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

[RulerofallIsurvey]

On 12/31/2017 at 1:25 PM, tennisgurl said:

Suddenly, Greg is just a mustache twirling villain who wants to blow up the whole town because...evil, and because he is so EVIL, we arent supposed to feel sympathy for a guy who`s life was ruined by Regina being a psychopath, and instead are supposed to feel bad when he tortures and wants to kill Regina.

Not me!  Lol!  Even before I got on this forum, I remembering chuckling at Regina being strapped to the table and thinking: 'serves you right.'  :D

[Camera One]

17 minutes ago, RulerofallIsurvey said:

I remembering chuckling at Regina being strapped to the table and thinking: 'serves you right.'  :D

The most warped aspect was Snow had to feel the torture too, to make up for killing Cora. 

[Kktjones]

13 hours ago, Camera One said:

or conflict with Henry's evil stepmother Regina.

That would have been really interesting to explore. Regina was so threatened by Emma in S1, I wonder if she ever thought Emma & Neal would reunite and try to get custody of Henry. What would have been great is if Regina and Neal somehow ended up together - talk about complex! But instead they decided to have his S2 story revolve around Tamara and then he promptly was killed off in S3.

[Camera One]

Neal was surprisingly connected to almost everyone, by virtue of being Rumple's son and Henry's father.  You'd think it would be easier to incorporate him into the show.

[RulerofallIsurvey]

26 minutes ago, Camera One said:

The most warped aspect was Snow had to feel the torture too, to make up for killing Cora. 

Oh, I'd forgotten about that.  See how I only remember the parts I liked, like Regina being tortured and left there by Hook?  ;)

[Mabinogia]

Neal could have been a great character. Yes, he had a connection to most of the other characters, he had a complex relationship with his father, he was the Saviors first love (I'm guessing, she was supposed to be pretty young)/father of her child. He could have pushed to take Henry from Regina just as Emma was coming to terms with sharing Henry. It would have caused her more conflict. He would have been great conflict for Rumple. Now that his son is around would Rumple maybe try a little harder to keep up the "good" act? How would Neal feel about Belle and later on Gideon. Why they went the way they did is beyond me. (that was a lot of Y in one sentence lol)

[KingOfHearts]

59 minutes ago, Mabinogia said:

Neal could have been a great character. Yes, he had a connection to most of the other characters, he had a complex relationship with his father, he was the Saviors first love (I'm guessing, she was supposed to be pretty young)/father of her child. He could have pushed to take Henry from Regina just as Emma was coming to terms with sharing Henry. It would have caused her more conflict. He would have been great conflict for Rumple. Now that his son is around would Rumple maybe try a little harder to keep up the "good" act? How would Neal feel about Belle and later on Gideon. Why they went the way they did is beyond me. (that was a lot of Y in one sentence lol)

The main reason Neal got boring was that there was very little conflict in his relationships with the other characters. (Even when they were almost non-existent.) I don't think people give "Nasty Habits" enough credit for addressing the Rumple/Neal stuff, but their father-son relationship was the crux of Neal's role in everything. His dynamic with Rumple deserved much more than just one or two episodes. When he called him his "papa" on his deathbed, it didn't feel earned. Likewise, Rumple's speech on his son's grave in 4x01 was pretty hollow. The reason Neal's relationships are all so superficial is that it's never really about him. With Emma, it was about her conflicting romantic feelings. With Rumple, it was about redeeming himself. With Tamara, it was about tricking everyone. Nothing was really about Neal until after his death, the only exception being his relationship with Hook. (But even that has a lot of holes in it that will never be filled.)

[andromeda331]

53 minutes ago, Mabinogia said:

Neal could have been a great character. Yes, he had a connection to most of the other characters, he had a complex relationship with his father, he was the Saviors first love (I'm guessing, she was supposed to be pretty young)/father of her child. He could have pushed to take Henry from Regina just as Emma was coming to terms with sharing Henry. It would have caused her more conflict. He would have been great conflict for Rumple. Now that his son is around would Rumple maybe try a little harder to keep up the "good" act? How would Neal feel about Belle and later on Gideon. Why they went the way they did is beyond me. (that was a lot of Y in one sentence lol)

You'd think he'd take issue with Henry living Regina given his issues being raised by Rumple. Neal and Henry could have bonded over their being raised by a dangerous parent that they loved. That would have been a good storyline to explore. As it was mentioned before you'd think Regina would have been afraid of losing Henry even more now that both his parents were in town and try to do something about it. 

[Camera One]

Quote

Adam Horowitz @AdamHorowitzLA 15h15 hours ago

I don't understand the concept of "pre-ordering" something. Isn't every order a "pre" order?

Well, I don't understand the concept of "Author", "Savior", "True Love", the Land of Untold Stories, Dark Curses, inter-realm travel limitations or the multi-verse on your show.

[Lady Calypso]

1 hour ago, KingOfHearts said:

The main reason Neal got boring was that there was very little conflict in his relationships with the other characters. (Even when they were almost non-existent.) I don't think people give "Nasty Habits" enough credit for addressing the Rumple/Neal stuff, but their father-son relationship was the crux of Neal's role in everything. His dynamic with Rumple deserved much more than just one or two episodes. When he called him his "papa" on his deathbed, it didn't feel earned. Likewise, Rumple's speech on his son's grave in 4x01 was pretty hollow. The reason Neal's relationships are all so superficial is that it's never really about him. With Emma, it was about her conflicting romantic feelings. With Rumple, it was about redeeming himself. With Tamara, it was about tricking everyone. Nothing was really about Neal until after his death, the only exception being his relationship with Hook. (But even that has a lot of holes in it that will never be filled.)

Nasty Habits is one of the better episodes for me in that season. I actually loved that they paired Neal and Rumple in a plot together. I thought this was the beginning of something really good and I truly thought they were going to start correcting their mistakes, such as their horrid writing with Neal and finally giving him some purpose. Well, until they clearly didn't and decided that Hook was their new leading love interest. 

The Neverland arc did finally give Neal some much needed agency that he didn't have in season 2, that's for sure. And then they decided that Neal was going to be killed off (I presume because people didn't like the actor? I never fully got the reason why), so his arc in the second half of season 3 was prepping for his death....kind of. I mean, if prepping means leaving him off screen for Zelena's arc, only to bring him back in the episode he dies in. 

I don't know if the show could have butchered Neal more than they already had. And it doesn't even have to do with fans preferring Emma/Hook. It has everything to do with not writing his arc to be about Emma and Rumple starting after the Manhattan episode. 

[Camera One]

The present-day stuff in "Nasty Habits" was good.  The flashbacks, though, were a horrible waste of time.  Knowing that Neal was a goner, they could have used the flashbacks to flesh out his history more.  But clearly, they cared more about teasing the relationship between Rumple and Pan with that Pied Piper stuff.

[Mabinogia]

26 minutes ago, Camera One said:

Quote

Adam Horowitz @AdamHorowitzLA 15h15 hours ago

I don't understand the concept of "pre-ordering" something. Isn't every order a "pre" order?

Well, I don't understand the concept of "Author", "Savior", "True Love", the Land of Untold Stories, Dark Curses, inter-realm travel limitations or the multi-verse on your show.

OMG that explains soooo much. This show is actually run by morons! I bet he thought that was incredibly clever. *just kill me now*

[KingOfHearts]

I went through the entire list of episodes, and 32 words are repeated across the titles. (Not including helping words such as "the". I counted episodes with titles revealed but not aired yet too.) The most common words are as follows: heart (x8), dark (x5), queen, you (x4), broken, garden, love, sister , snow, and soul (x3).

[KAOS Agent]

I can't wait to see "Heart of the Broken Garden", where Lucy searches for her parents' True Love Sapling to repair the garden and then nothing comes of it.

I think the only reason they don't use those words more often is that they also oh so creatively use song titles or lyrics for episodes. 

Edited January 6, 2018 by KAOS Agent

[Shanna Marie]

20 hours ago, Mabinogia said:

Neal could have been a great character. Yes, he had a connection to most of the other characters, he had a complex relationship with his father, he was the Saviors first love (I'm guessing, she was supposed to be pretty young)/father of her child. He could have pushed to take Henry from Regina just as Emma was coming to terms with sharing Henry. It would have caused her more conflict. He would have been great conflict for Rumple. Now that his son is around would Rumple maybe try a little harder to keep up the "good" act? How would Neal feel about Belle and later on Gideon. Why they went the way they did is beyond me. (that was a lot of Y in one sentence lol)

I have this weird feeling that there was something going on behind the scenes because the way they handled Neal was weird beyond even just the usual ADD writing in which they got bored and moved on to the next shiny thing. The casting was A&E rather than the usual casting wizards, which didn't help the character because he was so physically wrong, but you'd think that meant their personal connection would have translated to the character. As you mentioned, he was connected to and should have had conflict with almost every other character, and yet none of these conflicts were ever dealt with or resolved. They never addressed what happened to his mother and how he felt about that, never really had him actually deal with the same issue that made him want to jump through that portal in the first place, which hadn't ever actually changed (it only got worse), never addressed what he did to Emma and how her parents felt about that. We don't know if Henry ever found out the real circumstances of his birth. Neal and Hook had that one hug, but we never learned what their relationship really was and if it extended beyond that time on the ship, and we never saw what Rumple thought about his worst enemy having had a semi-fatherly relationship with his son. We never saw how Neal felt about his son having been raised in a magical town by a sorceress. They put him in two romantic triangles that fizzled entirely and that were dissolved more by fate than by anyone making a choice. He never had the magic vs. anti-magic dilemma between Emma and Tamara. He just went straight from totally defending Tamara to being confronted with her duplicity, and thirty seconds later, he's totally in love with Emma and they never stopped loving each other. Then they were setting up a triangle with Hook over Emma, and they immediately and rather abruptly killed Neal off in a way that seemed rather out of character for Neal. He'd spent more than a century trying to escape from his father as Dark One, and then he willingly does something he knows is shady to raise the Dark One again after his father sacrificed himself and had a heroic ending? But then even as Neal's killed off, like they just lost interest in the character, they retroactively turned him into a great hero, named the Charmings' baby after him, had saintly visits from him beyond the grave, retroactively added all sorts of interaction between him and Henry in which he imparted dating advice, musical taste, and anti-magic knowledge, and then there's a giant portrait of him as a great hero in the Wishverse. It really makes you wonder. There were rumors that MRJ was fired for bad behavior on the set, which were denied (wasn't that mostly SwanQueen shippers who saw Neal as a potential threat?), and it seems that some of his return visits were to show that there were no hard feelings (the same way the return of Robin seemed to be trying to make up over hard feelings about his firing and to show that the rumors of him being a sexual harasser were false -- what is the deal with these fans trying to ruin actors' reputations over fictional relationships?). Was it a network thing, realizing that popular opinion was swaying toward Hook and they wanted the show to go that way, so A&E were forced to write out Neal, and they turned him into a hero as their way of striking back? Did they write Neal's death because they wanted a shocking twist and killing title credits characters looks like an easy way to get some kind of writing credibility, and then regretted it after the deed was done? Did MRJ want out?

Sadly, completely missing all the story potential of a character isn't unusual with this bunch, but Neal's been handled oddly from the start.

[Mabinogia]

7 minutes ago, Shanna Marie said:

Was it a network thing, realizing that popular opinion was swaying toward Hook and they wanted the show to go that way, so A&E were forced to write out Neal

Even if they wanted Hook and Emma together that didn't mean they had to get rid of Neal. Was Neal ever even a threat to that? Not really. And it could have been an interesting dynamic, Emma being friends with her ex, the father of her child, while in a relationship with Hook. The only shippy reason to get rid of Neal was if he was a real threat to Hook. I never saw a big push for Emma and Neal so I don't think he was. 

I do agree, though, that there could have been some hinky shit going on behind the scenes, like Jefferson vanishing right after the actor and Jen Mo broke up. I had no idea about the Robin thing. I always did think it was weird that they got rid of him after making such a huge stink about Regina finally finding her true love. This show is WAY too affected by behind the scene's shit. A&E need to grow a pair and just tell their story (or maybe not, since I don't think they are capable of telling a good story).

[Camera One]

This was straight from the horse's mouth:

Quote

INTERVIEWER: Thanks for causing the entire Once Upon a Time fandom to ugly-cry last night. Why did you decide to kill off Neal?
Eddy Kitsis: Well, you know, it was part of the larger story we've been trying to tell with all of our characters and the family that is Once Upon a Time.

From old articles, it looks like MRJ also went on Twitter to directly address rumors and he stated point-blank that he did not ask to leave "Once Upon a Time" and he wasn't fired.  He didn't do an angry tweet storm like the Robin actor did, though.

Regardless of whether he was miscast or not, I do think MRJ did put some thought into his character.  This was from an interview before the season finale.

Quote

INTERVIEWER: Clearly, Bae has a ton of issues with his father. But do you think there are any ways in which he and Rumpelstiltskin are similar?

MRJ: I think in any father son relationship, there’s going to be times you say, “Well, the apple didn’t fall far from the tree.” And I think we’ll probably see more of things like that. But there’s also things where I’m diametrically opposed to positions that my dad has taken. If someone asks me, “Well, since Tamara is trying to eradicate magic and you don’t like magic, would it be possible that you could have been on her side?” I really disagree with that presumption. I think Neal is a bit of an eternal optimist. And while he doesn’t like magic, there’s a big difference between dying for your cause and killing for your cause. Neal would never be able to get to that, to killing for a cause, where Tamara clearly can. But same for Rumpelstiltskin — he’s killed. I don’t think Neal sees the world that way.

I guess he didn't know that his character as a child had crazy killer tendencies but he forgot about it and it never surfaced again.

I find it interesting that the actor was trying to define his character as separate from his father, but the Writers ultimately were all about "history repeating itself".

Quote

Adam Horowitz: What we liked was the idea of history repeating itself and Neal going down the same path as his father. He was just as obsessive to get to his own family, and then realizing that mistake 

Edited January 6, 2018 by Camera One

[superloislane]

On 05/01/2018 at 5:36 PM, RulerofallIsurvey said:

Not me!  Lol!  Even before I got on this forum, I remembering chuckling at Regina being strapped to the table and thinking: 'serves you right.'  :D

I was going to say that! I remember I was a very casual fan then, I didn't read any spoilers or theories or anything and I was totally rooting for Greg thinking this was exactly what Regina deserves! I mean she murdered his father and made him an orphan. Was that not what I was supposed to feel?

Edited January 6, 2018 by superloislane

[Shanna Marie]

6 minutes ago, Camera One said:

I guess he didn't know that his character as a child had crazy killer tendencies but he forgot about it and it never surfaced again.

And he didn't know that his character was doing research on how to destroy all magic and telling Henry about it, even though there was no way of knowing how it would affect all the people in Storybrooke, which could have amounted to killing for his cause.

7 minutes ago, Camera One said:

Eddy Kitsis: Well, you know, it was part of the larger story we've been trying to tell with all of our characters and the family that is Once Upon a Time.

Then they didn't do a very good job because Neal's death was really the least interesting thing they could have done with his character. It meant that they never dealt with the issue of Emma's magic and how he felt about that, it meant that they plastered over all the problems with his relationship with his father because his father "chose" him (in possibly the creepiest thing they've done on this show, which is saying something), it meant that Emma didn't actually get the choice of which person she wanted to be with and Hook won by default. It didn't even really tell us anything interesting about Neal, and the way everyone reacted made little sense. I still laugh at David talking about how they all loved him. David had, what, maybe one conversation with him? We didn't see Neal bonding with everyone back in the Enchanted Forest. He went right off to try to raise his father. The most interesting thing in the aftermath of Neal's death that really shows how it affected someone is the way Colin's jaw clenches and he blinks rapidly, like he's fighting tears, every time Bae or Neal is mentioned or he sees a picture. Rumple seems to have forgotten him entirely. Neal's more or less a retroactive plot device for when they need Henry to know something he shouldn't have known otherwise ("in the maybe two weeks I spent around my dad, he taught me all about this thing"), and he's an emotional excuse for Emma.

That's why I keep feeling like there was some outside issue forcing this, and they covered it in public with that "part of the larger story" routine. I wonder if some family values group put pressure on the network because of the way Neal's relationship with teen Emma might have counted as statutory rape, or if there was some executive who made a ruling from on high. That would explain the retroactive whitewashing of the character, like they were forced to write him out but were rebelling in their own way by turning him into a hero.

Or, I guess, they're just bad writers who don't really know what they're doing. They do have a tendency to create something with a lot of potential that they don't seem to recognize and don't seem to do anything with, and they have a history of whitewashing characters, especially when there's any kind of negative feedback. If a character's fans are loud enough, they'll be appeased, or if they feel bad about what they did to the actor, they may backtrack (like they did with Robin).

[Free]

On ‎1‎/‎4‎/‎2018 at 10:56 PM, Camera One said:

A lot of times, it seems like they are setting things up but after seven seasons of this, I think most of the time, they're actually just playing with their jumbled ideas and going for twists they consider surprising.  And then they get bored.  With Neal, they got bored at record speed.  He was already half gone from the rear-view mirror after the "Manhattan" script was written.  Nothing else can explain why they had Neal babysitting Henry off-screen once everyone got back to town.  They weren't truly interested in his relationship with Rumple, nor with Emma coming to terms with their past, nor with Neal himself adjusting to learning he was a father, or dealing with his regrets, or even how he turned from Bae to Neal, much less what he thought of Belle, or his past with Hook, or conflict with Henry's evil stepmother Regina.

We can discuss this initial-promising-start-fizzling-to-nothing with so many characters, from Hyde to Guinevere to Ursula the Second.

Exactly, things just fizzled out in S2 and then never got any better: Neal/Baelfire, whatever August was supposed to do, Emma and her relationship with her family, Regina/Cora, Greg/Tamara/Home Office, etc.

[Camera One]

29 minutes ago, Shanna Marie said:

Or, I guess, they're just bad writers who don't really know what they're doing. They do have a tendency to create something with a lot of potential that they don't seem to recognize and don't seem to do anything with

I think it's this.  The problems with the writing for Neal isn't much different from their usual problems.  It's just magnified.  All of those potential character explorations you mentioned for Neal - A&E wouldn't be interested in exploring any of that.  Look at how Emma and Snow didn't have a one-on-one conversation lasting more than a minute since 3x2.  We now know the actresses weren't feuding, so it's a Writer choice.  The moment Neal got to Storybrooke, they immediately switched their Rumple story to the "twist" that Belle's Cursed identity was an immoral tramp because that's what they consider interesting.  In 3A, they were already grooming their new male character to replace Neal, which was Robin.

I did find this funny quote:

Quote

INTERVIEWER: As an actor, when you’re figuring out how to approach a character and finding out who he is, how do you wrap your head around not just playing the son of Rumplestiltskin, but also knowing that your son’s grandparents are Snow White and Prince Charming?  Do you just have to focus on the human side of him?

RAYMOND-JAMES:  Well, I had pages and pages of a notebook full of notes.  As an actor, the character that I’m playing lives in a world of fairy tales and magic, and things like that, but to him, that’s his reality.  This isn’t a land of make-believe.  This is a land of absolutes.  All of it is grounded in reality, so as an actor, I try to approach it from that reality and try to plant my feet in this world.  It doesn’t matter if I’m talking about magic.  It all has to be grounded in reality. 

Pages full of notes?  Even the Writers don't have that, LOL.

Edited January 6, 2018 by Camera One

[KingOfHearts]

39 minutes ago, Camera One said:

I think it's this.  The problems with the writing for Neal isn't much different from their usual problems.  It's just magnified.  All of those potential character explorations you mentioned for Neal - A&E wouldn't be interested in exploring any of that.  Look at how Emma and Snow didn't have a one-on-one conversation lasting more than a minute since 3x2.  We now know the actresses weren't feuding, so it's a Writer choice.  The moment Neal got to Storybrooke, they immediately switched their Rumple story to the "twist" that Belle's Cursed identity was an immoral tramp because that's what they consider interesting.  In 3A, they were already grooming their new male character to replace Neal, which was Robin.

I think too it's that Neal is not the kind of character you'd stick on a cereal box.  He wasn't magical, he wasn't a famous icon. To a five year old, there wouldn't be anything special about him. He never chewed the scenery. If you look at Emma and Henry - two characters who spent the most time in our world outside of Storybrooke - the writers made them special and pulled them away from "normal" as much as possible. Emma got super special magicz in S2, her Savior role was extended to more than it needed to be, and by 4B her "real world" persona had completely evaporated. She became the angsty magical hero, with not much else. As for Henry, not only did he become the Truest Stupid, but the Author as well. (And now he's the love interest of Cinderella™.) 

Is Neal special for his connections to everybody and his experiences? Absolutely, but not in A&E language. They got it through their minds that he was just an average guy (hence the MRJ casting), and that's booooring.

Edited January 6, 2018 by KingOfHearts

[Shanna Marie]

I suspect that their development of Bae/Neal never went much deeper than "wouldn't it be a shocking twist if it turned out that Rumple had a good okay reason for all some of the evil things he did?" and "wouldn't it be a shocking twist if Henry's father turned out to be Rumple's son, all grown up?" with possibly some "oops, how is Rumple's son still alive after all this time, hey, it would be a shocking twist if he was a Lost Boy in Neverland and knew Hook" thrown in.

[Mabinogia]

4 minutes ago, Shanna Marie said:

"wouldn't it be a shocking twist if Henry's father turned out to be Rumple's son, all grown up?"

I'm pretty sure that was the extent of their thinking, since Rumple had to be related to or in some way important to the story of every single character on the show. Then they realized they had to actually write a storyline for him, so they just used him to further make Rumple a poor, misunderstood hero.

[KingOfHearts]

Starting another rewatch from the Pilot out of boredom. Not sure how far I'll get. I haven't seen S1 in a while. I noticed a possible continuity error. When Charming is talking to worried Snow in the nursery, he says the queen's threats are "just words" and that she can't hurt them any more. Was everything with Maleficent not confirmation enough? If Charming assumed Regina's threats were hollow, why go through the effort to find the Tree of Wisdom at all?

Also - did they really think Regina couldn't send assassins out to kill them for her? There are many ways around the protection spell. Couldn't she just poison their wine herself?

Quote

I can't wait to see "Heart of the Broken Garden", where Lucy searches for her parents' True Love Sapling to repair the garden and then nothing comes of it.

That and "Queen of Darkness"... oh wait.

Netflix uses a random picture of Regina from the episode, "Page 23", and I'm like, what? Why? Even if it had to be Regina, she's been in much more iconic outfits than that.

Edited January 7, 2018 by KingOfHearts

[Camera One]

21 hours ago, KAOS Agent said:

I can't wait to see "Heart of the Broken Garden", where Lucy searches for her parents' True Love Sapling to repair the garden and then nothing comes of it.

The Blue Fairy told me at the grocery store that I should find the Heart of a Romaine lettuce.  The Heart of an ArtiCHOKE is the theme vegetable for this show.

Edited January 7, 2018 by Camera One

[Camera One]

Quote

Adam Horowitz‏Verified account @AdamHorowitzLA 19h19 hours ago

Replying to @frostopher  It’s still ordering. Any order occurs BEFORE or “pre” the item arrives. So the pre is NEVER necessary.

Who knew he was such a stickler for precision.  You certainly wouldn't know it from his work on this show.

Edited January 7, 2018 by Camera One

[KingOfHearts]

Quote

Is that the episode where they are suddenly transported to the 80s and a curse is placed on the town so they can only speak in power ballad lyrics? Loved that one! Of course, when the moon gave the sun a TLK (which is totally what I now think an eclipse really is), the curse was broken and they all went back to being their own boring selves.

I'm still waiting for them to be transported to "80s Music Video" world, where nothing makes sense and the Big Bad is out to start a grunge garage band.

[Mabinogia]

15 minutes ago, KingOfHearts said:

I'm still waiting for them to be transported to "80s Music Video" world, where nothing makes sense and the Big Bad is out to start a grunge garage band.

I'd watch the hell out of that. Regina could go all goth, Rumple would be in a hair band, Henry would be deep into Debbie Gibson lol. Jacinda could get her Madonna on. Whook would be hard rock with all that leather. The could have a battle of the bands. If the Big Bad Grunge Bander wins they have to go even farther back into the 70s and live through disco. 

[KAOS Agent]

Quote

Who knew he was such a stickler for precision.  You certainly wouldn't know it from his work on this show.

Given his idiotic responses to fans when they question some really big holes in his story, Adam needs to shut up about semantics. Also, he's wrong. Pre-ordering tells you that the item is not available for purchase yet, so you aren't ordering anything. You're issuing an intent to order when it is available.

It doesn't surprise me that he doesn't grasp this concept. He rarely grasps the concepts that he's putting out there for the audience to watch and then is shocked when they point out what's wrong with the story. Woman magically transforms herself into someone else and/or makes man her slave and has sex with man. Somehow even after having this called out every time it happens onscreen, he can't understand that this is rape.

[RulerofallIsurvey]

On 1/6/2018 at 2:35 PM, superloislane said:

I was going to say that! I remember I was a very casual fan then, I didn't read any spoilers or theories or anything and I was totally rooting for Greg thinking this was exactly what Regina deserves! I mean she murdered his father and made him an orphan. Was that not what I was supposed to feel?

Lol! We must have really sucked as casual fans.  ;)  Probably not the response A&E were going for. 

18 hours ago, KAOS Agent said:

Given his idiotic responses to fans when they question some really big holes in his story, Adam needs to shut up about semantics. Also, he's wrong. Pre-ordering tells you that the item is not available for purchase yet, so you aren't ordering anything. You're issuing an intent to order when it is available.

It doesn't surprise me that he doesn't grasp this concept. He rarely grasps the concepts that he's putting out there for the audience to watch and then is shocked when they point out what's wrong with the story. Woman magically transforms herself into someone else and/or makes man her slave and has sex with man. Somehow even after having this called out every time it happens onscreen, he can't understand that this is rape.

I really wish your entire response here would get tweeted to Adam.  Of course, he probably still wouldn't understand. 

[Rumsy4]

At this point, it seems more like they’re trying to justify that it’s not rape by repeating the same scenario over and over. They seem pretty set on it. I remember some of the ONCE podcasters I used to listen to had a hard time calling the Zelena/Robin thing as rape. Some people only think it’s rape when violence is involved. It’s disheartening, but it’s sadly not a very uncommon idea.

[jhlipton]

On ‎1‎/‎7‎/‎2018 at 2:03 PM, Mabinogia said:

If the Big Bad Grunge Bander wins they have to go even farther back into the 70s and live through disco. 

Nooooooooooooooooooooooooo!!!!

[Shanna Marie]

Bringing this over from the media thread ...

8 hours ago, CCTC said:

I remember even before the reboot and the arcs were getting less and less satisfactorily resolved, that the show might be better as a more light-hearted adventure show with Hook, Charming, and Emma having fairy tale adventures and/or fighting crime.

That's kind of what I was hoping would happen after the season three finale. We've talked some about what the shark jump point was, but I think that season three finale was a big turning point in the history in the show, when it could have gone two different ways, and they chose badly. It wasn't a shark jump because it was a high point, but everything after that was downhill. I know the Frozen addition got a lot of credit for the ratings jump early in the following season, but I wonder if that was all about Frozen. It seemed like fandom peaked between seasons 3 and 4. That finale was pretty well-received by fans (except for certain factions), by critics, and I think it had good ratings. It had all the stuff you hope to get in a show like this. There was swashbuckling adventure, with a few sword fights and a self-rescuing princess. We had fairy tale mashups, with Captain Hook, Prince Charming, Red Riding Hood and Snow White teaming up to storm the Evil Queen's castle. There was culture clash humor, with Hook not getting Emma's Back to the Future references and Emma being a fish out of water in fairy tale land. And, yeah, there was the romance stuff, plus meaningful character interaction and actual conversations that furthered relationships. After that episode, I had such high hopes about where the show would go next. The Frozen stuff was just a bonus. I even wonder how much of the ratings jump in early season 4 was really about Frozen and how much was people who had drifted away from the show hearing about that finale and watching it streaming or on demand over the summer, thinking the show they liked in season one was back, and returning to the show.

And then everything that came afterward was a huge disappointment. It was like the writers became allergic to doing those things that were received well. There was never another Captain Swan adventure. The closest they came to anything like it was in the Underworld when they were trying to get the ambrosia. Otherwise, it looked like they might be going there in the AU, only to have Hook killed. They generally seemed to go out of their way to separate Emma and Hook. They undid all the relationship development between Hook and David a couple of episodes later, and we never really had another true team-up where they got to fight side-by-side. It was just the usual David reverting to hating Hook and Hook proving himself. The show dissolved into doom and gloom after that point, undoing Emma's character growth from that episode to have her keep reverting. The very next episode, it was like she forgot everything about opening her heart and accepting her feelings, and from then on, she had that black cloud over her, with almost every arc being about either turning her dark or her doomed fate. The show stopped being fun, and there was very little you could consider adventure. Even the visit to Camelot amounted to hanging around in the diner or the long walk to the Dark One vault. The best we got there was the jailbreak, which was a wonderful few minutes that ended up being mostly irrelevant. The visit to the Land of Untold Stories had potential, but they spent most of the episode locked in a cage while the episode mostly focused on Henry's idiocy in New York.

Somewhere out there, there's an alternate universe in which these writers made a different choice (or were forced to do something different by the network) and realized that fun adventure was the way to go.

[Camera One]

38 minutes ago, Shanna Marie said:

That's kind of what I was hoping would happen after the season three finale. We've talked some about what the shark jump point was, but I think that season three finale was a big turning point in the history in the show, when it could have gone two different ways, and they chose badly. It wasn't a shark jump because it was a high point, but everything after that was downhill.

To me, the high point was the 3A finale.  That was where they could have kickstarted the show again and rejuvenated the premise.  Instead, everything was back to the status quo by the 3B premiere.  Throughout 3B, it became crystal clear that the Writers were more interested in their new shiny toys than their protagonists.  They completely ignored the Emma/parents bond at every opportunity and from then on out, Emma/Snow was a non-entity; they added on Robin to praise Regina and skipped having her redeem herself first; they got rid of Neal and started the cycle of Rumple lying to Belle.  

To me, the 3B finale was a temporary higher point, a brief return to adventure (even though it was ultimately a second take on "Snow Falls").  The "Frozen" stuff as it pertained to Emma and Elsa was also a brief higher point, before the Writers' worst tendencies came out to play in 4B with a massive retcon (already foreshadowed by the horrible Author/Sorcerer stuff with both Regina and Rumple in 4A).

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They generally seemed to go out of their way to separate Emma and Hook.

Once a couple says "I love you" the first time, that's when a couple becomes uninteresting to A&E.  They only know how to write for them when separated.  Look at the final arc that Snowing got... only one was awake at a time.  

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They undid all the relationship development between Hook and David a couple of episodes later, and we never really had another true team-up where they got to fight side-by-side. It was just the usual David reverting to hating Hook and Hook proving himself.

The show dissolved into doom and gloom after that point, undoing Emma's character growth from that episode to have her keep reverting. The very next episode, it was like she forgot everything about opening her heart and accepting her feelings, and from then on, she had that black cloud over her

Those are two cases of the Writers taking the easy way out.  They write the same story they've already told before by regressing the characters.  It takes advantage of the actors' chemistry, since that prevents even such retreads from becoming total duds.  Yet they convince themselves that they're writing something new.  

I have never heard these Writers say anything remotely regretful or negative about their work.  Eddy even has the gall to go "Who remembers that stuff" (paraphrasing) when asked about things they wished they had done/regretted.  With an attitude like that, it's not a surprise the quality of the show continues to decline.  Though I seriously do not think the Writers have "given up".  I believe they think Season 7 is clever and they're at the top of their game, and too bad for those losers like us who don't get it.

Edited January 9, 2018 by Camera One

[KAOS Agent]

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Look at the final arc that Snowing got... only one was awake at a time. 

I don't know what you're talking about. That was the Year of Snowing! It was epic!

Maybe that's the epic story they were comparing Henry/Cinderella to. It would explain a lot.

[Kktjones]

50 minutes ago, Camera One said:

Once a couple says "I love you" the first time, that's when a couple becomes uninteresting to A&E.  They only know how to write for them when separated.  Look at the final arc that Snowing got... only one was awake at a time.  

It started way before S6. Just look at the payoff Snowing fans got after the non-stop angst of S1 - Snow and Charming separated for all of 2A! They didn't even get one full episode together after the curse broke.

[tennisgurl]

I really miss the time around the end of season 3 and start of season 4. Season 3 certainly had plenty of flaws, but I thought the season 3 finale was a series highlight, and even before that, it was still pretty solid. Then we had the Frozen arc*, which also had flaws, but I liked a whole lot as well. It seemed like, for the first time since season 1, everything was cooking with gas. Fandom was engaged (and relatively getting along) the actors and creators were enthusiastic, and we actually saw some real creativity and strong performances from both the supporting/guest cast, and the regulars. It was fun, it had real emotional moments, and it actually came back to the fairy tale/story mash up we were promised. Then it all went downhill. The creators either lost interest or got super defensive, the fandom imploded several times in fan arguments and disappointments, and the whole show fell apart. I really do miss those times, when I was actually happy to be a Once fan. 

*You can really tell how much this show has fallen off the radar and out of the public contentiousness over the years by comparing how Team Disney handled the Frozen arc, and how they handled this current Tangled take off. With Frozen, I dont know for sure what was going on behind the scenes, but it really looked like Disney was watching A&E carefully to make sure their beloved franchise was treated well, and the characters were being used properly. Maybe it was annoying for them, but it meant they had an arc with actual set up and pay offs, and characterization that made sense, all of which are things A&E struggle with. With Tangled, there are clearly no fucks given about turning sweet lovable Rapunzel into an murderous villain, and adding some lovely elements of rape, abandonment, and basically nothing in common with either the movie or the story it was based on beyond some brief fan service and character names. The Frozen arc was basically a straight up adaptation of the movie, with elements of the original story, while Tangled is more of what Once has become, with no connection to the story or any interesting twists, but some half assed imagery from the Disney movie. Not even their own network cares anymore. 

Edited January 9, 2018 by tennisgurl

[Camera One]

I basically think supervised "Frozen" delayed the inevitable.  The Writers had no idea what to do after the "happy ending" of the Season 3 finale.  Their only ideas were the shoddily conceived and defined "Finding the Author" quest for Regina and Rumple lying to Belle while he waited for the stars and the moon to align with the hat.  These two elements came out in full force after Elsa, Anna and Kristoffe left.  With no ideas left, A&E had nowhere to go but more extreme retcons.  And then in Season 5, they were so stuck for ideas they needed to turn Emma "evil".  And then in Season 6, they were even more stuck for ideas and thus the death prophesy.  Still, Season 4 and 5 had the occasional enjoyable episode and lightly dusted with some good ideas even if they didn't pan out.  Season 6 had two decent episode and ground the rest of the characters into mincemeat if they weren't already so.  I get so mad thinking about that horrible finale.

[KingOfHearts]

1 hour ago, Camera One said:

The Writers had no idea what to do after the "happy ending" of the Season 3 finale.

I remember watching the ending with my friend who hadn't seen it before. They said, "Aw, it's so happy... it's all going to go to shit now, isn't it? Something bad is going to happen."

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Their only ideas were the shoddily conceived and defined "Finding the Author" quest for Regina and Rumple lying to Belle while he waited for the stars and the moon to align with the hat. 

Don't forget the Outlaw Queen angst. Why would anyone find crypt sex exciting? It's not supposed to be that type of show.

Edited January 9, 2018 by KingOfHearts

[KAOS Agent]

Quote

Don't forget the Outlaw Queen angst. Why would anyone find crypt sex exciting? It's not supposed to be that type of show.

I think this was their biggest miscalculation with 4A. People who may have tuned back in for Frozen were turned off by Adultery Queen. That's not fun family fare. A young mother was murdered, but we're supposed to feel bad for the murderer. Even Lana struggled with this storyline, but tried to justify it to herself and fans. We know Ginny was really upset at Snow's endorsement of it. This is where you can really see the writers' Regina bias. It was just such a shame that the woman she'd murdered came back to screw up Regina's love life. Robin was so conflicted. He made a vow to his wife, but her murderer was his soulmate. Obviously, Regina was the one he really wanted. They completely whiffed when thinking that the audience would side with Regina in this story.

[KingOfHearts]

25 minutes ago, KAOS Agent said:

I think this was their biggest miscalculation with 4A. People who may have tuned back in for Frozen were turned off by Adultery Queen. That's not fun family fare. A young mother was murdered, but we're supposed to feel bad for the murderer. Even Lana struggled with this storyline, but tried to justify it to herself and fans. We know Ginny was really upset at Snow's endorsement of it. This is where you can really see the writers' Regina bias. It was just such a shame that the woman she'd murdered came back to screw up Regina's love life. Robin was so conflicted. He made a vow to his wife, but her murderer was his soulmate. Obviously, Regina was the one he really wanted. They completely whiffed when thinking that the audience would side with Regina in this story.

That storyline had no winners. Marian died twice, Regina ended up losing Robin anyway, Robin looked like an asshole for being so wishy washy, Roland lost both his parents, and Zelena became a rapist.

[Shanna Marie]

20 hours ago, tennisgurl said:

You can really tell how much this show has fallen off the radar and out of the public contentiousness over the years by comparing how Team Disney handled the Frozen arc, and how they handled this current Tangled take off.

I think the difference there is that Disney entirely owns Frozen. Elsa and Anna aren't public domain fairy tale characters. They're original Disney characters they had to get permission to use. There really isn't anything in the Once version of Rapunzel that comes specifically from Tangled. The name Mother Gothel is in some versions of the fairy tale. They went with the stealing things from a garden reason for the imprisonment in the tower (though in the fairy tale it was the baby taken as part of the bargain) rather than the magic flower that created magic hair. The only thing that really came from Tangled was the lanterns. So it was more like Cinderella, Snow White, etc. in the amount of control Disney could have.

22 hours ago, Camera One said:

To me, the high point was the 3A finale.  That was where they could have kickstarted the show again and rejuvenated the premise. 

The outcome of the 3A finale was a big potential turning point that could have rebooted the show, but I didn't think the episode was all that great before the ending. In a way, it's the opposite of the 3B finale. The 3A finale was a really rather weak episode that relied a lot on idiot plotting and involved a lot of really questionable choices (no one reacts to Blue's death/resurrection, no one comforts a sobbing Belle, Henry says he wishes he'd never gone to get Emma), but the outcome that set up the story going forward was outstanding and shocking. The 3B finale was a solid episode that was a lot of fun and that was everything I wanted to see in this series, but the outcome and the setup for the story going forward was questionable. The Frozen thing felt like them jumping on the flavor of the moment bandwagon and I suspected that it would end up being a distraction from the inherent existing story lines (which it kind of was, even though it was pretty good for the most part), and then there was the lunacy with the Marian/Robin/Regina stuff, with Emma cheerfully introducing Marian to the woman whose dungeon she just rescued her from, not to mention Emma being totally okay with Regina after having just watched her try to burn her mother at the stake, and Regina acting like it's some evil deed for Emma to have messed with her two-day relationship by saving her life. Oh, and the stomach-churning wedding while we know Rumple's lying to Belle. The thing that had me excited after that episode was more the potential that they'd found their groove in the kind of story that works with this show rather than anything the finale cliffhanger set up. Alas, they apparently wanted to write different kinds of stories.

Really, in the first three seasons, they had a knack for finales that revived your hope in the series. In season one, toward the end they got bogged down in all that murder case stuff, but the moment Henry ate that turnover and collapsed shot the interest back up, and the end of the season had me eager for the next season. Then most of the latter part of season 2 was pretty awful, to the point I was on the verge of giving up the show entirely, but then we got the two-parter for the finale with the flashbacks with Bae and the Darlings and then with Hook, there was some actual adventure-like content, and the journey to Neverland had a lot of promise, so I was eager for the next season. 3A was a decent arc, but it still had some low and slow spots, and I don't think the arc itself ended strongly. We had the pointless bickering over the candle, Regina's "I regret nothing," David's terrible poisoning was handwaved away with an easy solution, the idiots left Henry totally alone on the ship so that he was an easy target, Snow giving Regina public credit for all her help (and not mentioning anyone else), no one listening to Emma's concerns about Henry and writing them off as jealousy, her parents pushing her toward the guy who got her pregnant as a teenager and abandoned her, etc., but that very end that seemed to totally change the setup for the show was an exciting launch into the spring arc. That spring arc was pretty weak, and that resolution with floating St. Regina shooting the most powerful light magic out of her ass would have had me giving up the show entirely, except that finale was wonderful (except for the last few minutes -- in rewatches, I just turn it off after Emma kisses Hook). But after that, the finales have been even weaker than the rest of the arcs. There was 4A, which squandered everything that came before and wasted all the stuff it set up. There was 4B, which made no sense (though the very end did change the status quo for a while). I guess the 5A finale was pretty good, but it wasn't like it really had me excited about the next arc. It kind of made me dread what would come next. The 5B finale was downright embarrassing. The season 6 finale was just awful.

[Camera One]

I agree the 3A finale had some major flaws, but in hindsight, it was one of the better climatic episodes where a half-season villain was defeated.  I do agree that it was really only the last 10 minutes which was actually the high point. The 3B, 4B, 5B and 6B finales were all 2-hour finales that sort of stood alone.  In some of them, the big bad had already been defeated.  In 4B and 6B, the big bad needed to be defeated in some other alternate setting (Isaac inside the Storybook and Black Fairy inside a new Cursed Storybrooke).  4A was another finale that really had nothing to do with the rest of the half-season.  

[Mitch]

I hated Neal but agree, his story was so rushed and as usual, the dramatic beats were missing. Instead of Regina stupidly aligning herself with Cora (Regina, did you really think Henry would forgive you for killing his entire family, even if it was Cora that did the actual deed and not you??) because her feeling swere hurt (even though she actively worked to stop Cora from getting to SB only episodes before..) .they should have had Neal show up in SB and threaten to take Henry away to New York, where Regina had no magic or apparently legal standing...(how can someone who doesn't exist in this realm adopt a kid???) to get him away from both Regina AND Rump. That would be a good push for her to align herself with Cora as she would be powerless against Rump and Emma and Neal. We hardly got to see Regina have a reaction that her arch enemy (oh..I forgot, they had "something") Rump was her kid's grandfather. Why build this story up to not use it???

[andromeda331]

7 hours ago, Mitch said:

 Why build this story up to not use it???

Now there's the million dollar question for basically every storyline they ever had. 

[tennisgurl]

6 minutes ago, andromeda331 said:

Now there's the million dollar question for basically every storyline they ever had. 

Aint that the truth. They have endless stories that are filled with potential handed to them on a silver platter, and then they turn away the silver platter to go dumpster diving. 

[Camera One]

I'm disappointed they never really made use of Snow White and the heroes' connections with wildlife.  I liked that little mention that Charming made in the pilot about the animals in the forest being abuzz with the Queen's plans.  If Snow White had special abilities to work with birds and forest creatures, it could have given her a unique power that could be helpful when the villains strike.  It could have explained her ability to elude The Evil Queen.  Instead, every time a magical villain made an entrance, she would draw her bow and Charming would draw his sword and they would both be pretty much useless.  A&E pat themselves on the back that they made Snow kick-ass, but then for 4.5 seasons, they sidelined her, gave her horrible matronly costumes, made her a complete doormat and occasionally threw her a "You won't defeat us!" which is never backed up with any action.  When was the last time Snow (or Charming) were actually allowed to do something useful or heroic? 

Edited January 12, 2018 by Camera One

[RulerofallIsurvey]

8 hours ago, Camera One said:

When was the last time Snow (or Charming) were actually allowed to do something useful or heroic? 

I'm pretty sure it was when Snow gave birth to Emma and Charming fought the Black Knights while holding his new daughter in his arms.  After that - not so much. 

And really, let's face it - they couldn't be too heroic, because that would have made Regina look even worse and we wouldn't want that, now would we?

[CCTC]

Charming dove into the water from the Jolly Roger to save Emma -- but really after season 3 being heroic meant the group marching down the street while someone shot magic out of their hands.    I remember rewatching the series 1 finale last year with the dual Emma/Charming taking on dragons, thinking - wow I forgot this show could do an action sequence.  The season 6 finale was not great, and the beanstalk adventure of Hook and Charming ending up being meaningless, but it showed the fun things they could have done if they had chosen to go more fairy tale fantasy adventure from time to time.