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

[Shanna Marie]

I have to vote for the Author story as the worst because it pretty much broke the fabric of their universe and set the show down a horrible path. Before that arc started with Regina's initial plan to find the Author to write her a happy ending, the show seemed to be based on the idea that these were real people and real events, with no awareness that they were in a story or that stories were written about them. It was Henry who was looking at it all in terms of story, with heroes, villains, and all the stuff about heroes always winning, heroes don't kill, villains don't get happy endings. The characters were mostly oblivious to this, aside from Regina's bit in an early episode in which she gave the gathered villains a pep talk about going to a place where they could win (which was never followed up on -- what happened to those villains?).

But once they started talking about the Author, they went into that "worlds of story" mode and talked about themselves like they were in a story and having to follow story rules. That might have been fun in a meta sense, like if they'd read their own stories once they were in Storybrooke and used some of that knowledge to figure out how to handle situations, especially against villains who didn't get the memory download, but the way they handled it just made it awful. It was this plot that ultimately led us to the truly horrifying series ending in which all the worlds of story somehow converged in Storybrooke, where they elected Regina as queen of the universe. That wouldn't have happened without the Author plot, if they'd never started talking about the worlds of story. And it elevated Henry in importance and gave him powers that got used at random, plus it set up him having written the worst novel ever that became much of the basis for season seven.

The Savior stuff was dumb, but pretty minor, since it ended up meaning nothing. It didn't really make any difference whether or not Emma was the Savior, since she never got to do much of anything. The shakes looked stupid, but ultimately meant nothing. It made for a bad plot arc, but it didn't substantially change the course of the series and the very premise of the universe, and I don't think it would have even if the series had continued with Emma in it.

[andromeda331]

I'd have to pick the Author story over the Savior story too for the same reasons. Savior was bad, dumb, and not thought out but neither was anything else from season 6. The Author was any interesting idea because we knew the book existed and they placed so much importance on it with it "magically" appearing in Mary Margaret's closet they could have tied it back to the Blue Fairy mentioning "preparations" way back in season one. It seemed likely someone created fairies or someone above them. But they ruined it completely first Regina and then Henry deciding the book was "wrong" about her when we knew and they knew it had always just described what happened. Regina decided to hunt down the author and make him write her a happy ending was insane and ridiculous given all the crimes she committed instead of doing anything thing to make a mends. Then the even more ridiculous of everyone jumping on her bandwagon without anyone except Gepetto as if she truly completely deserved that instead of asking what Gepetto is which was did Regina even deserve one after everything she's done. Or telling to make a mends or something. Then they don't even know what their looking for because Regina doesn't even know what that means and it ends exactly how we all knew would. Except of course she also gets her boyfriend back. Having psycho Author who of course he just loves Regina because of course she does. He thinks she's so great and he hates the Charmings because one or both reminds him of his boss but also gets Regina "out" once again of taking any responsibility for what she's done.  Well, Author I'm siding with you boss and assuming he was right about by the way you are a crappy writer! Then they go into the story. Which again could have been interesting seeing villains living out their "hero" stories. Except all they do is give us the same story but swapping roles. It was boring, predictable, and of course Regina feels zero remorse or empathy despite having just gone through Snow's shoes. Nope, none of that at all. 

I didn't expected Savior to be any good because of so many previously stories by that point that had been so bad. When they ended Camelot without bothering to finish the story, its kind of hard to have any expectations. Each of the season really show case how bad A&E are at storying telling. They really shouldn't have been in charged. They need someone to take the stuff they came up with take over, finish it and make it better.  Season 6 they couldn't even bother to decide to come up with anything or finish anything for anyone or anything.  Not even their two favorites Regina and the Evil Queen.  

[Writing Wrongs]

I just watched this video trying to explain the timelines and realms of Season 7. I need to watch the season again to remember half of that stuff.

[Camera One]

3 hours ago, KingOfHearts said:

S1 gets too much credit for its 22-episode format I think. Even though the writing quality was so much better back then, it still dragged midway through. It had the benefit of being a new show with time to explore the characters, but by this point, the writers had exhausted everything they wanted to do with them. So that's why we get the "centrics" that don't hold any character development and lots of pointless filler. S1 wasn't good because it was long.

30 minutes ago, Shanna Marie said:

I think I'd prefer the saggy middle full of one-off character stories to prematurely wrapping up the plot arc without developing it all and then flailing because they don't know what else to do. It would have been like in season one if Emma had broken the curse early in the season and then they'd thrown in some random other villain she suddenly had to face, without dealing with the fallout of the curse, and then they also seemed to have forgotten that there ever was a curse.

Bringing this over from "Heartless".

I was trying to compare the middle "stalling" techniques from Season 1 vs. Season 6.

In Season 1, the endgame was Emma believing, the Curse breaking/everyone remembering, and Regina getting her comeuppance (heh).  

The stalling filler was Regina framing Mary Margaret for murder and the arrival of the "mysterious" irritant (uh, I mean stranger).  While the plot did drag a bit, these subplots did serve other purposes.  They strengthened the relationship between Emma and Mary Margaret (making Mary Margaret regain some Snow qualities), revealed Regina's weaknesses, and showed Rumple's weakness for his son (thinking August was Bae).  Of course, it also annoyingly kept Mary Margaret and David apart.  Meanwhile, the flashbacks continued the coherent overarching attempt to tell the story of what happened before the Curse while taking a few detours to explore supporting characters which helped with worldbuilding despite being fillers.

In Season 6, they were waiting for Emma to "die", The Evil Queen to be neutralized, the Snowing Curse to end, and Agrabah to be "saved".  So they decided to throw in the completely random Wish Realm, fridged The Evil Queen for a few episodes while they brought on Evil Gideon (which was only relevant to one of their four "endgames").  It's like they had a bunch of unrelated buns in the oven and they periodically brought one out at a time to be resolved while they ignored the other three.  And then took one out at a time to be resolved - Ep 14 The Evil Queen resolved, Ep 15 Agrabah saved, Ep 17 Snowing Curse ended.

Edited July 26, 2019 by Camera One

[KAOS Agent]

I'm fairly certain that the creators originally intended to break the curse in episode 16 of S1. The network wanted them to push it back to the finale, which led to a lot of filler. I think that had Once not been such an immediate hit they would have let them end the curse and go from there in S1. If the show was in doubt of continuing to a second season, then allowing that arc to wrap up a little quicker and possibly bringing magic to Storybrooke in S1 might be a way to draw more audience interest than drawing out the arc with character-centrics and deeper backstory.

They spent eight years or something like that mulling the idea for Once. I'd expect the first season to be extremely well thought out. Add in some helpful guidance from successful, experienced showrunners and the show had everything it needed to build a coherent story filled with fun twists and complex characters. Combine the Wouldn't it be cool if... showrunners with a relatively short window to come up with a new long term arc and a loss of strong network oversight and you get the mess of S2 - particularly 2B.

[Camera One]

6 hours ago, KAOS Agent said:

I'm fairly certain that the creators originally intended to break the curse in episode 16 of S1. The network wanted them to push it back to the finale, which led to a lot of filler.

That's astounding that they might have needed network interference from such an early point.  

I vaguely remember them boasting that no one expected they would break the Curse so early?

There was so much potential and things they *could* have done to make it less like filler, yet they thought it was a good idea to end the Curse by episode 16 of Season 1.

As we've discussed before, I even think it would have been possible for the show to take 2 seasons before the Curse broke, fully with Season 2 being Emma and an underground movement working to take down Regina and Gold with certain characters like Mary Margaret and Red remembering earlier than others and having to deal with their loved ones not remembering.

And more egregiously, they were in such a rush, but didn't even have a proper plan for what to do with the show AFTER the Curse ended!  They also did not plan to/had no interest in fully exploring all the ramifications of the Curse breaking on the characters and on the "world".  That was the biggest crime.

Edited July 26, 2019 by Camera One

[daxx]

They could have ended the curse but held off until a later season to bring magic to Storybrooke. They could have still come up with a way to get Emma to the EF since I enjoyed that arc.

[Camera One]

Writing Room for "Wish You Were Here"...

Adam: Hi writing team, we've done it - another successful half-season and now we're brainstorming the 6A finale.

Eddy: This is the big one, folks!  We'll have to transition to all the new storylines we want to do in 6B.

Adam: What do we want to do in 6B?

Eddy: Who knows, but we've created all these loose ends that need tying up and that'll take the rest of the season!

Adam: Let's go character-by-character and brainstorm what we'll do with them.

Eddy: Okay, let's start with...

A&E together: REGINA!

Eddy: I have a great idea to calm the backlash AND tie Page 23 together so it looks like we planned everything from the start.  Wouldn't it be cool if Wicked Robin came to Storybrooke and hooked up with The Evil Queen and they lived happily ever after?

Adam: Maybe we could do an alternate timeline Robin coming to Storybrooke.  But how we do that?

Eddy: Aladdin!  Genie's wish!

Adam: But how would that work?

Eddy: Who cares?  Wouldn't it be cool if there was an alternate timeline where Emma was a dumb princess?

Adam: Done!  Okay, onto the next character.  Snow and Charming.

Network exec passing by: Isn't that two characters?

A&E & Writers: Hahahahahahahahahhahahahahahahahahahahaha

Eddy: We'll just extend the Sleeping Curse for most of the season.  Whoever's awake can be that fifth wheel providing dialogue prompts like "What's that?"

Adam: I just remembered we still need to dredge back up Charming's secret about his dad's death, which will tie to our story for Captain Hook.

Intern: You mean Captain Swan?

Adam: Oh right.  Now, Emma... what should we do with her apart from Hook?

Eddy: Umm... that's a toughie. 

Adam: Stop right there - what a brilliant idea.  Let's call the next episode "Tougher Than The Rest"!

Eddy: Wow, we amaze ourselves.   So going back to Captain Hook uh I mean Swan.  Our story for Hook is Emma breaking off the engagement while he travels on the solo adventure to show the network we can keep Hook on the show next year, so maybe Emma could cry at the tavern or something. 

Intern: Wouldn't it be cool if Cleo was actually Timothy the Mouse from Dumbo?  Because Timothy encourages and Emma is Dumbo.

Adam: What a stupid idea.  Only we're allowed to do "Wouldn't it be cool if..."

Writers: We have failed.  We can't come up with how to use The Evil Queen for the next few episodes.

Eddy: Shame shame shame.  Oh well, let's turn her into a snake for a few episodes, because our payoff for the Hooded Figure has come finally!

Adam: So everyone, we're transitioning the Rumbelle story to Rumple and Belle cooperating against a common enemy, The Black Fairy, so this episode requires a well-written reason why Belle reconciles with Rumple.

Eddy: We just need Rumple to do something selfless.  I know - he agrees to remove the tracking bracelet from Belle and now we can return to the cycle where they fall back in love again.

Adam: Okay, let's summarize all the major plot points for this finale leading into 6B!  Dumbo Princess Emma Wish Realm is used to bring back Robin Hood.  The Evil Queen gets caged so we can play with new shiny toy Hooded Gideon who will bring back the love between Rumple and Belle.  Emma, Snow and Charming will stand around reacting, saying exposition or doing nothing."

Eddy: Good job everyone!  The rest of the season will just write itself!

Edited August 1, 2019 by Camera One

[KingOfHearts]

We're at the point in the rewatch of S6 where every single episode had a dumb retcon.

"Tougher than the Rest" - August watched Young Emma be homeless for who knows how many years.

"Murder Most Foul" - Hook killed Charming's dad.

"Ill-boding Patterns" - Bae controlled Rumple with the Dagger in an effort to murder someone in cold blood.

"Page 23" - Tinkerbell somehow showed up after being exiled, even though in S3 she and Regina acted like they hadn't seen each other since the Pixie Dust incident.

"A Wondrous Place" - Ariel had an object that gave her voice back, yet she was mute when Regina summoned her in S3.

"Mother's Little Helper" - Isaac knew about the "Final Battle" making Henry's powers go crazy. Super random and has nothing to do with the Author stuff, but here we are. The whole "Final Battle" thing is such a retcon and takes what Rumple said in the Pilot completely out of context.

"Awake" - The entire flashback of Snow and Charming waking up during the Curse and rejecting the opportunity to reunite with their young daughter.

There are probably more, but I've only watched most of these episodes once. It's been so long, I've blocked most of them from memory. Flashbacks didn't really start breaking the timeline until S5. (It started with Camelot's weird "500/1000 years" mumbo jumbo, then Swan Song really opened the door to throwing logic out the window.)

Edited August 4, 2019 by KingOfHearts

[Camera One]

It's because their M.O. for episode writing is there must be a twist in every flashback.  At some point,  a retcon becomes an easy way to surprise audiences because it breaks with whatever they thought happened.  Some retcons on this show are easily explained away with amnesia.  The ones that aren't can have major ramifications with the audience asking questions like "Uh, if Character A knew that Event X happened all this time, then why didn't they do/feel Y?"  Some of these retcons also damaged the integrity or likeability of certain characters, which the writers can defend as making characters more complex or grey.

Edited August 4, 2019 by Camera One

[Writing Wrongs]

I finished my Season 6 re-watch. It's funny how Henry gets omitted from all the "family" talk that Rumple or Fiona talk about. I had to keep reminding myself that The Black Fairy was Henry's great grandmother. It's always bugged me that Rumple had so much professed love for Bae, but doesn't seem to give a shit about Henry. Apart from asking The Snow Queen to let him take Belle and Henry out of Storybrooke in Season 4.

[Camera One]

3 minutes ago, Writing Wrongs said:

It's always bugged me that Rumple had so much professed love for Bae, but doesn't seem to give a shit about Henry.

Maybe it has to do with the fact that he dissociated Neal from Bae, as he told Robin in 4B.  Since Henry was Neal's son, not Bae's son, who cares about him.  What he truly wanted was to de-age Neal back to Bae as a 10-year-old boy.

Edited August 4, 2019 by Camera One

[KingOfHearts]

9 minutes ago, Camera One said:

What he truly wanted was to de-age Neal back to Bae as a 10-year-old boy.

Which is creepy on a number of levels.

[andromeda331]

1 hour ago, KingOfHearts said:

Which is creepy on a number of levels.

Yeah and so shocking that Neal turned that one down. Although why even ask? You'd think Rumple would just do it.

[Camera One]

52 minutes ago, andromeda331 said:

Yeah and so shocking that Neal turned that one down. Although why even ask? You'd think Rumple would just do it.

Sorry, Henry, your dad doesn't remember you anymore.  But maybe you and he and Pinocchio can hang out and watch "Sixteen Candles" together.

[tennisgurl]

On 7/23/2019 at 9:51 PM, Shanna Marie said:

I have to vote for the Author story as the worst because it pretty much broke the fabric of their universe and set the show down a horrible path.

The Author arc makes my brain hurt, and I would say did more damage to this series than any other arc in this shows whole sordid history. Not only was it a huge waste of a question I had been interested in since season one (How do we know about these stories that take place in another world?) it raises all of these insane story breaking questions about the nature of this universe that are absolutely nonsense at best and horrifying at worst. 

The episode that probably got most into the "Realms of Story" concept was the Cruella episode, which just raised SO MANY questions if I am reading it right. So in that episode, the implications are that there exist several worlds of story, where time exists only if it affects the story, to the point that characters cant answer questions about the nature of their world if asked directly,  and the people who live their exist so that Authors can watch their exploits and tell their stories to us in the "real" world because...because. All (or at least most) stories that exist in the history of the world apparently are from here and we have them because of Authors, who exist to watch without interfering, unless you have a creep like Isaac who dicks with the story to make it more interesting for him. Later on, we get the idea that there are different universes for different cultures so there are tons of Cinderellas and characters like that all running around in different, unconnected worlds of story.

There is a...lot to unpack there. A lot of that is me trying to guess things based on what we have seen, if that is what they are going for, not only does it directly contradict what was already established about this universe (which said these were all real places, just in different worlds that are all stacked up next to each other), not only is it actually stupider and more contrived than what we were actually told at first, its implications are deeply disturbing and existentially terrifying when you think about it for three seconds!

So, next time I watch Star Wars: A New Hope, I should be thinking that all those people who were killed by the Death Star are all real people, that are really dead, all for MY entertainment, which I can watch because some creepy old guy is writing all this down wearing a Storm Trooper costume or something. Every time whole planets and cities have been destroyed, every time we watched characters suffer and die, every life ruined, every time we saw someone cry or laugh or have sex or do anything, every single moment we have seen were all really happening to real sentient beings, who only exist to be fodder for us, making us all a bunch of sick voyeurs watching some old weirdos snuff/porn collection! Its so disturbing and so creepy, how are people not more freaked out by this in-universe?! Its a huge freaking deal, no matter what it actually means, and no one seems to really care about the mind blowing existential questions this opens up! Do they exist? Are they all stuck in a loop? Do we exist? Where does it all end?!

Is that reaching a bit? Well it leads to a big question I have with this whole idea. If these worlds of story exist stuck in some kind of time/story loop where everything is run by story function, why do these places even exist? Who created them, and for what purpose? Or do they just exist on their own or are created by the original story tellers making cave paintings? The only thing I can imagine is there is some kind of Truman Show mythical god like being that created the worlds of story to entertain the real world because it seemed like a cool idea at the time. Or did he just get bored without anything good on TV? Or is he just a sadistic monster that likes to watch people suffer and wants to make other people do the same without realizing what they're doing? Is he planning a fucking intradimentional tournament arc? I am sorry if that seems insane, but its what we have, and until we get better answers as to how the fuck this world works, I have to make guesses!

[KingOfHearts]

It's a personal mental exercise of my to think about what could've been on Once Upon a Time. It's been canceled over a year. This is my life now, LOL.

For the Wish Realm, there were ways to make Princess Emma less street-smart without turning her into a bumbling coward. She would likely be trained in archery and swordplay (heck, even Anna was trained by her guards), but wouldn't have much experience outside of the walls of her royal abode. In peace time, her outings would probably consist of touring random towns to wave and smile. If she were in a tavern or something, she'd be very out of place still. 

Since S6 had Aladdin and Jasmine, why not make Princess Emma like Jasmine, wanting to leave the palace walls and experience more excitement? Someone like Hook could've easily been the placeholder for Aladdin. A&E made Emma a 1930s Disney Princess (actually worse), when they should've made her a 1990s Disney Princess. She would probably grow up over-protected like Jasmine or Ariel. I'd imagine Snow and David would guard their daughter like a clutched pearl after Regina. 

It occurred to me that at 28, Emma would've likely already been married off. That's another problem with making her a Disney Princess type. Most of the princesses are late teens or early 20s at the most. Emma would've been more mature and well-acquainted with her role. I really don't think she'd still be single, but she didn't have to end up with Neal and have Henry. 

What about Snowflake? He'd only be a couple years younger than Emma at most. Would she be second in line for the throne then? Would she live in the shadow of her heroic younger brother?

The Wish Realm brings up so many interesting questions. I think the writers should've devoted the entire last season (S6) to it in a flash sideways sort of way like @Camera One said. There could've been an alternate timeline, a reverse of the S1 Curse, or some afterlife nonsense. Anything would've been better than retroactively creating a world via genie wish.

[Camera One]

If the show had done an alternate timeline in Season 6, at least the flashbacks - basically half of the show - *could* have been enjoyable.  As it were, both the flashbacks and the present-day were boring and/or insulting, so I don't think it could have gotten any worse.

*could* because... well, Adam and Eddy

But A&E clearly weren't able to see that re-treading the same time period over and over again had become similar to beating an undead horse.  Let's see.. they had
- yet another flashback set during the Bandit Snow era era - actually, two if we include "Page 23"
- yet another flashback during Charmings vs. Evil Queen - two including "Song in Your Heart"
- yet another flashback of Belle The Maid
- yet another flashback of Rumple and Bae
- yet another flashback of Cursed Storybrooke (they haven't revisited this as much, but seriously, there's no need to revisit a time period where literally nothing ever changes)

To top it off, they were already retreading The Evil Queen.

The major present-day storyline arcs when listed... seriously, each was worse than the last:
- The Evil Queen threatens everyone and then she and Regina learn to love themselves.
- Snowing dealing with yet another sleeping curse and learn... well, nothing, but this is Season of Snowing, everyone!
- Emma accepting her fate of death as the Savior and learn for the 100th time she should let everyone know so they can fail to help since she "dies" anyway
- Belle and Rumple realizing that their selfish concerns about their wayward child indicates a bond of true love so forget the threats and controlling behavior and screwing over everyone else, since we still get two spots at the family dinner!

Edited August 7, 2019 by Camera One

[Camera One]

I was thinking about the whole thing with David's father.  Snow and David have a conversation about it in "The Other Shoe" but after "Murder Most Foul", it's hardly discussed.  I really find it hard to envision what Snow, David or Emma would say about topics like this.  

DAVID: Snow... while you were asleep, I found out who murdered my father.

SNOW: Oh David, didn't you promise not to pursue this?

DAVID: Oops, you remembered?  That was nine episodes ago!

SNOW: What did you find out?

DAVID: It was George.  He killed my father when he was trying to get James back.

SNOW: I'm sorry, David.  

DAVID: You know how that feels right?  So what was it like when you found out Regina had murdered your father?  How do you feel about it now?  Do you still feel angry?  How are you able to apologize to Regina constantly and be her BFF?  

SNOW: -----------------

DAVID: Sorry, I didn't hear what you said.

SNOW: ----------------

DAVID: Huh?

SNOW: I said I got a lobotomy.

[Shanna Marie]

On 8/5/2019 at 11:21 PM, tennisgurl said:

So in that episode, the implications are that there exist several worlds of story, where time exists only if it affects the story, to the point that characters cant answer questions about the nature of their world if asked directly,  and the people who live their exist so that Authors can watch their exploits and tell their stories to us in the "real" world because...because.

I don't think they're necessarily meant to be for our entertainment because all those storybooks are locked away where no one can find them. Henry seems to be the only person who ever saw the stories about the Enchanted Forest. They implied that Walt Disney was an Author, so I guess his versions were of yet another different world (and Walt wasn't actually the writer. He was a producer. He only wrote some of the early shorts. So how is he an Author?) and people did see them, but then the Authors were supposedly working with this magical ink in those special books, and those are hidden away, not being used for entertainment. There was no real purpose other than giving Henry "hope."

It seems like some of the idea for the "realms of story" came from the Wonderland spinoff, where they wanted to link it to the original series, but they wanted Alice to come from Victorian England, like in her story, rather than from contemporary England, so they had to create Victorian Literature World (which ended up crossing over with the Jekyll and Hyde story later). But I don't think they were calling it "realms of story" then. It was just a world that was Victorian-ish the way the Enchanted Forest world was Georgian-ish (with a dash or two of medieval). They also weren't implying then that time didn't pass and things would never change. Presumably, if you went there a hundred or so years later, you'd get a more modern world. The Enchanted Forest world doesn't seem to have changed much from Hook's time to the present, but it was never implied that it would never change or that time wasn't moving. Come to think of it, the World Without Color came before that, but no one suggested that it was any kind of "story" world. It was just a world that looked like 1930s monster movies set in the Victorian era. They pulled another one of those story realms out of thin air offscreen when people wondered about Dorothy coming to Oz, and was she coming from the 1970s-80s (depending on when this was in relation to the curse), and they said she was from Depression Era Kansas world, not our world. Which is awfully specific.

And then we got to Cruella's world, and what the hell.

22 hours ago, KingOfHearts said:

It occurred to me that at 28, Emma would've likely already been married off. That's another problem with making her a Disney Princess type. Most of the princesses are late teens or early 20s at the most. Emma would've been more mature and well-acquainted with her role. I really don't think she'd still be single, but she didn't have to end up with Neal and have Henry. 

It's worse than that. By the time of the wish, she'd be more like 30, since it was about a year between her 28th birthday and the start of the missing year, and then there's the missing year (Henry was 10 at the beginning and supposedly 13 or so by the time of the wish). Making her act like a silly teenager was stupid and unlikely, given that she was the mother of a teenager. If they wanted young princess Emma, they needed to have gone back in time. A realistic idea of what Princess Emma would really have been like would probably be someone a lot like her mother, capable of going full princess at a ball in a pretty dress, but also trained with a sword and bow, just in case. She'd probably have several younger siblings, with her oldest brother in line for the throne. By 30, she probably would have long since been married off to the king or heir to the throne of some nearby kingdom in a diplomatic marriage, but since her parents are believers in true love, she wouldn't have been forced to marry someone she hated. They probably would have introduced her to various potential candidates as she was growing up, with it likely being a childhood friends-into-lovers scenario, where as kids they played together and were competitive at riding, swordplay, and archery, and they developed feelings as they grew older, probably falling in love when they saw each other again at a ball, all grown up, after a few years apart (but maybe writing letters to each other in the meantime). She'd have several young children and probably wouldn't even still be living at her parents' castle because she'd be the queen or wife to the heir to the throne in some other kingdom. She'd have less of an edge and none of the WALLS of our Emma, but would still be strong and brave and willing to stand up for herself.

[Camera One]

10 minutes ago, Shanna Marie said:

And then we got to Cruella's world, and what the hell.

And then we got the Unenchanted Forest with the same characters but different and these characters interacted with the Wish Realm before it was even created.  And there may be an Unwonder Land, but Oz is still the same.  Not to mention the Mother Gothel World Origin which turned into the Land Without Magic.  

The Worldbuilding abilities of A&E definitely amaze and awe.

Edited August 8, 2019 by Camera One

[Melgaypet]

The excellent point that Emma should have younger siblings in the Wish!World makes me wonder what their names would be, which reminds me of how incredibly stupid it is that Snow and Charming named their son Neal. I hate that so much.

Anyway. Leo, for Snow's father? Graham, since he helped them? (wait, is Graham the Huntsman's Storybrooke name? I forget.) Lance, for Lancelot who married them? For another daughter, Eva or Ruth, most likely. Or Rose, for Red? I know Snow-White and Rose-Red is a completely different fairytale from either Snow White and the Seven Dwarves or Little Red Riding Hood, but I loved Snow and Red's friendship and this could be a cute little nod to that. Plus, it's pretty. I dunno, maybe that's as dumb and random as the stuff A&E did.

These are the kind of things I think about when I'm procrastinating.

[tennisgurl]

I think there are two reasons that we didn’t see Emma with a happy marriage or kids who aren’t Henry, or that we didn’t  see Snow and Charming with more kids, or even a reference to grandpa Leo coming to visit the grandkids or that Graham is coming to let the Charmings know about some goings on in the Forrest or anything like that. One, because A&E are terribly lazy writers who couldn’t be bothered to think about what the EF would actually be like without the curse happening or that anything would have changed beyond old age makeup and Emma liking gardening. They really just can’t be bothered thinking outside even a tiny box. They’ve forgotten the very basic rules they created for their universe, they can’t be asked to remember how things were in season one. And second, because that would make us sad thinking about the lives ruined and people that are dead or don’t exist now because of Regina, and we are only supposed to feel bad for Regina now, not anyone else. The point of the Wishverse episode was to tell us that everything was actually better with the curse and everyone should be grateful to Regina, especially Emma who would have been a flower picking happy princess (horror!!) instead of the badass with a gun and walls that A&E think make a strong female character without being “challenged” by her awful life Regina gave her. If they showed the actual world without the curse, her victims living happy, non dead lives, lives that never even got to start because she separated their parents, Regina would look bad, and we can’t have that. It is a fun thought experiment for us though! 

Edited August 15, 2019 by tennisgurl

[Camera One]

Another alternate timeline they could have done is Emma "wishes" that she was never the Savior, and she is sent back to Season 1, except this time, her kiss with Henry doesn't break the Curse, and she has to find another way.  So Emma uses what she has learned over the last few seasons and enacts a portal, bringing everyone back to the Enchanted Forest hoping they would remember, but they don't initially.  But then Emma finds a way to make one person remember (eg. Blue), and then they slowly return everyone's memories back (eg. her parents) and they fight Alt Regina.   Fine fine, with the help of Real Regina when she joins Emma.  Real Regina finds Alt Robin Hood and brings him over.

[KingOfHearts]

It's not something I normally pay attention to, but the blocking on this show is so terrible. The characters are always standing awkwardly in the middle of the room/street/clearing, ignoring their surroundings like they're perpetually stuck in a floating head scene. Their poses are always so stiff and boring. It's so unnatural. I've talked about this before, but the way everybody stands awkwardly in a group while one or two characters partake in the majority of the dialogue is super distracting. And that's like every other scene.

Most of the settings are interchangeable. The heroes could be having the same conversation at Granny's, Snow's apartment, in the middle of Main Street, in Regina's office, or Emma's house, and it wouldn't make a lick of difference.

I rarely notice technical stuff like this, but I can't even watch clips of this show without noticing how awful each scene setup is. It's got to be a combination of the writing and directing.

Edited August 9, 2019 by KingOfHearts

[Camera One]

28 minutes ago, KingOfHearts said:

It's so unnatural.  I've talked about this before, but the way everybody stands awkwardly in a group while one or two characters partake in the majority of the dialogue is super distracting. And that's like every other scene.

Unnatural and awkward describes it well.  Not to mention the dialogue is so clunky and generic that it's pretty random who says what (Snow and Charming have pretty interchangeable dialogue, but it often extends to everyone else too). 

It's basically one character re-states the problem, one character explains how dire it is, one character asks what they should do about it, one character repeats how dire it is, one character gives an idea, one character criticizes it, one character tells everyone else to calm down, and then someone has some aha moment and/or the door opens and someone interjects with news and everyone runs off to stand around awkwardly somewhere else.

Edited August 9, 2019 by Camera One

[Shanna Marie]

If we want to go really dark, the curse gets cast, but because Emma isn't the Savior, there's no Savior, but I guess that wouldn't have been all that interesting to deal with if Emma is a perpetual infant, trapped by the curse to be frozen in time. Emma wouldn't have been able to learn a Valuable Lesson about being grateful to Regina for casting the curse so she'd be challenged enough to be a badass instead of a wimp.

5 hours ago, Camera One said:

Another alternate timeline they could have done is Emma "wishes" that she was never the Savior, and she is sent back to Season 1, except this time, her kiss with Henry doesn't break the Curse, and she has to find another way. 

Or, since she's not the Savior (but she still got put in the tree because her parents were trying to save her from the curse, not because they were hoping she'd grow up to save them), she's able to just drive out of town without something happening to keep her there, and she goes back to her life in Boston. Or she doesn't even go to Storybrooke. Henry comes looking for her because she's his mom and he hates Regina, not because she's the Savior. Emma hands him over to child services as a runaway and says maybe his home should be looked into if he's desperate enough to look her up, and she goes on with her life busting bail jumpers without ever being reunited with her family. That's closer to a "be careful what you wish for" scenario -- sure, being the Savior is a pain, but it also came with finding her parents, getting to know the son she gave up, and finding love, and if she's not the Savior, she probably wouldn't have had any of that.

[Camera One]

43 minutes ago, Shanna Marie said:

Or, since she's not the Savior (but she still got put in the tree because her parents were trying to save her from the curse, not because they were hoping she'd grow up to save them), she's able to just drive out of town without something happening to keep her there, and she goes back to her life in Boston. Or she doesn't even go to Storybrooke. Henry comes looking for her because she's his mom and he hates Regina, not because she's the Savior. Emma hands him over to child services as a runaway and says maybe his home should be looked into if he's desperate enough to look her up, and she goes on with her life busting bail jumpers without ever being reunited with her family. That's closer to a "be careful what you wish for" scenario -- sure, being the Savior is a pain, but it also came with finding her parents, getting to know the son she gave up, and finding love, and if she's not the Savior, she probably wouldn't have had any of that.

I like this scenario too.  And this time, Snow and Charming could come to Wish Boston to tell Emma her true destiny. 

Maybe they thought this would be too similar to the 3B premiere.   

They could make this work by having Emma have her real memories in Wish Boston.  So she wakes up and realizes that in this Wish realm where she's not the Savior, it has been several years since Young Henry showed up.  Emma desperately tries to get back into Storybrooke but she can't.  Frustrated, Emma then goes and finds Henry in the foster system.  This would actually give Jared something interesting to play.  Emma would be heartbroken to see Henry go through a system that she went through.  Emma and a grateful Henry (who has a bit of rekindled Hope™) then together go into Storybrooke and help people to remember.  Maybe Emma could get the scroll from Ingrid and we could get a cameo.

Edited August 9, 2019 by Camera One

[andromeda331]

When ever Regina goes off on another one of her woe me crap it makes me think of the episode of Burn Notice Truth and Reconciliation when their trying to find proof a man living in Miami is fugitive who ran Haiti's prison torturing and killing so many people. His father was the dictator. Anyways Michael has a voiceover that "Spend time with corrupt, homicidal, Third World political figures, and you'll hear a lot of self-pity. What kind of man throws his political enemies in prison and then tortures them to death? Usually it's a guy who feels so sorry for himself, he feels justified doing anything. Killers, by and large, are whining losers. But that doesn't make them any less dangerous." It fits Regina so perfectly although she's killed a lot more then just throw people in prison and torture, although there have been some not that we ever get to see any comeuppance. Rumple too although he's had it voiced to him more often being a coward. 

[Writing Wrongs]

On 8/7/2019 at 9:06 PM, Shanna Marie said:

It seems like some of the idea for the "realms of story" came from the Wonderland spinoff, where they wanted to link it to the original series, but they wanted Alice to come from Victorian England, like in her story, rather than from contemporary England, so they had to create Victorian Literature World (which ended up crossing over with the Jekyll and Hyde story later). But I don't think they were calling it "realms of story" then. It was just a world that was Victorian-ish the way the Enchanted Forest world was Georgian-ish (with a dash or two of medieval). They also weren't implying then that time didn't pass and things would never change. Presumably, if you went there a hundred or so years later, you'd get a more modern world. The Enchanted Forest world doesn't seem to have changed much from Hook's time to the present, but it was never implied that it would never change or that time wasn't moving. Come to think of it, the World Without Color came before that, but no one suggested that it was any kind of "story" world. It was just a world that looked like 1930s monster movies set in the Victorian era. They pulled another one of those story realms out of thin air offscreen when people wondered about Dorothy coming to Oz, and was she coming from the 1970s-80s (depending on when this was in relation to the curse), and they said she was from Depression Era Kansas world, not our world. Which is awfully specific.

And then we got to Cruella's world, and what the hell.

I still don't get how Flapper-Era Cruella got to the Enchanted Forest.

And how did Rumple get to all these other realms to "help" all these villains? With Jefferson's hat?

Edited August 9, 2019 by Writing Wrongs

[Camera One]

27 minutes ago, Writing Wrongs said:

I still don't get how Flapper-Era Cruella got to the Enchanted Forest.

And how did Rumple get to all these other realms to "help" all these villains? With Jefferson's hat?

And it only gets worse in Season 7...

Like how did Unenchanted Blind Witch get to the Oz with Zelena in it?  Why wasn't there a Unenchanted Oz when there was an Unenchanted Wonderland?  How did Wish Hook so easily go back and forth from the Unenchanted Forest?  Could he have accidentally gone to the Enchanted Forest?  Did Unenchanted Forest Mother Gothel meet Enchanted Forest Mother Gothel when she was recruiting for her Coven?  

Edited August 9, 2019 by Camera One

[Shanna Marie]

23 hours ago, Camera One said:

I think they were just bored by writing happy relationships.  They did build the entire Season 3 two-hour finale around Captain Swan and almost every storyline Emma got after Season 4 revolved around her love interest. 

(Bringing this over from the episode thread in which I brought up my crackpot "the Captain Swan relationship was network mandated and A&E didn't actually want to write it" theory) I don't know that I'd say that Emma's storylines truly revolved around her love interest. Even when they kind of did in theory, they tended to veer away in execution, with the possible exception of 5A. They also tended to undermine every significant relationship moment or follow it immediately with an equal or greater Swan Queen moment. Even if the plots were supposedly about Emma's love interest, she probably ended up with more actual screen time with Regina than with Hook.

It starts in the season three finale, which is pretty much the last hurrah of the kind of story in which Emma and Hook work together to carry out a common goal, and their relationship develops along the way. They can't end the episode on Emma and Hook's kiss after she learns he sold his ship to reach her. No, the end of the episode (aside from the Elsa tag) is Emma introducing Marian to her torturer and seemingly forgetting she just watched Regina try to execute her mother. Then the immediate follow-up the next season is Emma pushing Hook away because she feels guilty about ruining Regina's love life, and instead of spending much time with Hook, she has to act out pivotal moments from Frozen with Regina. The first date between Emma and Hook is undermined by the fact that he blackmailed Rumple to get his hand back, and we barely see the date. That's immediately followed by an episode in which Regina and Emma spend the entire episode together, with Emma begging to be Regina's friend. After that, they're in two entirely separate storylines. If the writers just didn't want to write a happy couple, they had plenty of material, considering that the whole threat of the blackmail was Emma finding out what Hook did, and yet we never know for sure whether or not she actually found out, do we? He talks about it with Belle, but it never matters at all with Emma. Through most of season 4, they do have really good moments, but they're moments, not stories, and they spend the rest of the time apart. You could probably cut out most of their moments without affecting the plot at all. That's where I tend to suspect network interference, like when they handed over the scripts to the network, the notes they got mentioned that there's nothing about Captain Swan and they want to see more of that, so they just wrote a quick scene and stuck it in there. In the finale, they have a bit of an adventure before he gets killed and she spends the rest of the episode with Regina. Her first "I love you" is undermined by the fact that at the time she's sacrificing herself for Regina (and the town, but if it was meant to be more about the town, wouldn't the reason she gave been more about not wanting to unleash a Dark One Evil Queen on the town rather than "you've come too far" or "you've worked too hard" or whatever reason she gave for taking the darkness away from Regina?).

5A is about them, but although 5B was supposedly about saving him from the Underworld, it ended up really being about reconciling Regina to her family, and aside from the one quest episode, they don't spend that much time together. And then there's the season five finale, in which he's just come back from the dead and she immediately ditches him to go on a road trip with Regina.

In season 6, almost as soon as they move in together, she spends an episode with Regina in the mirror world, and then it's Regina who goes after her into the Wishverse, and then they undermine the proposal by having it be under the cloud of him having learned he killed her grandfather. They get the wedding, but it's undermined by the coming curse, and he doesn't even get to give her the True Love's Kiss to save the day.

It may just be incompetence that they don't realize how to mine the actual issues of their relationship for drama, but the pattern seems to me that it's more like they're having to throw this in against their will, so they keep trying to undermine the relationship, like they think they can make the network hate it and quit asking for it. I even wonder how much of the season three finale was what they really wanted to do. I can imagine it going something like:
NETWORK: We've got an open slot in the schedule, so we're thinking we'll give you a two-hour slot for your season finale. We might even bump the budget up a bit so you can make it like a big two-hour movie.
A&E: Awesome! We've got just the idea in mind. We were already planning something great, but it's got potential to expand to two hours. They think they've stopped Zelena from opening her time portal, but it does open, and it sucks Emma and Regina through, taking them to around the time the Charmings first met. We can revisit "Snow Falls" in a Back-to-the-Future kind of thing. Emma can learn there's no place like home once she's separated from her family, and Regina will get to face her past self and learn what was going on behind her back. It'll be so much fun!
NETWORK: Yeah, time travel could be fun, and we like the Back to the Future idea, but wouldn't it be more interesting to have Hook be the one going with Emma? You've been setting up that relationship --
A&E (mumbling under their breath): Because you made us.
NETWORK: --throughout the season, so if they went on an adventure together and they were part of helping her parents get together, they might get together. They could run into his past self, so he could confront what he used to be. It'll be great. Viewers will love it. The relationship between Hook and Emma tests really well.
A&E: Well, if you insist. But we like it better with Regina. (Once they're away from the network executive's office). Hey, we could have Emma meet Marian, then bring her forward in time to save her from execution, only to find out who she is later when she's ruined things for Regina. And then Regina and Emma will have to go on a quest to reconcile their friendship. That'll give us something to do for season four.

As I said, crackpot theory, but it would explain a lot.

[Camera One]

Nothing can escape being eclipsed by Regina for sure.

Overall though, in these arcs, most of the angst between Emma and Hook is very contingent on A&E's confidence that the endgame is Emma and Hook happily reuniting and making up (before the next obstacle shows up).   Even though Regina is ultimately the goal of every arc and there are entire episodes showcasing Swan Queen, Emma more consistently has screentime with Hook where they work as a team against whatever's creating angst.  He's her main focus as Dark Swan, he's her goal in the Underworld, he's the one helping her with the shakes in 6A, etc.  When I look back on this show and what it prioritizes, Regina, Regina and Regina get top 3 but next to me would be Captain Swan and their angst.

[Writing Wrongs]

Pray for me, I've started my re-watch of Season 7. I will post more specific thoughts in the individual episode threads when you guys have caught up, but just generally so far:

I really don't know why Robert Carlyle agreed to do this. Money?

Why wouldn't her name be "Ella" like in the other version? "Cinderella" was a derogatory name given to her.

I realized the problem with this "reboot" is that unlike the original, we don't know the rules. In the original pilot we know The Evil Queen cast the curse to rip everyone away to Storybrooke. This shit just plops us in Seattle with adult Henry and we don't know what the hell is going on. Even the "Enchanted Forest (?)" stuff is confusing as to what is going on.

Not a great start. I'm just waiting for Zelena to show up. She makes everything tolerable.

Sigh.

Edited August 10, 2019 by Writing Wrongs

[Shanna Marie]

12 hours ago, Camera One said:

Overall though, in these arcs, most of the angst between Emma and Hook is very contingent on A&E's confidence that the endgame is Emma and Hook happily reuniting and making up (before the next obstacle shows up). 

(Adjusting my tinfoil hat) Do we know that A&E really wanted Emma and Hook being endgame, or did the network dictate it? During this arc, it had already looked like they were trying to set up August as a potential love interest for Emma, so maybe they were hoping that if they set up that and then undermined Hook, there would be such a vast fan outcry that the network would let them switch gears at the last second.

Though I think it's mostly that they had zero interest in writing for Emma, so that even when they set up an arc that revolved around her relationship with Hook, they seldom wrote any actual relationship stuff, just a few random moments, and otherwise it always turned into being about Regina while Hook was off angsting on his own, and they considered that "relationship" content. Like they were teasing an epic CaptainSwan adventure story for season six, and it turned out to be Hook angsting his way across the realms on his own while Emma was back in Storybrooke.

And the zero interest in writing for Emma may come down to the fact that she was a character more or less forced on them when no one was interested in the series about the Evil Queen getting her happy ending, so they had to come up with another protagonist to sell the series, and then they more or less ditched that protagonist as soon as they could get away with it. I imagine Emma would have had even less to do if Hook hadn't come along so that she at least had the romantic plot (and whether or not they were forced by the network to emphasize that romance, it does sound like the network was very much in favor of that storyline and Hook, so it may have gotten more attention than A&E would have preferred to give it).

I don't think they were ever actually interested in writing a Swan Queen romance, but without the Captain Swan relationship, Emma would have been reduced to being entirely a prop for Regina's story. That's more or less what she was, but at least she was a prop for Regina who also had a romantic relationship of her own.

[Camera One]

I think Season 3 tilted towards Emma and Hook in such an obvious way that they intended them to stay together without network interference.  Albeit, they clearly enjoyed and found it easier to write for Hook than Emma, so it's possible they kept the relationship to ensure Hook had a reason to be there.  

I think overall, that was just how A&E wrote, and Captain Swan wasn't necessarily a target.  Look at Rumbelle, a coupling they clearly thought was true love.  Rumbelle got a "romantic" engagement and wedding but we found out Rumple gave her a fake dagger and he murdered Zelena behind her back.  Rumbelle had a "romantic" honeymoon complete with a Beauty and the Beast dance, and then we saw Rumple discovering the Hat Box.  The Writers' concept of writing for a couple they loved was creating obstacles and creating angst so that the two characters realized how much they love one another.  I find it hard to believe the network cared about keeping Rumbelle together since it was actually damaging to "Beauty and the Beast".  I doubt beyond Season 4, ABC cared too much about this show overall since it was basically maintaining its small base core audience.

Of course, it's hard to trust anything they say but,

Quote

Question: Did you always intend to have Hook in love with Emma?

Eddy: Always.

Adam: Always... we loved the idea that Hook and Emma would be kindred spirits and that is why we kind of wrote that int he beanstalk episode of season 2... we were very lucky that we feel that Hook and Emma have an enormous amount of chemistry so that kind of allowed us to stick to the plan that we wanted.

Of course, this was before the couple became "happy" aka boring.  I think after 3B when Hook and Emma both shared the same feeling, it just became their usual inability to write good, human stories for established couples which resulted in the bad writing for CS.  If they had wanted to break them up, they could have easily done what they did with Regina and Robin Hood.

Edited August 10, 2019 by Camera One

[Shanna Marie]

30 minutes ago, Camera One said:

Look at Rumbelle, a coupling they clearly thought was true love. 

Very good point. They wrote what was essentially an abusive relationship there, then were utterly shocked when anyone mentioned the abusive red flags because they thought it was romantic. Though that one was hampered by the fact that they wanted the romantic Beauty and the Beast relationship, but they also wanted Rumple to remain a devious villain, and those things are mutually exclusive.

I'm not even sure if it's a case of finding happy relationships boring. It's more a case of them not being very good writers, so they had to resort to all kinds of contrivances to have something to write about rather than being able to mine the conflict inherent in the relationships they'd created. That's why I often refer to them being idiot savants of writing. They created some really good stuff, but they seemed to be utterly oblivious to what they'd actually created because they didn't use any of the stuff that was there.

[KingOfHearts]

8 hours ago, Writing Wrongs said:

Why wouldn't her name be "Ella" like in the other version? "Cinderella" was a derogatory name given to her.

They should've kept as "Ella" in the flashbacks, with the "cinder" part coming with "Jacinda" in the present day. Henry probably would've mistakenly called her Cinderella and explained it to her, and she would've laughed at how ridiculous that would be.

I'm excited to talk about S7 in retrospect because we haven't done a whole lot of that on the boards. We discussed it when it aired, but we didn't take a holistic approach like we have been with this rewatch.

Quote

Not a great start. I'm just waiting for Zelena to show up. She makes everything tolerable.

I don't think many people expected to say that, but it was true for S7. It was almost like she was a completely different character. She was just so warm and likable. 

Edited August 10, 2019 by KingOfHearts

[Melgaypet]

8 hours ago, Writing Wrongs said:

Why wouldn't her name be "Ella" like in the other version? "Cinderella" was a derogatory name given to her.

...wait, her name wasn't Ella? Well, that goes to show how much I paid attention. You'd think I'd know better than to assume common sense. It's not all my fault, the character was soporific no matter what name she was using.

[KingOfHearts]

2 hours ago, Melgaypet said:

...wait, her name wasn't Ella? Well, that goes to show how much I paid attention. You'd think I'd know better than to assume common sense. It's not all my fault, the character was soporific no matter what name she was using.

It was also weird to me that Cruella DeVil's name never got an explanation. Who names their child Cruella?

[Shanna Marie]

3 hours ago, KingOfHearts said:

I'm excited to talk about S7 in retrospect because we haven't done a whole lot of that on the boards. We discussed it when it aired, but we didn't take a holistic approach like we have been with this rewatch.

I think that kind of discussion tended to happen when the next season came along and it caused us to look back at previous seasons. Since there were no more new seasons, we haven't had reason to look back at season seven, until we get there with the rewatch. Plus, I think a lot of people drifted away from the series and/or discussion at that point.

Incidentally, I've been looking around for a good price on the season 7 DVDs since checking them out of the library won't work for the way we do the rewatch, and I was surprised that Target doesn't even list season 7 on their site, not even to order online. They have all the others, but not that one. It looks like the standard price for s7 at Amazon and Best Buy is about $23. They don't seem to have dropped it much, unless that happens at the one-year mark, later this month. I may also check Half-Price Books.

It'll almost be like getting something new because I didn't rewatch season 7 much while it was running. With previous seasons, I would rewatch the previous episode in the hour before the new episode, and then I'd usually rewatch the season once the DVDs came out before the new season premiere. The move to Friday made it harder to rewatch before the new episode, and I lost cable and the DVR during that season, and then there was no new season to review for, so I'll have only seen most episodes once.

[Writing Wrongs]

3 hours ago, Melgaypet said:

...wait, her name wasn't Ella? Well, that goes to show how much I paid attention. You'd think I'd know better than to assume common sense. It's not all my fault, the character was soporific no matter what name she was using.

OK, so there is an episode where Regina tells her she should drop the "Cinder" so after that she wants to be called "Ella".

Season 7 is getting better as it goes on. I had forgotten about the Guardian thing. Ugh.

[KingOfHearts]

4 minutes ago, Writing Wrongs said:

Season 7 is getting better as it goes on. I had forgotten about the Guardian thing. Ugh.

The Guardian subplot went literally nowhere and ended up having nothing to do with anything.

[andromeda331]

11 hours ago, Shanna Marie said:

I'm not even sure if it's a case of finding happy relationships boring. It's more a case of them not being very good writers, so they had to resort to all kinds of contrivances to have something to write about rather than being able to mine the conflict inherent in the relationships they'd created. That's why I often refer to them being idiot savants of writing. They created some really good stuff, but they seemed to be utterly oblivious to what they'd actually created because they didn't use any of the stuff that was there.

I think its this more then anything. I do sometimes lean towards the network for Hook and Emma. But A&E are bad writers for everyone even for their favorites. They completely believe they wrote such a romantic story for Rumple and Belle and can't see that it mirrors perfectly a abusive relationship. Regina and Robin? They declared them soulmates and such a great perfect story when we saw none of that mostly Robin listening to Regina when he wasn't sideline. They really thought everyone would be so moved over their storyline of poor Regina and Robin in love but can't be together due to his wife who's murder Emma had undone and had crypt sex and were shocked to find out that so many fans were appalled and grossed out by it that they had to quickly change to Marion was dead all along! Even for their favorite characters they write horrible love stories, and really horrible stories for them in general. That's just them. They can't write a story for anyone that's not weird, gross, disturbing, makes sense or even write a beginning, middle and end. Not only are they bad writers they double down on it. 

Edited August 11, 2019 by andromeda331

[Writing Wrongs]

As the seasons went on they just gave up on originality. The Dark Curse was their crutch. In Season 1,  Rumple had to wait years to find and train Regina to cast it. Later, anyone can do it. By Season 7, you didn't even need to crush the heart of the person you love most. You just need the blood of a witch who has crushed the heart of the person she loved most. WTF? Same with portals and travel between the realms. They seem to have an abundance of magic beans by Season 7.

I feel like A&E were doing what Disney is doing now with all their live action remakes. Trying to fix things that they see are flaws of past versions. They realized their previous Rapunzel story was crap, so they did their Tangled version. Same with Hansel & Gretel.

Edited August 11, 2019 by Writing Wrongs
Understand the characters better.

[KingOfHearts]

23 hours ago, Shanna Marie said:

The proposal really comes across like a passive-aggressive "You want a proposal? Okay, here's a proposal. How do you like that?"

I found this entirety of S6 to be this way. Most of the "highlights" were popular requests the writers had no interest in doing: the musical episode, Aladdin/Jasmine, Outlaw Queen happy ending, The Black Fairy, Captain Swan getting married, more Storybrooke stories like S1, etc. The writers didn't spend any longer than five minutes planning any of that. Through every episode of S6, there's this "begrudging" vibe where everything feels phoned in and sloppily placed together last minute.

There were a lot of re-shoots and shifts in the story focus, which tells me they didn't have it planned out or they had to change a lot late in the game. Like, for example, Clone Queen introducing the mystery behind David's dad in 6x02 when it didn't come up again until 6x12. To me, that plot line was intended to go in earlier in the season. I don't know if the rewrites were a result of poor planning, corporate mandates, or being unsure of whether this would be the final season or not.

Edited August 11, 2019 by KingOfHearts

[daxx]

3 hours ago, KingOfHearts said:

I found this entirety of S6 to be this way. Most of the "highlights" were popular requests the writers had no interest in doing: the musical episode, Aladdin/Jasmine, Outlaw Queen happy ending, The Black Fairy, Captain Swan getting married, more Storybrooke stories like S1, etc. The writers didn't spend any longer than five minutes planning any of that. Through every episode of S6, there's this "begrudging" vibe where everything feels phoned in and sloppily placed together last minute.

There were a lot of re-shoots and shifts in the story focus, which tells me they didn't have it planned out or they had to change a lot late in the game. Like, for example, Clone Queen introducing the mystery behind David's dad in 6x02 when it didn't come up again until 6x12. To me, that plot line was intended to go in earlier in the season. I don't know if the rewrites were a result of poor planning, corporate mandates, or being unsure of whether this would be the final season or not.

All the things the fans wanted that they put in S6 seemed to literally be the writers gleefully making us regret wishing for it. All the fan service came with a twist, but not the good kind.

I still don’t understand why they treated the wedding of a main character as poorly as they did. On a roof instead of Hook’s ship, clothes that don’t represent their characters at all, rings you see in any jewelry store, no flair or character, immediately followed by a curse.

Snow’s wedding showed much more character.

[Shanna Marie]

Thinking more about my "conspiracy" theory and whether the way the Rumple/Belle relationship was treated disproves it ... Although they seemed utterly blind to the abuse they were writing, I do think they intended that relationship to be troubled. That was the designated "angsty" relationship. Most of the conversations between Rumple and Belle were about how difficult their relationship was because he was such a difficult man to love. So, even if they didn't mean to depict abuse when they kept having him lie to her, gaslight her, knock her out so he could go behind her back, imprison her, or track her so she couldn't escape from him, they did mean to show that their relationship was difficult and troubled, but that their true love (gag) kept bringing them back together and got them through it.

In contrast, I don't think Emma and Hook's relationship was meant to be difficult or angsty. It was the "easy" relationship, where most of their conflicts were external. They didn't really fight once they got together. I don't think the things that undermined each of their major relationship moments were meant to show that their relationship was troubled. It's more that they were using those moments to progress an external plot. Like, their first date was really just part of the setup to get the hat/blackmail plot going. It wasn't there to show Emma and Hook going on a date and starting a relationship. Everything around Emma's first "I love you" had nothing to do with her relationship with Hook (we'd never even seen her have a moment where an "I love you" was obviously lacking) but was to set up her giving the big pep talk to Regina about going after Robin and then to add angst to her taking on the Darkness. The proposal scene wasn't really about their relationship, but was to set up his world-hopping adventure and Gideon's scheme.

And then they didn't throw in some big moment or episode in which Rumple ran off to hang out with Regina every time anything major happened in the Rumple/Belle relationship. They barely had screentime with anyone else but each other.

But they were weird with all the relationships. I never figured out what the deal was with Regina and Robin. Usually, they seemed perfectly happy to give Regina all the things, so would they have grudgingly given her the love interest Lana asked for? They made such a fuss about the pixie-dust ordained soulmates, then split them up almost as soon as they got together, then brought him back, then they barely had screen time together, then they killed him, and then they brought him back and sent him off with another version of Regina. It's like they wanted it but didn't want it or wanted it to happen but didn't want to actually write it, so it's a happy ending in offscreenville but we don't have to deal with it.

[KingOfHearts]

2 hours ago, daxx said:

All the fan service came with a twist, but not the good kind.

S6 had a lot of "fan service" for every corner of the fandom. (Except maybe Swan Queen. They got the typical queer-baiting faire. Rumpbelle finally reunited and had their baby, but it was with more abuse, an affair with the Evil Queen, and a kidnapping. Emma and Hook finally got their wedding, but it was very unromantic, they had a really stupid break-up, and another curse hit before they could even have the reception. Regina and Robin finally got to be together, but it wasn't really Regina, and it wasn't really Robin. They were more asshole-y versions of themselves in an alternate universe. 

A&E managed to drive away the most diehard of fans from every corner of the fandom in a single season. The people who were committed enough to sit through 2B and 4B left. That's REALLY saying something.

[Writing Wrongs]

Finished Season 7. Not as bad as I remembered. Though Regina, Queen of the World was a stretch.