind Witch, another Rapunzel, etc. 

I don't think repeating iconic characters was a bad idea per se if the alternate takes were interesting enough. This show is about reexamining fairy tales, after all. It probably would've better if they had done that before they had run out of ideas so people would think they were creatively bankrupt, only for the writers to pull the rug out with a whole new batch of characters. The Wish Realm wasn't even that horrible of concept, it just wasn't executed very well until an entire season later. The problem with S7 wasn't seeing Cinderella again but the fact she was just so awful no matter who she was. Being "iconic" did nothing to elevate her. In my opinion, the worst instance of rehashing old characters for their value as icons was Hansel and Gretel. They made the least amount of sense and had no actual plot relevance. 

[Camera One]

29 minutes ago, KingOfHearts said:

I don't think repeating iconic characters was a bad idea per se if the alternate takes were interesting enough. 

I agree, since there were so many possible twists with every single tale.  But the setup within this show's universe was not convincingly developed beyond Henry talking about finding out about a German Snow White and a French Snow White from the Author's books.  

They could have tied it in with the Fates in the "exploration" of Greek mythology in 5B (heh).  Maybe major patterns of stories were woven by the fates (the "Cinderella" story, for example).  

They also needed to flesh out the concept of alternate worlds, like the Disenchanted Forest.  

The "Wish Realm" could have been a fun exploration, but to me, it would have made more sense if it had been an existing alternate timeline (one of many).  Of the three this show explored, two of them (Wish Realm and Author's Alternate Book in 5B) were super lame.  

Quote

In my opinion, the worst instance of rehashing old characters for their value as icons was Hansel and Gretel. They made the least amount of sense and had no actual plot relevance. 

It's ironic since this show is horrible with character development, but "iconic" guest characters essentially become plot devices for character "development".  In this case, to show for the 101st time that Zelena burned bridges (and in this case, a teenager) and now feels really badly about it.

Edited March 23, 2021 by Camera One

[Shanna Marie]

21 hours ago, Camera One said:

By a certain point, I'm not sure the audience was actually watching for the regulars.  With characters like Snow and Charming, what was there left to watch for?  Even for me, practically the only thing to look forward to was Disney properties and how they would mangle them in their cul de sac. 

Maybe I'm a slow learner or an eternal optimist, but my reason to keep watching was the regular characters. Going from season one to season two, I didn't care about the hype about Hook coming (which started getting hyped before they even cast Colin). I was tuning in to see what happened with Emma and her parents and how the town dealt with Regina (alas ...). It wasn't Pan I was interested in seeing in 3A. I was watching to see how the Nevengers worked together and whether Hook would redeem himself. Before 3B, what I wanted to see was how Emma would be reunited with her family and what would happen between her, Hook, and Neal. Zelena and "Wicked vs. Evil" were of zero interest to me. I was mildly intrigued by what they would do with the Frozen stuff for 4A, but I was mostly curious about how the relationship between Emma and Hook would play out and whether he'd ever make an effort at fitting into Emma's world. For 4B, my main interest was in seeing the aftermath to the 4A events -- how would Belle grow/change after finally growing a spine and booting Rumple out, how would Hook deal with what he went through, how would Emma be affected by getting a different perspective on her past? I was curious, but not hopeful, about what they'd do with the Author mythology, but I wasn't all that interested in the Queens of Darkness (they were entertaining but not the reason I was watching). For 5A, I wanted to see how Emma dealt with the Darkness and how she got saved. I didn't care about Merida (though I like the character in her own film), and while I was interested somewhat in the Camelot stuff and its role in the Dark One mythology, I certainly wasn't watching to see it. For 5B, for me it was all about how they were going to save Hook and Emma dealing with the aftermath of being a Dark One. How was she affected? For season 6, I hoped we got more of that cool steampunk world, but my main interest was seeing the aftermath of season 5 -- how was Hook dealing with having died? Would Regina finally have some self-awareness from facing her worst self?

As you can imagine, I spent a lot of time being deeply disappointed.

6 hours ago, KingOfHearts said:

The problem with S7 wasn't seeing Cinderella again but the fact she was just so awful no matter who she was.

Plus, she didn't really do anything "Cinderella." She wore a blue dress and had glass slippers, so she was only "iconic" on a superficial level. You could change her name or make her a different storybook character and it wouldn't change the story at all. She could have been alt.Snow White on her way to a ball to kill her evil stepmother and the story would have played out more or less the same way. Or alt.Aurora on her way to kill the Prince she'd been betrothed to without her consent.

I think it was all a one-two punch. They used "iconic" characters as a crutch rather than actually deal with and develop the stories of the regular characters and they burned through these iconic characters too quickly, without even scratching the surface of what made them interesting.

[Camera One]

18 minutes ago, Shanna Marie said:

Maybe I'm a slow learner or an eternal optimist, but my reason to keep watching was the regular characters.  As you can imagine, I spent a lot of time being deeply disappointed.

I felt burned very early on.  In Season 1, I was watching for Emma/Snow/Henry, and by as early as 2B, Henry was destroyed, and I was disappointed Emma had so few character moments with her parents.  By 3A, after "Lost Girl", all the Hope™ was gone.

Quote

 I was mostly curious about how the relationship between Emma and Hook would play out and whether he'd ever make an effort at fitting into Emma's world. For 4B, my main interest was in seeing the aftermath to the 4A events -- how would Belle grow/change after finally growing a spine and booting Rumple out, how would Hook deal with what he went through, how would Emma be affected by getting a different perspective on her past?

After Season 3, I think the only main characters which still had room to grow and got the requisite screentime were Emma and Hook, so I did tune in to see them, but I wouldn't have gotten as much enjoyment as someone who shipped them.  I can't say the same for Belle, LOL.  Rumbelle was forever destroyed by 4A.  I think Emma and Hook still had lots to play up to the end of 5B.  And that's why I thought Season 6 was so bad.  By that point, all the characters were basically empty shells of their former selves.

Edited March 24, 2021 by Camera One

[Shanna Marie]

On 3/23/2021 at 8:08 PM, Camera One said:

I felt burned very early on.  In Season 1, I was watching for Emma/Snow/Henry, and by as early as 2B, Henry was destroyed, and I was disappointed Emma had so few character moments with her parents.  By 3A, after "Lost Girl", all the Hope™ was gone.

I guess I retained hope a lot longer. Every time I started to give up on the show, they'd throw us a crumb with some good character interaction, and they'd suck me back in. I'd think they'd figured out what worked in the show, but it was like they resisted doing what worked. Like, after the season 3 finale was successful and got good reviews, I thought they'd figure out that a fun adventure that played on the fairytale character vs. "real world" character dynamic was the show's strength, but then they retreated from that almost entirely in the rest of the series. It was like they were rebelling against expectations. Every time there was something that got a good response, they avoided doing anything like it again.

On 3/23/2021 at 8:08 PM, Camera One said:

After Season 3, I think the only main characters which still had room to grow and got the requisite screentime were Emma and Hook, so I did tune in to see them, but I wouldn't have gotten as much enjoyment as someone who shipped them.  I can't say the same for Belle, LOL.  Rumbelle was forever destroyed by 4A.  I think Emma and Hook still had lots to play up to the end of 5B.  And that's why I thought Season 6 was so bad.  By that point, all the characters were basically empty shells of their former selves.

I'm still astonished that Hook actually died, spent time dead in the Underworld, and was brought back to life by a god, and not only did they not do any follow-up to deal with the ramifications of that, they didn't so much as mention it again. It was like the writers even forgot about it, since Belle wasn't at all surprised to see him alive after she woke from the sleeping curse, even though he'd been dead and was still stuck in the Underworld when she went under the curse. But she sees him in Storybrooke and there's not so much as a "oh, you're alive again!" from her. When the show doesn't deal with the events that have happened to the characters, the characters are really just shells with no inner life. That's part of why I'm so mad about the stupid Hook killing David's father plot. They had a potentially juicy character story with Hook coming back from death and looking at how that experience might have affected him, but they forgot it even happened and made up something entirely new that made no sense -- and then ended up not mattering.

[Camera One]

21 minutes ago, Shanna Marie said:

I'm still astonished that Hook actually died, spent time dead in the Underworld, and was brought back to life by a god, and not only did they not do any follow-up to deal with the ramifications of that, they didn't so much as mention it again. It was like the writers even forgot about it, since Belle wasn't at all surprised to see him alive after she woke from the sleeping curse, even though he'd been dead and was still stuck in the Underworld when she went under the curse. But she sees him in Storybrooke and there's not so much as a "oh, you're alive again!" from her. When the show doesn't deal with the events that have happened to the characters, the characters are really just shells with no inner life. That's part of why I'm so mad about the stupid Hook killing David's father plot. They had a potentially juicy character story with Hook coming back from death and looking at how that experience might have affected him, but they forgot it even happened and made up something entirely new that made no sense -- and then ended up not mattering.

When you mention that, it is a good reminder that there *was* still possible potential.  You're right - it would have been interesting to see Hook dealing with his time in the Underworld.  Heck, there was also room for Regina to earn her redemption after seeing victims in the Underworld, instead of the whole Evil Queen Clown Show in Season 6.  Snow could have had an episode with her dead parents who give her confidence to become a ruler.  David could have actually gotten to know his twin brother James, which could have ramifications against King George if he escaped in Season 6.  

I guess I was just worn down by these Writers, who had no interest in the protagonists, no interest in worldbuilding, no interest in researching source material, no interest in planning character development, etc.  Oh well, I guess we just need to wait for their next "Epic" series so we can all get burned again, LOL.

[Shanna Marie]

18 hours ago, Camera One said:

I guess I was just worn down by these Writers, who had no interest in the protagonists, no interest in worldbuilding, no interest in researching source material, no interest in planning character development, etc.

That was pretty much the core of the problem with this series. They didn't even fully deal with the characters they did like, and they skipped over the potentially interesting stuff. A lot of the development they did have happened so quickly that it amounted to abrupt change rather than "development." Some of the key areas were:

• Regina's "redemption" -- they got off to a promising start in 2A, with her realizing she'd treated Henry badly and wanting to do better to try to win him over, but that fell apart in 2B, and then they went directly from her trying to murder the whole town to her being hailed as a hero. I think 3A was supposed to be about a tenuous alliance between her and the Charming family that would result in them ultimately bonding, so they still didn't entirely trust her and she was snarky and edgy with them, clearly not liking them even while they worked together, but she acted more or less the same way for the rest of the series (up to season 6 before she achieved sainthood in season 7) and the only thing that changed was that the others were no longer allowed to take offense when she was being nasty to them. The Big Bad villain to Hero transition went pretty quickly instead of it being a process, going from primary villain in season one to tentative ally in 2A to henchwoman and then villain in 2B, to reluctant ally and then hero in 3A, and full-fledged hero who's friends with her former victims in 3B. Really, turning the person who was tormenting the heroes in the first season into their best bud should have been a series-long process, if it happened at all. Her coming to terms with what she'd done and her flawed reasoning should have been juicy stuff, but it was all skipped.
• Regina's relationships with the heroes -- I'm considering this separately because redemption is about what she does, but the relationships are about how others react to her. Instead of her having to build an actual relationship with Henry, they waved a magic wand and retconned that they'd had a wonderful, close relationship before Emma came to town, even though we saw her pretty much neglecting him and emotionally abusing him. Then there's Snow. Their relationship was complicated, since apparently Snow still had some lingering fondness of Regina as her stepmother, which kept her from being able to execute Regina and allowed her to be her friend. But if that's the case, then Regina wasn't isolated and unwanted or unloved while married to Leopold. It can't be both. If Snow loved her stepmother enough for their relationship to be complicated, then Regina wasn't shut out. Anyway, working through that could have been interesting. Not that I really would have wanted to have that much Regina, but that's what they wanted to give us, so if they were going to do it, they needed to use what they had and get into the meat of Regina's issues instead of skipping past them straight to the part where everyone loves her.
• Emma's relationship with her parents -- Team Princess was fun, with Emma getting to see Snow in her element. But after that they pretty much skipped over all the possible issues of parents and child meeting in the child's adulthood, them all being the same age, them coming from different worlds, Emma not wanting the same things out of life that her parents wanted for her, etc. Everything was pretty much all okay as of Emma's return at the end of 2A, with maybe just a bit of stuff coming up around the wedding planning.
• Emma and Hook -- When you look at it, things between them were pretty rushed. There was whatever time they spent together in 2A, they barely interacted in 2B, then they spent maybe a week together in Neverland, spent a year apart (during which she didn't remember him), then spent maybe 5 days occasionally working together in 3B, and boom, they're a couple. I know there were people who were impatient and thought they were dragging things out, but two seasons that cover a couple of weeks spent together isn't really dragging things out. It seems like they rushed pretty quickly to them being an established couple. There's a happy medium between that and the never-ending will they/won't they that happens on some shows. They could have taken maybe a little more time in the flirtation stage. One of the problems with throwing them together as an established couple so quickly was that then they resorted to contrivance to keep them apart. I think I'd rather see a bit more UST and will they/won't they than contrived conflict.
• Neal -- I don't like the guy, but he was an interesting piece of the puzzle since he was at the center of it all, and I think they ditched him too soon. We should have had more of a process of him reconciling with his father (and actually address the issue of his mother), more of a process of him with Henry. Let Henry get to know him for real and realize he was a flawed person rather than turning him into an instant martyr. I'm not a huge fan of love triangles, but a triangle of sorts with him, Emma, and Hook could have been interesting because he and Hook had such a history. That could have given them a chance to let the Emma/Hook relationship breathe a little, so there was something going on while they got to know each other well enough to get into a relationship. Even though Neal was from the fairytale world, he presented more like someone from the "real" world, especially compared to Hook, so they represented the two worlds Emma stood between. Like Neal, she was from the fairytale world but grew up in our world and identified more with it, but then she was magical and the daughter of Snow White and Prince Charming, which put her in Hook's world. That triangle would have been a good way of exploring what was going on with Emma and how she was affected by everything she'd learned about her heritage. Does she want the "normal" guy who wants nothing to do with magic, or does she want to embrace the magical world and end up with Captain Hook?

All this is material for several more seasons before you even get into what the guest villains and story arcs would have stirred up. You don't really need a kiss curse or eggnapping for drama if you use the drama you've already created.

18 hours ago, Camera One said:

Oh well, I guess we just need to wait for their next "Epic" series so we can all get burned again, LOL.

Not even going to try it. I don't remember what channel/streaming service it's on, but I don't think it's one I have.

[daxx]

7 hours ago, Shanna Marie said:

On 3/24/2021 at 7:36 PM, Camera One said:

Oh well, I guess we just need to wait for their next "Epic" series so we can all get burned again, LOL.

Not even going to try it. I don't remember what channel/streaming service it's on, but I don't think it's one I have.

I’ll give it a shot. It’s an anthology not on ongoing series, they should be able to keep a single episode together. Amazing Stories was nice and had a couple memorable episodes.

[KingOfHearts]

This show is kind of hilarious when you watch scenes out of context because YouTube recommends them to you. It's not as if context would allow them to make any more sense, but...

 

I love how the writers wanted Ivy/Drizella to be this "mastermind" manipulating everyone. She wanted Roni to be more suspicious of her mother so she would feel like something wasn't right, making her susceptible to the memory potion. Check. But the random photo Ivy planted of Regina and Henry in Storybrooke was so out of place. Why the hell would Ivy's mother leave this random photo stuck in the door of an electrical panel that had nothing inside? It's not exactly as thoughtful on the writers' part as Henry's camera was in 3B.

Every time I watch these scenes I remember how atrocious the dialogue is in this show. Victoria's dressing down of Ivy was so generically mean and over the top. Yes, we get it - Victoria loves Anastasia more than Drizella. There's nothing in the dialogue to really foreshadow the why, though. She just finds Ivy's doting insufficient because... reasons. It's like the writers had no idea what the story of those two was until Victoria's later centric episode. Cora's treatment of Regina was much more believable and while it was extreme, seemed less cartoonish in earlier seasons. You sort of understood from the start why she treated her the way she did, even without the whole Miller's Daughter backstory. The "critical parent" trope shouldn't be difficult to make relatable or organic. 

Quote

Victoria: "Not all daughters are created equal. It's embarrassing watching you flailing around, Ivy. Not understanding all the things you're capable of. All the ways you're going to fall short. Think about it, and fix your makeup."

 

Edited April 4, 2021 by KingOfHearts

[Camera One]

31 minutes ago, KingOfHearts said:

But the random photo Ivy planted of Regina and Henry in Storybrooke was so out of place. Why the hell would Ivy's mother leave this random photo stuck in the door of an electrical panel that had nothing inside?

Roni also says "Maybe it isn't such a waste [of our time] after all", when she simply saw a piece of paper sticking out.  Why would a random piece of paper sticking out (probably left by the electrician or building maintenance crew) be important?  That line should have come after she saw it was a photograph.

And out of context... oooooh, someone is drinking tea up here by herself, how super mysterious.

Edited April 4, 2021 by Camera One

[KingOfHearts]

1 minute ago, Camera One said:

And out of context... oooooh, someone is drinking tea up here by herself, how super mysterious.

Wouldn't Roni assume she was doing some sort of drugs?

[KingOfHearts]

Oddly enough, I do think a lot of ideas in S7 could've worked, just not for the original main characters except maybe Zelena. Ivy/Drizella could've been a great gray character if they hadn't made her "muahahaha evil" halfway through the first half. She had real chemistry with Henry. The Rapunzel/Lady Tremaine melodrama made for a very strong and understandable character motivation. It's a shame it gets wasted on a rip-off of Devil Wears Prada. Zelena dating a muggle boyfriend wasn't even a bad idea if the writers had taken the time to develop their relationship. 

However, the stuff with Regina, Tiana, Henry, Rumple, Jacinda, and Lucy was so dead on arrival. Those characters were either horrible from the get-go or really had no reason to be there at all. The only stuff that had a good concept and was executed well was the stuff with WHook, Alice, and Robyn. There were interesting concepts mixed in there (like WHenry and WRumple) but like everything else with the show, the execution kinda ruined it. 

I still don't absolutely hate everything about S7. S6 was definitely more disappointing. There's plenty of things to hate in S7, but it was harder to take seriously. S6 was just suffering and character assassination for every single character we ever loved. I don't think S7 "ruined" characters like Regina or Rumple (there were actually improvements some of the time), but it didn't do a service to them either. Like, does Regina having some weird fling with Facilier destroy her character arc? No, but it doesn't really make it more compelling either.

Edited April 5, 2021 by KingOfHearts

[Camera One]

12 minutes ago, KingOfHearts said:

Oddly enough, I do think a lot of ideas in S7 could've worked, just not for the original main characters except maybe Zelena. Ivy/Drizella could've been a great gray character if they hadn't made her "muahahaha evil" halfway through the first half. She had real chemistry with Henry. The Rapunzel/Lady Tremaine melodrama made for a very strong and understandable character motivation. It's a shame it gets wasted on a rip-off of Devil Wears Prada. Zelena dating a muggle boyfriend wasn't even a bad idea if the writers had taken the time to develop their relationship. 

However, the stuff with Regina, Tiana, Henry, Rumple, Jacinda, and Lucy was so dead on arrival. Those characters were either horrible from the get-go or really had no reason to be there at all. The only stuff that had a good concept and was executed well was the stuff with WHook, Alice, and Robyn. There were interesting concepts mixed in there (like WHenry and WRumple) but like everything else with the show, the execution kinda ruined it. 

The problem is that the stuff that didn't work (Henry, Lucy, Jacinda, Regina, Weaver) was most of the premise.  It would need major restructuring to rebuild the story.

The Rapunzel/Lady Tremaine/Rapunzel stuff was also tied to Anastasia and The Guardian, which were a total mess.

The only way I can think of would be to make it WHenry, WRegina and WRumple, like they did with WHook.  Heck, they can throw in WZelena.  But even that would require a lot of thought to make it make sense.  The simplest would be to say The Disenchanted Forest experienced a Curse while WHenry, WRegina, WRumple, WZelena and WHook were there (maybe they escaped the Wish Realm before it self-destructed or something?), and that brought everyone to Hyperion Heights.  And then *actually* use the premise of fairy tale characters inter-mixing with normal Earth people.  

Edited April 5, 2021 by Camera One

[Shanna Marie]

15 hours ago, Camera One said:

The only way I can think of would be to make it WHenry, WRegina and WRumple, like they did with WHook.  Heck, they can throw in WZelena.  But even that would require a lot of thought to make it make sense. 

I came up with a scenario to make it work, keeping the good stuff from season 7 and ditching the rest by making it all the Wish versions. To start with, WHook stayed in the Wishverse and that's where Alice was born, so we don't have that issue of him intersecting with other realms before Emma's wish was granted. We can keep it vague as to whether all this stuff actually happened or if it sprang into existence as though it had happened. We still have WHook letting WRegina take the Jolly Roger when he decides to stay with Alice. The Gothel stuff with WHook still happens, but maybe for different reasons and without the Cinderella connection. When Emma sends Old WHook off to the Jolly Roger, that's when he's reunited with Pirate Queen WRegina. He stays on the ship with her crew. Somewhere along the way, they run into some kind of spell that de-ages them. They also run across WHenry, who's out for revenge for what happened to his family and blaming the wrong Regina, and WRumple. I guess we could throw in WZelena, too. Heck, maybe she's the one who casts the curse because she finally got her chance and she wanted to show WRumple she could do it even though he didn't need it anymore, and she went out and made herself start to love someone she could kill, or something like that. If we're bringing Ivy in, then she'd have to be someone different, maybe someone who conned Zelena into casting the curse (for some reason -- there would have to be a reason she couldn't have just used a bean to get to our world). And I guess Robyn would have to be someone different because we're not doing the massive time jump here, so she'd still be a little kid and not old enough for Alice.

Then they all end up in a modern American city, with WHenry in an Emma-like role as a foster kid, and he finds these strange storybooks in the library. The tricky part would be figuring out how the fairytale characters could interact with normal people without the normal people having to also be cursed to remember them, unless this one group of people has all just recently moved in -- Henry shows up as the new kid in a foster home, so the curse just has to create a fake background. If we're going to still make WHook a cop, he's just joined the force. WRegina has just opened a new bar, etc. They could play around with the glimpses we get of the backstory to delay the revelation that these are all the Wish versions, unless they need to get that out of the way up front to keep viewers from freaking out. I know that was why they did the WHook revelation so quickly instead of dragging it out, because there were viewers who didn't want to watch if Hook Prime's happy ending with Emma was ruined.

[Camera One]

52 minutes ago, Shanna Marie said:

unless this one group of people has all just recently moved in -- Henry shows up as the new kid in a foster home, so the curse just has to create a fake background. If we're going to still make WHook a cop, he's just joined the force. WRegina has just opened a new bar, etc. 

I like this idea.  When Season 7 was first announced, I actually imagined there would be a hotel or an apartment block that housed all the new arrivals, and that's why they would interact with each other.  They would all be new neighbours, and we could see new relationships developing which we will see via flashbacks were actually old relationships (eg. Jacinda and Sabine, if Jacinda has to be on the show).  And Lady Tremaine would be the evil landlord and own every business.  

This large residential and commercial development would have magically appeared overnight beside an existing neighborhood in Seattle, so the normal people would just have fake/hazy memories of everything being built.  They might have some animosity towards the people who have just moved in and everyone (even Rogers joining the police force) would experience it to some degree.

I know they wanted a child to mirror Season 1, but I don't think it's necessary and it would feel less like retread.  Maybe the child could just be a baby, so we wouldn't have to hear stilted dialogue.  

Henry showing up as a new kid in a foster home would be neat and actually interesting, but that would imply Younger Henry would be a main character in Season 7, when the intent was to age him up and have us see a fully grown man Henry instead.  If Henry was in Hyperion Heights for 10 years and grew up, then it might be a bit strange that everyone else didn't age.  And Henry would have needed to meet Teenage Cinderella 10 years before, and there wouldn't be a baby.

Edited April 5, 2021 by Camera One

[Shanna Marie]

4 hours ago, Camera One said:

Henry showing up as a new kid in a foster home would be neat and actually interesting, but that would imply Younger Henry would be a main character in Season 7, when the intent was to age him up and have us see a fully grown man Henry instead. 

I was skipping that and keeping younger Henry (though the Wishverse version). I didn't think the aging up worked all that well. He didn't seem like the same person, the time jump aging him up created a lot of the issues in the season, since the writers didn't seem able to keep it straight, and that gives us a kid without the precocious brat stuff. Keep teen Henry, but maybe age him to catch up with the actor's age (or close to it), so he's a foster kid on the verge of aging out of the system without having been adopted. He hides out in the library to get away from his foster home, and there he discovers the strange storybooks whose stories go very differently from the fairy tales he's read before -- and then he starts noticing people around town who look like the people in the books and he starts trying to figure out what's going on.

What he doesn't realize is that the books are about the Prime versions and he and the others are the Wish versions. He thinks WRegina is his adoptive mother, but in his world they never knew each other.

4 hours ago, Camera One said:

When Season 7 was first announced, I actually imagined there would be a hotel or an apartment block that housed all the new arrivals, and that's why they would interact with each other.  They would all be new neighbours, and we could see new relationships developing which we will see via flashbacks were actually old relationships (eg. Jacinda and Sabine, if Jacinda has to be on the show).

I had thought about this being like the neighborhood equivalent of Storybrooke, where it's an isolated (ish) neighborhood of a big city, the kind of place people who don't live there never go, and the people who do live there don't really have a reason to go anywhere else. Their homes, schools, businesses, etc., are all there, and it doesn't even occur to them to try to leave the neighborhood. They think they're living in a big city, but it's really just a bubble. Then you don't have to deal with the implications of throwing these people into the real world and needing credit and work histories, etc. It wouldn't matter that "Rogers" isn't actually an experienced police officer because his cases don't actually make it into the system of the rest of the city. Then everyone in the neighborhood would be a fairytale character, like with Storybrooke, but then we don't have them interacting so much with the real world, just something that looks like the real world.

And then maybe something happens to weaken the curse and people are able to leave the neighborhood and interact with the real world and outsiders can come in, but maybe the cursed people don't yet have their real memories back yet. So maybe Detective Rogers goes to the downtown police headquarters for some reason, and he finds that they've never heard of him and have no record of him or of any case he's worked.

For the series finale, they could run into the Prime versions from Storybrooke, but without any time travel shenanigans or continuity issues, just checking in on them 4 or so years after season 6.

[Camera One]

On 4/5/2021 at 12:09 PM, Shanna Marie said:

To start with, WHook stayed in the Wishverse and that's where Alice was born, so we don't have that issue of him intersecting with other realms before Emma's wish was granted. We can keep it vague as to whether all this stuff actually happened or if it sprang into existence as though it had happened. We still have WHook letting WRegina take the Jolly Roger when he decides to stay with Alice. The Gothel stuff with WHook still happens, but maybe for different reasons and without the Cinderella connection.

I agree it would be more interesting to explore all the Wish versions.  That would essentially be what we didn't get to see in Season 6 with the "What If" scenarios.  What If Regina hadn't been successful with casting the Curse?  Season 7 could have explored how WRegina and WRumple  (and WZelena) responded, just like we did with WHook. That could be a bit more than 28 years worth of flashback stories for how their paths diverged.  

I agree that Alice being born in the Wishverse would avoid the complications of the Disenchanted Forest's history being backwards-affected by the creation of the Wish Realm.  I guess the problem with all the flashbacks occurring in the Wishverse will be the explain New Cinderella, New Stepsisters, New Tremaine, and New Rapunzel.  They never did Mother Gothel before Season 7, so she would be fine. 

They would also need to explain why none of the supporting characters like WGranny, WBlue, WGrumpy, WArchie were appearing... I actually think Season 7 would have been more fun if they cameo'd more.

On 4/5/2021 at 5:39 PM, Shanna Marie said:

I was skipping that and keeping younger Henry (though the Wishverse version). I didn't think the aging up worked all that well. He didn't seem like the same person

I would have been fine with that, and I like your ideas of WHenry in a foster home in Hyperion Heights.

On top of teenage Henry being unpopular, they would also lose the swoon-worthy "leading man" that A&E created with Adult Henry.

Assuming they kept the teenage version of Henry... If Season 7 took place a year after Season 6, WHenry's flashback plot could be about the aftermath of WSnowing be killed and Emma disappearing.  For the Hyperion Heights story to work, it would be good if WHenry met a love interest and some friends in that intervening year, so they could eventually reunite in the present-day after the Curse broke.

[tennisgurl]

Adult Henry was weird in that he both seemed like a totally different person and was too much like young Henry. The only times I saw young Henry in adult Henry were his most annoying traits, especially his whininess and whole "I want to be a hero!" obsession, which made sense as a kid or as a teen but as an adult was just embarrassing. Those times he felt more like a man child mammas boy who never matured past being ten and is hot for women who remind him of his adopted mom, and every other time he was just a bland main character type, both in his cursed personality and as Henry, who were basically the exact same person. 

Hyperion Heights would have worked really well as an apartment complex or one neighborhood, having it just be some random neighborhood filled mostly with random normal people and about five fairytale characters made the stakes so low. If had no personality the way that Storeybrooke did, and the lack of actual fairytale characters made the curse so lackluster. But that's season seven in a nutshell. Season one, the half assed version. 

Season six is probably the worst season because of its character assassinating ret-cons and subplots and Emma becoming a shallow shell of her former self to fight against one of the shows worst villains, but season seven was definitely the most useless season. You can almost skip it and end on season six, it really adds nothing besides Regina conquering the multiverse and being declared queen for life, but it doesn't really hurt the show until the end. Season six actually hurt the show itself and retroactively made the show worse, which is why its their worst season, in my opinion. Season seven though is probably second, its utterly pointless and a sad retread of previous seasons plots and ideas that the show has seen in other shows. 

That makes me think about how the shows would rank in quality, and its actually pretty hard as the show is so based around half season arcs and so often the subplots are so non connected to each other its hard to decide on a season overall quality. For example, I really like the Frozen arc when it comes to the Frozen characters and Emma trying to figure out her powers and her blossoming romance with Hook, but the same season had the crypt sex subplot, one of the shows absolute worst subplots, and they were going on at the same time. 

[Shanna Marie]

17 hours ago, Camera One said:

I guess the problem with all the flashbacks occurring in the Wishverse will be the explain New Cinderella, New Stepsisters, New Tremaine, and New Rapunzel.  They never did Mother Gothel before Season 7, so she would be fine. 

I wasn't going to bother with New Cinderella and her family. In this scenario, I'm not really trying to rewrite season 7 as it was. I was trying to create a new season 7 under the same constraints they had, and if you have to have Hook, Regina, and Rumple but can't have Emma or the Charmings, then the Wishverse seems like the way to go. JMo, Josh, and Ginny didn't want to come back. Most of the rest of the cast they cut for cost or story reasons, but I find it hard to believe that Gabrielle Anwar was less expensive than Jared Gilmore, so I figure we can keep young Henry if we skip Lady Tremaine. Come up with a different love interest for WHenry since we have 28 years when things would have been happening without the curse being cast. Maybe teen Tiana? But she's actually a working-class girl in their world who's not impressed with Prince Henry, but they become friends during the curse. Alice can be our mashup character, where she's Alice, but she's also in the Rapunzel role. Without the time jump, she makes a lot more sense, age-wise. Just have WHook and WRegina wandering a bit after the curse would have been cast before he fathers her, and then she can still be in her 20s without breaking anyone's brain.

17 hours ago, Camera One said:

They would also need to explain why none of the supporting characters like WGranny, WBlue, WGrumpy, WArchie were appearing

Would WGranny be alive 28 years later? If the curse isn't global and only takes people from a specific area, and if WHenry is far from home when the curse hits, that would explain why we aren't seeing all the characters all the time, but there could be cameos in flashbacks.

17 hours ago, Camera One said:

On top of teenage Henry being unpopular, they would also lose the swoon-worthy "leading man" that A&E created with Adult Henry.

I'm willing to sacrifice. We do still have WHook, though I guess they were held back from putting him with a love interest because fans didn't like the idea of seeing him with someone other than Emma, even if he was a different version of Hook who was never with Emma.

17 hours ago, Camera One said:

Assuming they kept the teenage version of Henry... If Season 7 took place a year after Season 6, WHenry's flashback plot could be about the aftermath of WSnowing be killed and Emma disappearing.  For the Hyperion Heights story to work, it would be good if WHenry met a love interest and some friends in that intervening year, so they could eventually reunite in the present-day after the Curse broke.

I think if they caught season 7 up to the present, it would have been several years after the end of season 6, which gives plenty of room for adventures while WHenry was trying to track down Regina for killing his family. That's when he could run into teen Tiana, and they could do something similar to her plot, though maybe without them literally being turned into frogs, where she has to help him on some quest and has little patience for his royal attitude, but along the way as they have adventures they begin to fall in love. Maybe she's a waitress at Ye Olde Tavern, dreaming of opening her own inn someday, a place people will come because they like the food, not just because they need a place to stop and eat on a journey. But then she gets kidnapped along with Henry and they have to escape. Or something. In the real world during the curse, she's a classmate of Henry's who works at a diner after school and dreams of opening her own restaurant.

9 hours ago, tennisgurl said:

Hyperion Heights would have worked really well as an apartment complex or one neighborhood, having it just be some random neighborhood filled mostly with random normal people and about five fairytale characters made the stakes so low. If had no personality the way that Storeybrooke did, and the lack of actual fairytale characters made the curse so lackluster.

I was thinking it should have been a Sesame Street-type neighborhood -- not with the Muppets, but that neighborhood that's like a storybook version of a big city, and it seems like it's a part of the city, but no one actually leaves the neighborhood and no one comes in, so it functions like a small town even though the set dressing is coded "city." I keep picturing it as more New York than Seattle, but that may just be because I'm a lot more familiar with New York and have seen it in more movie/TV depictions, so it seems more fairy tale to me. I think it would also be easier to fake it in Vancouver without looking too generic. Vancouver plays New York all the time. Their attempt to do Seattle was too generic. I never got a sense of place from it.

[Camera One]

On 4/5/2021 at 5:39 PM, Shanna Marie said:

Keep teen Henry, but maybe age him to catch up with the actor's age (or close to it), so he's a foster kid on the verge of aging out of the system without having been adopted. He hides out in the library to get away from his foster home, and there he discovers the strange storybooks whose stories go very differently from the fairy tales he's read before -- and then he starts noticing people around town who look like the people in the books and he starts trying to figure out what's going on.

So in your scenario, Henry would be the one to initiate questioning.

With Season 1, Henry was the one trying to convince Emma, so in Season 7, they created Lucy to be the one trying to convince Henry.

I suppose one could argue that Lucy trying to convince Henry was sort of pointless and went nowhere for the most part, so it wasn't necessary?

I remember Adult Henry eventually did have a conspiracy wall, but I don't remember what prompted that.  Was it after he was kidnapped by Nick?  And he eventually decided it wasn't real?  

That was the frustrating thing too.  Emma too in Season One kept reverting back to lack of belief.  

In your alternate Season 7, they could change that with Henry.  Maybe he actually does progressively start believing it.

[Shanna Marie]

46 minutes ago, Camera One said:

In your alternate Season 7, they could change that with Henry.  Maybe he actually does progressively start believing it.

I was thinking he'd come to be a believer, with no person who already knows/believes to persuade him. He finds the books and thinks they're weird because not only do they include fairy tales, but they include stories taking place in our world with some of the same people (it's all the books that both Isaac and Henry Prime have written, so they're basically about seasons 1-6). And then he notices that one of the characters looks a lot like he did when he was younger, except he doesn't remember any of these events. Is it a coincidence? Is he reading too much into it? After all, the pictures are pretty vague, but then he doesn't know much about his own history. Maybe this is a clue. And then he starts noticing people around the neighborhood who look a lot like the other characters in the books. He starts to wonder if maybe there's been another curse that's moved them from Storybrooke to this place and altered their memories again. He investigates and comes to believe, but without actually remembering. So I guess he's like Lucy, who didn't have her real identity or memories but who just believed from seeing the book (though we don't know what in the book convinced her since she never noticed the people in the neighborhood who looked like people in the book and never seems to have thought anything of an English-accented guy named Rogers who has one hand in a neighborhood that she believes is full of storybook characters). Then he starts trying to persuade the others -- only the twist is that he's wrong, that they're the wish versions of the characters and none of this stuff actually happened to them. Worse, the Regina he's been treating like his adopted mom is actually the Evil Queen who tormented him and his family (and, he thinks, killed his grandparents).

As for the backstory, on Henry's side, it would start soon after Regina and Emma left, with him wanting to find WRegina to get revenge for her killing his family (I don't think he ever really grasped that the Regina who did all that was a different version). WRumple would approach him and team up with him, promising to help him get his revenge, only WRumple knows it wasn't WRegina who killed the Charmings, but he wants his own revenge on WRegina because of what she did to WBelle and he's willing to use Henry to help him get it.

Meanwhile, when Emma sends WHook back to the Jolly Roger, that reunites him with Pirate Queen WRegina, who's been on the ship all this time after he left to raise Alice. After encountering Emma, he has new hope about being able to break his curse, and he turns over a new leaf, giving up drinking and getting his act together (there could be a funny moment in which he explains his plan to find a true love who can break his curse with a kiss and she makes it clear that she's not a candidate). Somewhere along the way, the ship comes across some kind of magical fountain of youth, or something like that, that deages all of them (fairly quickly if they're doing flashbacks in chronological order, so they don't have the expense of aging makeup for more than part of one episode). They set out to find a way to break WHook's curse. At some point, they run into WRumple and WHenry, and that's when the curse is cast, bringing them all to our world.

[Camera One]

1 hour ago, Shanna Marie said:

Meanwhile, when Emma sends WHook back to the Jolly Roger, that reunites him with Pirate Queen WRegina, who's been on the ship all this time after he left to raise Alice. After encountering Emma, he has new hope about being able to break his curse, and he turns over a new leaf, giving up drinking and getting his act together (there could be a funny moment in which he explains his plan to find a true love who can break his curse with a kiss and she makes it clear that she's not a candidate). Somewhere along the way, the ship comes across some kind of magical fountain of youth, or something like that, that deages all of them (fairly quickly if they're doing flashbacks in chronological order, so they don't have the expense of aging makeup for more than part of one episode). They set out to find a way to break WHook's curse. At some point, they run into WRumple and WHenry, and that's when the curse is cast, bringing them all to our world.

I'm liking your idea.  How would you use Jennifer Morrison's guest star episode then?  

In Season 7, seeing Emma again and trying to kill Hook before finding out he was about to have a baby, was what made Whook reverse his mindset.  I was trying to figure out how this would happen under this new scenario.

If your version of Henry is finding parallels from the book to people in Hyperion Heights, maybe this could lend itself to a more procedural approach, with a different fairy tale per episode.

That's another quandry about this show.  Season 1 was a tad more procedural, while still having a season-long arc.  Whereas I think Season 7 mostly continued the more serialized approach of the later seasons.  

Just thinking that having Teenage WHenry as a protagonist could have made a satisfying series finale.  He would get to reunite with Emma, and another version of his grandparents.  We don't need The Good Queen.  

Edited April 10, 2021 by Camera One

[Shanna Marie]

15 hours ago, Camera One said:

How would you use Jennifer Morrison's guest star episode then?

I had to give this some thought. The real purpose behind her guest episode the way they did it was to reassure Captain Swan fans that season 7 wasn't destroying Emma and Hook's happy ending by revealing that "Rogers" was WHook, not Hook Prime. I'd originally thought it would be interesting to delay the revelation that we're dealing with Wishverse characters, but I don't see how that could work with flashbacks. You might be able to think for a while that Regina and Hook on the Jolly Roger in the fairytale world was yet another retcon, but Prince Henry and Rumple would make it pretty obvious. So I think it would be "audience superior" suspense instead, with the audience knowing that these are probably the Wishverse characters who are cursed, so we know cursed Prince Henry (let's call him Walt, since he needs a curse identity other than "Henry Mills" and naming him after Disney seems like something they'd do) is right about them being cursed fairytale characters but wrong about who they are and what their relationships to each other are.

So, I think I'd use Emma for the episode when Walt learns first that he's right about them being cursed, then that he's wrong about who they are, maybe the midseason finale before the winter break. Walt's been trying to find information about Storybrooke, but it doesn't show up in any searches. There's no record of it, and that's making it tough to convince the others that they're from Storybrooke. But then one day, Detective Rogers is at his desk when an alert pops up on his computer screen, with a bulletin notifying police that a fugitive alert has been canceled because the fugitive was captured by Sheriff Emma Swan of Storybrooke, Maine. That startles him because he's seen that name in Walt's books, and supposedly this woman is his wife, his true love that he's been separated from by the curse. There's a phone number for the Storybrooke sheriff's office in the police report and he writes it down, then he picks up the phone to call, but backs off. He can't bring himself to talk to her, but he brings the phone number to Walt, since he's the one who really believes. Rogers is worried that hearing from her husband who sees her as a stranger will be too shocking for her, but Walt really believes he's Henry, so maybe he'll handle it better. Walt calls, and Emma answers. We see her sitting in the sheriff's office, holding a baby as she mans the phones and does paperwork. She recognizes Walt's voice as Henry, which confirms all his theories -- but instead of her reacting like "Where have you been? I've been so worried!" she acts like it's a run-of-the-mill call from a kid she saw that morning, talking about something mundane, like letting him know that she put the thing he needed for school in the outside pocket of his book bag. While she's talking, Hook comes in, and she pauses the conversation to listen as he reports the call he was just out on. Walt overhears and recognizes the voice as Rogers, talking about names he saw in the storybook. He really gets to hear Hook's voice when he leans over Emma to take the baby from her, so he's certain that it's the same person. Except he can't be. Walt is left stunned. These people exist. But the people he knows in his neighborhood aren't missing from Storybrooke. Cliffhanger! So now they know they aren't the Storybrooke people, but the book mentioning the trip to the Wishverse isn't in the library, so they don't yet know about the Wishverse.

Meanwhile, in the flashback, I think we need to deal with what happened with Wish Emma. If we're to believe these Wishverse characters are real, then that world can't just have been a construct that appeared the moment the wish was made, so there was no Wish Emma since Emma Prime was in that role. So maybe the Wish Emma was zapped away to the other side of the world when Emma Prime was put in her place, and she's been stuck there, trying to survive and find a way to get back home. WHook finds her and recognizes her from having met Emma Prime. He's already been deaged and gave up drinking (as WHook said he did in season 7), and he kind of hopes he can have the same thing with her that his counterpart has with the Emma he met, which could break the curse. He offers to take her back home, figuring he can let nature take its course on the journey, but along the way he really does start falling for her. He likes her enough that he doesn't want to just use her. He wants what the other Hook has. They get back to her home, where she learns that her parents have been killed and her son is missing. WHook volunteers to find Henry for her while she runs the kingdom, and he gives her a pep talk about how he knows she has the strength to be queen. And he hopes that maybe if he manages to find Henry, that will win her love so he can get that TLK. Which sets in motion him being around Henry when the curse hits.

We'd still need the cameo in the series finale so we could see WHenry and WHook coming home to WEmma, but they got that in the season 7 we actually got, so I figure we're good (if not, we see a backlit figure in a white princess dress at the end of a corridor, and we see their reunion in silhouette). I don't know if we need to check in on the Storybrooke bunch at the end, unless maybe they get involved in helping the Wishverse people get home, kind of like happened in the actual series finale. Except no smushing all the worlds together. Just break the curse, get everyone to Storybrooke, and then a portal home, and we see just enough of the Storybrooke folks to have a good coda for their happy endings. Also, no Regina gets crowned Queen of the Universe.

[Camera One]

22 minutes ago, KingOfHearts said:

This brings me to an interesting question - was 3B actually a good time for the Missing Year, or should it have occurred later? I agree that 3B needed to be more Storybrooke-focused. There was potential for good Missing Year flashbacks, but half of the flashbacks ended up being pretty pointless. We did NOT need THREE episodes to explain Zelena's backstory. She's green with envy. We get it. Even "Kansas" was more about Zelena than any of the Ozians or Dorothy. The writers didn't want Oz, they just wanted "Wicked vs. Evil." 

The flashbacks for "The Tower" and "Jolly Roger" seemed really filler-y. More time needed to spent on explaining things like how Hook out-ran the Curse, the methods the heroes used to stop Zelena before being so desperate they needed to cast the Curse, how the heroes were managing the kingdom, and some semblance of a romance between Regina and Robin Hood so it didn't feel so forced in present day.

Bringing this over from the "Other Tales" thread.

That's a good question.  I think they needed a time jump of some sort to allow Emma and Henry to get established in NYC.  In that sense, it was a good half season to do a "missing year".  That also solved the problem of avoiding re-visiting the time periods we had already seen ad nauseum (eg. Bandit Snow, Belle as Rumple's servant, etc.) - though they went back to that later on to squeeze more water from a stone.  But as you said, a lot of the flashback they did come up with was lame as hell.  I think setting the Missing Year in the Enchanted Forest COULD have been good, if they actually addressed how the characters would have felt going back to their old homeland.  Snow visiting her father's palace for the first time since Regina tried to kill her.  It should have been a big deal.  In that sense, the insertion of the Wicked Witch and Oz was a huge distraction from stories that could organically have built from going home, and even making the lands habitable and safe again.

You hit the nail on the head that first and foremost on the Writers' minds was "Wicked vs Evil".  They couldn't care less about everything else.

Edited June 6, 2021 by Camera One

[andromeda331]

6 hours ago, Camera One said:

Bringing this over from the "Other Tales" thread.

That's a good question.  I think they needed a time jump of some sort to allow Emma and Henry to get established in NYC.  In that sense, it was a good half season to do a "missing year".  That also solved the problem of avoiding re-visiting the time periods we had already seen ad nauseum (eg. Bandit Snow, Belle as Rumple's servant, etc.) - though they went back to that later on to squeeze more water from a stone.  But as you said, a lot of the flashback they did come up with was lame as hell.  I think setting the Missing Year in the Enchanted Forest COULD have been good, if they actually addressed how the characters would have felt going back to their old homeland.  Snow visiting her father's palace for the first time since Regina tried to kill her.  It should have been a big deal.  In that sense, the insertion of the Wicked Witch and Oz was a huge distraction from stories that could organically have built from going home, and even making the lands habitable and safe again.

You hit the nail on the head that first and foremost on the Writers' minds was "Wicked vs Evil".  They couldn't care less about everything else.

I really wish they had done that. 

[KingOfHearts]

I accidentally let my Disney+ subscription auto-renew, so I've found myself rewatching an episode here and there. I can't bring myself to do a full rewatch.

Today's episode is "Witch Hunt", which is one of my personal favorites of S3. It does a good job of formally introducing the villain, dealing with the fallout of being brought back to Storybrooke, and integrating all the new and old characters. Some of the better episodes of the series were not centrics, and this is one of them. You see a bit more of Regina but that's because she's the one initially going after Zelena and working with Emma to find the witch. There isn't quite as much time devoted to her moping and doping, which is nice. The episode is more about the overall plot than her.

The scene where they're all outside Knifington Palace talking about Oz being a real place is still one of my favorite scenes in the series. It's funny to me that only Belle and Regina knew about it while everyone else just knows the movie from the "Our World 101" download. It's an interesting bit of worldbuilding. Do most people in EF know other worlds exist? Like, is Wonderland common knowledge but Oz is more obscure? The show doesn't necessarily need to answer these questions, but they're still intriguing to think about. This scene also has some great lines from a variety characters.

A moment I think gets forgotten quite a lot is when Regina saves Roland from the flying monkey by turning it into a stuffed animal. We really should've seen her do more random acts of kindness like that to buy into her redemption arc. There was no possible ulterior motive or want for glory, she just reacted like a good person would and was nice about it. Was that really too much to ask for the Good Queen of the Universe?

The dwarves mention people in Storybrooke were randomly disappearing, which turned out to be people being turned into flying monkeys close to the edge of town. What if it was happening all over? What if Zelena threatened to pick someone off every day until she got what she wanted? That would've been a very suspenseful "Who's going to be next?" sort of thing. Maybe they'd even have to find a way to cure people and turn them back. (If Zelena didn't just "die".) 

[Camera One]

13 hours ago, KingOfHearts said:

The scene where they're all outside Knifington Palace talking about Oz being a real place is still one of my favorite scenes in the series. It's funny to me that only Belle and Regina knew about it while everyone else just knows the movie from the "Our World 101" download. It's an interesting bit of worldbuilding.

It's stuff like that which kept us hanging on and always Hoping™ for more.

Quote

The dwarves mention people in Storybrooke were randomly disappearing, which turned out to be people being turned into flying monkeys close to the edge of town. What if it was happening all over? What if Zelena threatened to pick someone off every day until she got what she wanted? That would've been a very suspenseful "Who's going to be next?" sort of thing. Maybe they'd even have to find a way to cure people and turn them back. (If Zelena didn't just "die".) 

That would have brought some actual focus to the half-season.  As it were, it was like none of the protagonists cared about their friends becoming Winged Monkeys, even shooting at them to kill.  

[Shanna Marie]

On 6/6/2021 at 5:36 PM, Camera One said:

I think setting the Missing Year in the Enchanted Forest COULD have been good, if they actually addressed how the characters would have felt going back to their old homeland.  Snow visiting her father's palace for the first time since Regina tried to kill her.  It should have been a big deal.  In that sense, the insertion of the Wicked Witch and Oz was a huge distraction from stories that could organically have built from going home, and even making the lands habitable and safe again.

There was so much they could have addressed about how the people were adapting to being in the Enchanted Forest again after having lived in 20th/21st century America, but I don't think any of that even came up at all, other than the dwarfs saying something about being handsome again upon their return. Regina was sad because she was separated from Henry, Neal wanted to get to Henry, and the Charmings may have missed Emma. But otherwise, it seemed like they all just fell into their old roles without any adjustment. Part of the problem was that they dumped the "we are both" thing after one episode, so we didn't get to see how they were adapting to Storybrooke after getting their identities back -- did anyone go back to their old professions or otherwise try to incorporate aspects of their Enchanted Forest lives into their Storybrooke lives? Without that, there's not a lot of context for how the Enchanted Forest return might have affected them. And there's so much potential. Did any of them try to cling to their Storybrooke lives in the Enchanted Forest? Were there others who were glad to be back and who were purists about their old way of life? Were there conflicts between these two groups? I'd think that people who'd been living in modern America might have some adjustment pains to a medieval lifestyle -- it might be tolerable if you didn't know anything different, but once you've lived with electricity and indoor plumbing it would be difficult to go back. Once you've used a washing machine, having to draw water from the well or bring it up from the river and then do laundry by stirring it in a pot, wringing it out, and hanging it to dry would be an ordeal.

Did anyone question their old personas? Just look at Snow's hair. Mary Margaret has a pixie cut while Snow has the big, long bird's nest. Those are total opposite hairstyles. The same person probably isn't going to be okay with both. Even though the pixie cut requires a lot of maintenance (a trim at least once a month), there's no sign until the end of season seven that Snow ever started growing her hair out once she got her identity back, so did she like the short hair? If she liked the short hair, why didn't she whack it all off as soon as they returned to the Enchanted Forest? Regina sulked around in her Evil Queen outfit, griping about anyone who still considered her the Evil Queen, but it's not like anyone was forcing her to dress that way. She could have changed her clothes and hair at any time, so why didn't she if she'd changed? The curse reverse might have put her in that outfit to start with, but she can change her look with the wave of a hand, or she could have found different clothes.

Then there's the fact that the curse reverse happened maybe a month or two (at most) after Snow and Emma were last in the Enchanted Forest (depending on how long 2B lasted. 3A was about a week). The whole place was overrun by ogres. The curse had destroyed a lot of things. If Zelena was able to come in, run off the ogres, and rebuild the land so quickly, she may have deserved to stay in charge. Otherwise, they should have had more of a struggle to resettle there. They'd have had to run off the ogres and rebuild the kingdom. At that time, it was before they decided that time was frozen everywhere and the Coradome just kept people from being brought to Storybrooke. During 2A, they'd treated it as though time had passed outside the Coradome, so things had weathered and aged, and that's how the ogres were able to come in and take over while everyone else was gone. They should have had to totally rebuild their society, and would the rebuilding have been influenced by Storybrooke?

There was so much potential to work with in the curse reverse/missing year, but I don't think any of this occurred to the writers.

[KingOfHearts]

22 hours ago, Shanna Marie said:

Regina sulked around in her Evil Queen outfit, griping about anyone who still considered her the Evil Queen, but it's not like anyone was forcing her to dress that way. She could have changed her clothes and hair at any time, so why didn't she if she'd changed? The curse reverse might have put her in that outfit to start with, but she can change her look with the wave of a hand, or she could have found different clothes.

It still makes no sense to me that Regina wouldn't put herself back in pantsuits or the more comfortable "hero attire" we see her wear in later seasons. She hated people seeing her as the Evil Queen, so why did she continue to wear what people associated that title with? That's something that kind of annoyed me about the show - characters wearing their fairy tale outfits so often when they're in EF even when they didn't have to. 

Quote

 If Zelena was able to come in, run off the ogres, and rebuild the land so quickly, she may have deserved to stay in charge. 

That whole thing about Philip and Aurora making a deal with Zelena was interesting. Too bad all that came of it was the two of them becoming flying monkeys.

[tennisgurl]

17 hours ago, KingOfHearts said:

She hated people seeing her as the Evil Queen, so why did she continue to wear what people associated that title with?

Probably because Regina she still loved when people were afraid of her even after being dubbed Best Hero Ever? She likes to be worshipped as everyone's savior while also reminding people that she can easily kill them with fire. But for real, that is a really good point, why is she still stomping around in her evil queen costume if she gets so pissed at people still calling her the evil queen? How is that even a practical outfit for a land that is 76% forest when you know that pants or a more practical skirt/shirt combo are an option after living in the modern world? But this show really loves everyone's "iconic" outfits and they are stuck wearing them even when it makes no sense for them to anymore. Its why Hook is still wearing his leather pirate garb way after he should have really changed into more practical jeans, tons of people only get one outfit like cartoon characters. No wonder they dedicated a whole episode to Emma's jacket. 

[Shanna Marie]

On 6/9/2021 at 7:51 PM, KingOfHearts said:

It still makes no sense to me that Regina wouldn't put herself back in pantsuits or the more comfortable "hero attire" we see her wear in later seasons. She hated people seeing her as the Evil Queen, so why did she continue to wear what people associated that title with?

It's interesting that when she moves to the Disenchanted Forest for good, and we see her there over the span of years, she keeps the shorter hair and wears the "hero" attire that looks nothing like the Evil Queen. She doesn't grow her hair out and put it up in that beehive type style, doesn't wear all black with feathers and beads and wacky headdresses. So why does she stick with that look just because the curse put her back in the Enchanted Forest during the Missing Year? If she liked the shorter hair enough that she kept it during years in a fairy tale world, why didn't she cut her hair as soon as she got back to the Enchanted Forest in the Missing Year? It was particularly weird that she took offense if anyone referred to her as the Evil Queen, and yet she stuck with that look.

8 hours ago, tennisgurl said:

Its why Hook is still wearing his leather pirate garb way after he should have really changed into more practical jeans

He's another one who had supposedly totally changed, who wasn't at all the same person he once was, and yet he kept the same look. Whenever he went to a fairytale world, he was right back in a close approximation of the same pirate outfit. It was weirdest with WHook in season 7, where that would have been a really impractical outfit while he was regularly climbing the tower. He wasn't dressed like that in fat, old mode, but then suddenly went right back to that outfit upon being de-aged. I'll admit, I do still have items of clothing that are 30 years old, but they're mixed in with lots of other stuff. If that was all I had to wear, I'd be really sick of them. But he doesn't change in more than a century.

Though with him, there's the added issue that he hates the man he used to be, but still refers to himself proudly as a pirate. To some extent, you could take that as him being ashamed of his vengeance mode, but then they also showed him doing horrible things that had nothing to do with vengeance, that were all about piracy, like him killing David's father. He's ashamed of what he did as a pirate and has put those days behind him, but he still identifies as a pirate?

[KingOfHearts]

On 6/10/2021 at 9:39 PM, Shanna Marie said:

He's ashamed of what he did as a pirate and has put those days behind him, but he still identifies as a pirate?

It probably would've been humorous if he still referred to himself as a pirate yet wore jeans and plaid or modern leather jackets. He just needed to keep the guyliner and jewelry. 

[Shanna Marie]

The 10th anniversary of the pilot is coming up on Oct. 23. I can't believe it's been 10 years. Do we want to do anything to commemorate/celebrate? A rewatch of the pilot?

[tennisgurl]

On 10/4/2021 at 3:33 PM, Shanna Marie said:

The 10th anniversary of the pilot is coming up on Oct. 23. I can't believe it's been 10 years. Do we want to do anything to commemorate/celebrate? A rewatch of the pilot?

I would be into a pilot rewatch. I cant believe its been ten years. 

[Camera One]

On 10/4/2021 at 1:33 PM, Shanna Marie said:

The 10th anniversary of the pilot is coming up on Oct. 23. I can't believe it's been 10 years. Do we want to do anything to commemorate/celebrate? A rewatch of the pilot?

 

38 minutes ago, tennisgurl said:

I cant believe its been ten years. 

I assume we all have our altars to The Good Queen™ constructed by now?

October 23 will also allow us to celebrate Page 23.  

[Camera One]

It is finally the day when the stars in the sky align with the stars on the Hat!  Has everyone baked their very special apple turnovers?  

Edited October 23, 2021 by Camera One

[Shanna Marie]

4 hours ago, Camera One said:

Has everyone baked their very special apple turnovers?

Alas, I don't have the ingredients. I did consider heating up some frozen lasagna and pretending it was homemade and calling it my secret recipe like Granny. Or I could have added red pepper flakes, a la Regina. Did they ever mention chocolate chip cookies on the show? Because that's what I've got.

[Camera One]

20 minutes ago, Shanna Marie said:

Did they ever mention chocolate chip cookies on the show? Because that's what I've got.

They were probably in the blind witch's house, LOL.

Quote

Alas, I don't have the ingredients. I did consider heating up some frozen lasagna and pretending it was homemade and calling it my secret recipe like Granny. Or I could have added red pepper flakes, a la Regina.

Don't forget to get angry when no one likes it.

Speaking of trivia, the actor who played Owen said there was a line in "Welcome to Storybrooke" where Owen suggests that Regina add red pepper flakes to her lasagna, but the line was cut.  There are so many layers to this show.  Need we say again that A&E are brilliant?  

[Shanna Marie]

While rewatching the pilot, I found myself noticing the contrasts with the rest of the series, and I couldn't help but wonder how much was always planned vs. a decision made after the pilot.

For instance, Granny's. We've talked before about how different the inn looks in the pilot, where Emma has to walk down a long path surrounded by trees to get there, vs. the rest of the series, where it's connected to the diner and in the middle of town, where there are no trees. They sort of seem to have handwaved that the inn is behind the diner, and we never see the exterior on that side again. But it occurred to me on this viewing that the diner isn't in the pilot at all, which makes me wonder if that was a change they came up with between pilot and series. They needed a public place for the characters to hang out, so they needed a diner, and they wouldn't have wanted to add recurring characters to run the diner, but most of the rest of the characters who'd already been introduced already had jobs or other roles. Granny and Ruby wouldn't have much to do just running the inn, especially after Emma moved in with Mary Margaret, so it made sense to make them also run a diner that was connected to the inn, even though that doesn't fit very well with what was shown in the pilot.

I know they'd originally planned for Mary Margaret to be a nun, and there's nothing in the pilot that contradicts that. She wears "civilian" clothes, but a lot of nuns do these days. She wears simple, modest clothes and a cross necklace, so they could have gone either way after the pilot. I've also wondered if the coma scene with David was added later, since their original plan was for him to be dead and the network objected to that. So, did the original cut of the pilot just have him dead, and did they have to shoot and add that one scene when it got picked up for series?

After the way things were set up with Regina in the pilot, I'm even more angry about what they ended up doing with her. She's a nasty piece of work who is utterly selfish. Henry hates her and begs not to be made to live with her. Emma's "superpower" tells her Regina is lying about loving him, and that's why she stays in town. It's so galling that they retconned this into Regina being the most loving mother ever who had such a loving relationship with Henry that they fell right back into once Henry got his memories back in season 3, even though they'd never actually had a chance to build any kind of relationship before then.

It is amusing that Regina set up her own downfall. Emma had said absolutely nothing about wanting to be in Henry's life. She'd just brought him home after he'd run off for the second time, and she was rightfully concerned about him being so unhappy and lonely, but she was in no way interfering, but Regina lit into her about having given him away while Regina did all the work about raising him and how she wasn't going to let Emma have anything to do with him. That was what set up the "do you love him?" question. If Regina had just said, "Thank you for bringing him home. I know he's troubled, but he is getting help, and I'm sorry he's inconvenienced you by dragging you into this," Emma probably would have just left.

Anyway, Regina's outcome in the series was so unearned. I could sort of see getting to where she was (well, aside from the Queen of the Universe stuff, which was utterly ridiculous), but it should have been a journey, and instead it just sort of happened for no reason. That's another thing I wonder about from the pilot. They've talked about wanting to make the series about the Evil Queen getting a happy ending, but they couldn't sell that. Instead, they gave the network a pilot about Snow White's daughter finding her family again, but with the Evil Queen playing a big role. Then once the series was established and they had more leeway, they abruptly switched to the series about the Evil Queen that they wanted to make. That would explain the weird leaps. It's not so much that they didn't do well with the character arcs. It's that it's actually an entirely different series after season one. They still had a few bits in there about Emma along the way (possibly due to network requirements), but they were making the series they'd wanted to make in the first place rather than the series they actually sold.

[Camera One]

17 minutes ago, Shanna Marie said:

For instance, Granny's.  They sort of seem to have handwaved that the inn is behind the diner, and we never see the exterior on that side again. But it occurred to me on this viewing that the diner isn't in the pilot at all, which makes me wonder if that was a change they came up with between pilot and series. They needed a public place for the characters to hang out, so they needed a diner, and they wouldn't have wanted to add recurring characters to run the diner, but most of the rest of the characters who'd already been introduced already had jobs or other roles.

That's a good point.  It makes sense that after the pilot was picked up, then they started to think about the day-to-day locations.  It was a smart idea to have a diner attached to the inn and have Granny and Ruby at both, though I wish we saw the inn side again to reinforce the continuity.

Quote

I know they'd originally planned for Mary Margaret to be a nun, and there's nothing in the pilot that contradicts that. She wears "civilian" clothes, but a lot of nuns do these days. She wears simple, modest clothes and a cross necklace, so they could have gone either way after the pilot. I've also wondered if the coma scene with David was added later, since their original plan was for him to be dead and the network objected to that. So, did the original cut of the pilot just have him dead, and did they have to shoot and add that one scene when it got picked up for series?

I'm not big on the nun idea, but I think it could have had some potential.  For example, if Mary Margaret originally lived at the nunnery with the fairies, that could have explained how she happened upon the storybook.  More of the nuns and Mother Superior could have provided more detailed and intricate worldbuilding (though with A&E, we never would would have gotten it, sadly).  

If Mary Margaret had been a nun, maybe Kathryn would have been unnecessary.  Simply falling in love with a man and having a forbidden romance could have been drama enough.  I really hated that they had David going back to Kathryn later on, and having MM and David sleeping with other people was ick.  

Speaking of which, the whole storybook was poorly handled in the pilot, I think.  I didn't like how Regina got a hold of it.  Surely, she would have tried to destroy it.  And then looking ahead, none of the storybook/author stuff made any sense, so it was a glaring example of bad payoff when rewatching the pilot.

Quote

Emma's "superpower" tells her Regina is lying about loving him, and that's why she stays in town. It's so galling that they retconned this into Regina being the most loving mother ever who had such a loving relationship with Henry that they fell right back into once Henry got his memories back in season 3, even though they'd never actually had a chance to build any kind of relationship before then.

This reminded me how important Emma's "superpower" was in the pilot - that was THE reason why she decided to stay in town.  This was another aspect that was very poorly handled thereafter.  We never found out if it was real or not, since there were so many times when the "superpower" completely failed.  We tried to handwave it as it doesn't work when Emma is emotionally affected, but heck, she was emotionally affected in the pilot.

There is no question that Henry hated Regina in the pilot and this even continued for almost all of Season 1.  Looking back, I agree that their later closeness was completely unearned.  

Quote

It is amusing that Regina set up her own downfall. Emma had said absolutely nothing about wanting to be in Henry's life. She'd just brought him home after he'd run off for the second time, and she was rightfully concerned about him being so unhappy and lonely, but she was in no way interfering

Emma's openness to Regina in the pilot also showed she wasn't all WALLS™.   She was so open that it was her birthday and she even revealed her wish.  That was vulnerability and wearing her heart on her sleeve, to some stranger.  That was a major reason I liked Emma right from the pilot.  She was strong but she was also soft.

Edited October 24, 2021 by Camera One

[Shanna Marie]

On 10/24/2021 at 12:46 PM, Camera One said:

It was a smart idea to have a diner attached to the inn and have Granny and Ruby at both, though I wish we saw the inn side again to reinforce the continuity.

It came up again in season 3 when Emma and Hook were staying there before everyone got their memories back, but I don't think we ever saw that spooky walk through the woods again, and they could have used that. It was ready-made for a villain to jump out at someone while they were on their way to their room in the inn, or for fake-outs where you think it's the villain, but it was just an informant.

On 10/24/2021 at 12:46 PM, Camera One said:

If Mary Margaret had been a nun, maybe Kathryn would have been unnecessary.  Simply falling in love with a man and having a forbidden romance could have been drama enough.  I really hated that they had David going back to Kathryn later on, and having MM and David sleeping with other people was ick.  

That was still more of the consent issues this show was full of, since as their real selves, they never would have slept with other people, but their brains were hijacked by the curse. And then they later talked about it as though they'd actually cheated and it was the same as Regina sleeping with Robin while Marian was in a coma (which was totally okay because it turned out it was just Zelena pretending to be Marian and sleeping with Robin without him knowing who it really was). The nun thing might have worked better for Mary Margaret to be struggling with her feelings vs. her vows and not bringing anyone else into it. Kathryn/Abigail was collateral damage, and it made Regina look even worse since Kathryn considered her a friend, yet Regina was still willing to have her killed in order to get revenge on Snow. But I cringe at the thought of what they might have done by bringing faith and religion into the mix.

On 10/24/2021 at 12:46 PM, Camera One said:

Speaking of which, the whole storybook was poorly handled in the pilot, I think.  I didn't like how Regina got a hold of it.  Surely, she would have tried to destroy it.  And then looking ahead, none of the storybook/author stuff made any sense, so it was a glaring example of bad payoff when rewatching the pilot.

It's weird that Regina gets her hands on the book in the pilot, and yet later Emma and Henry destroy the last page so Regina won't be able to know how things are supposed to come out. So I guess Regina didn't bother to read it while she had it? But would it have been a surprise, anyway, since she knew about baby Emma being the Savior even from the beginning?

There's a lot in the pilot that later gets undermined with terrible payoffs and retcons. There's all the talk about the book being to give Henry hope, and it appears where it's needed, but then we learn that there's an Author who had nothing to do with using it for hope, and Merlin was behind the Author, but he doesn't seem to have had any plan. It's also weird that the book was meant to give Henry hope when it also tells the story of a terrible curse that all the characters in the book are under. Yay, they all got their happy endings! Hope! Except then they all had their happy endings ripped away from them, and that's even in the book. Henry did have hope that it could all be fixed by the Savior, but Mary Margaret wouldn't have known that it was real and that anyone could do anything about their situation. She just gave him a book that ends with a curse as a way to give him hope.

Then there's the mention of the final battle beginning when the Savior turns 28 and breaks the curse. It makes it sound like the battle will be between Regina and the Savior, or maybe the Savior and Rumple or Rumple and Regina. But it definitely doesn't sound like a 30-second bit of nothing between the Savior and Rumple's son under the control of Rumple's mother that's instantly undone and that happens years after the curse is broken.

It really sounds here like the Savior is specific to the curse, so that whole thing about what Emma is gets weakened when she becomes an all-purpose Savior who is also doomed.

I think the fact that Regina knew Henry's mother was the Savior (but forgot) also weakens the encounter between Regina and Emma here.

All of Henry's fear and hating of Regina is undermined by the retcon that they had a good relationship (I guess before Mary Margaret gave him the book and he decided that Regina was the Evil Queen, though never mind that she gave him the book because he was so unhappy). They took cute photos on Main Street together, with both of them smiling!

Really, teen and adult Henry kind of ruin kid Henry, who is actually pretty cute in this.

Although I liked the pilot, I'm not sure I'd have kept watching if someone had told me there would be zero real consequences for Regina. Wanting to see her defeated was one of the things that kept me watching the first season.

On 10/24/2021 at 12:46 PM, Camera One said:

This reminded me how important Emma's "superpower" was in the pilot - that was THE reason why she decided to stay in town.  This was another aspect that was very poorly handled thereafter.

You know, the idea of it being a real superpower makes no sense, when you think about it. If Emma really and truly believed that she had a real superpower and not just a good ability to read people, then why did she struggle so much with the idea of magic? The way it sounds, she's believed all along that she has at least one magical power, so why is it such a stretch for her to believe she has other powers and that things like magic even exist? If she's believed she has a power all along, it should have been less of a leap for her than we saw. It works a little better if it is a real power, but she believes she's just got good instincts. But that wouldn't explain why it was so fallible. That would make more sense if it's not real, if she's just good at reading people, but it fails her when she's dealing with people from different worlds who have different tells than she's used to.

On 10/24/2021 at 12:46 PM, Camera One said:

Emma's openness to Regina in the pilot also showed she wasn't all WALLS™.   She was so open that it was her birthday and she even revealed her wish.  That was vulnerability and wearing her heart on her sleeve, to some stranger.

I think that was where they didn't really define WALLS. There's a difference between not showing feelings or vulnerability and shutting people out of her life, not wanting to depend on others or have others depend on her. Early in season one, that seemed to be what was going on with Emma -- she could be vulnerable, but she hesitated to let people in her life. She wasn't so much afraid of being hurt as she was afraid of being let down or letting someone else down, so she preferred to go it alone. She didn't want Henry counting on her, didn't want to have to rely on anyone else. It was only later that they came up with the WALLS thing, and how they worked depended on what they needed for the plot that week.

[Camera One]

After re-watching the pilot, I wondered if this could have been the first hour of a movie. Or maybe a 10 hour mini-series could have worked, though even that would probably mean there's no time for Regina and Rumple's sob backstories.  Though that might take away from the nuance of the story a bit.

If focused solely on the Charmings, I was thinking about including some of the key events from several major episodes and embed them into the 10 episodes.

• Ep 3 Snow Falls
  • Flashback: Snowing meeting 
  • Present-day: Emma clashing with Regina in Storybrooke from Ep 2 and eventually moving in with MM
• Ep 7 The Heart is a Lonely Hunter
  • Flashback: Snow/Regina in the past with Huntsman, could include some of the other Regina/Leopold stuff
  • Present-day: Emma dealing with/investigating Regina and Gold, finding more and more that doesn't make sense about this "town" and Regina trying to keep Mary Margaret and David apart
  • Maybe Graham actually tells Emma he's the Huntsman and Henry is correct before he dies, and that will be the trigger for Emma to investigate how he died, which would lead to her eventual belief.  And/or Emma finds the vault of hearts.
• Ep 21 An Apple Red as Blood / Ep 22 A Land Without Magic
  • Flashback: This one would need a total reworking to give Snowing a simpler obstacle and how he came to find her in the glass coffin
  • Present-day: Apple turnover for Henry would still work well, and Emma finally believes

There would need to be several episodes between those three, for more gradual progression.  I was thinking maybe we could have had "The Shepherd", but David actually DOES get his memories back as Prince Charming when he touches the mobile, or at least doesn't get fake memories downloaded.  They could still have an episode flashback where Snow meets Ruby and the Dwarves.

But then a problem that would still exist is once the Curse ends, everyone's memories return, though that would work as a happy ending.  Or the last hour could be everyone with their memories back working together to defeat Regina and Rumple.

Edited October 31, 2021 by Camera One

[scarynikki12]

We always talk about how season 1 was far more subtle with Regina and Rump and how we're all in favor of it. I just watched episode 2 and that closing scene between them is one of the best moments from that season, from the show, and for their characters. The way they each play the characters as Rump subtly reveals that the curse has broken on him and Regina's expression of horror as she realizes The Dark One has entered the game. So subtle that it's one of those things that's only noticed during rewatches and that just makes it better.

That's some great shit right there and it's a shame they didn't keep that level of quality after season 1.

[Camera One]

33 minutes ago, scarynikki12 said:

So subtle that it's one of those things that's only noticed during rewatches and that just makes it better.

That's a good point about rewatches and shows that improve upon rewatch.  It's rewatching those moments where the first time around, it was still unclear or ambiguous what was happening or why someone was doing something, but on rewatch, you now know the whole story, so you can see the true significance or meaning of a characters' actions/reactions.

Having watched the whole series, it's interesting to think of the different strategies Regina could have used.  She could have concocted a memory potion to give to Emma and Henry.  She could've controlled Graham's heart and have him tell Emma what a wonderful mother she was.  We didn't know she could actually have left Storybrooke.  If she had swallowed her pride, she could actually have made nice and promise to take Henry for visits once in a while.  Surely, she made a connection between Emma and the clock starting back up, even if the pages from the storybook were ripped out.

Edited November 1, 2021 by Camera One

[scarynikki12]

I also re-read the TWOP recap and I wish the recapper's spec had come true. For those who haven't read it, they talked about the shared theory that Regina was the Miller's Daughter and then speculated that Henry was her father reincarnated and that she was blaming Snow for the death of her husband and firstborn child. Now, I would have hated it if Henry had been his own grandpa so I'm glad that didn't come true but I wish the rest had been true. Regina being the Miller's Daughter and finding love with Snow's father only to lose him and their child would have been fascinating to explore.

Anything other than Cora murdering Daniel while Regina watches and Snow being the one punished for it. I still can't get over Regina telling Tink that Snow "had my fiancé killed" like she called up the local mafia don, asked for a favor, and then Daniel got two in the back of his head.