A New Beginning: OUAT 2.0

[tennisgurl]

Really, it isnt even really a Land Without Magic, like we`ve been told. Its more like a Land That Used to Have Magic But Its Now Dormant. But I guess thats not as catchy.

[KingOfHearts]

14 minutes ago, tennisgurl said:

Really, it isnt even really a Land Without Magic, like we`ve been told. Its more like a Land That Used to Have Magic But Its Now Dormant. But I guess thats not as catchy.

The Land (Currently) Without Easily Accessible Magic. Now I'm wondering how the Dragon got there.

I almost wish Tiana, Facilier, et al came from Fictional 1920s New Orleans instead of the Disenchanted Forest. They don't make a lot of sense in a feudal society.

Edited May 11, 2018 by KingOfHearts

[Camera One]

1 minute ago, KingOfHearts said:

I almost wish Tiana, Facilier, et al came from Fictional 1920s New Orleans instead of the Disenchanted Forest. They don't make a lot of sense in a feudal society.

Turning Tiana into a Queen was a questionable move.  Not that the politics in the Disenchanted Forest made any sense at all.  Everything about this show's version of Tiana and Naveen were feudal, from her castle, to her stint as rebel leader.  Heck, she could have been a Caribbean Snow White.

[KingOfHearts]

1 minute ago, Camera One said:

Turning Tiana into a Queen was a questionable move.  Not that the politics in the Disenchanted Forest made any sense at all.  Everything about this show's version of Tiana and Naveen were feudal, from her castle, to her stint as rebel leader.  Heck, she could have been a Caribbean Snow White.

At the very least, they could have fixed her HH persona. Have her open an actual restaurant. Not a drug-infested food truck. 

Spoiler

Perhaps she could only open her restaurant in Storybrooke?

[Camera One]

I seriously don't get why A&E made Tiana a regular and then hardly used her.  I know they've done it before, but this was supposedly a requel with a new start and new core characters.  Blackmailing Drew to work for Tiana so Facilier could get some sugar powder from a beignet was one of the most idiotic plot points in the entire series.  I mean, how did they even come up with that?

Edited May 11, 2018 by Camera One

[Shanna Marie]

4 hours ago, superloislane said:

Well no the first curse could only be broken by the Savior - they said that about 500 times.

They said that 500 times during season one. But in this latest episode, Regina was going on about how Henry had the heart of the truest believer, and he could break the curse. The way it was phrased gave the impression that the first curse was broken because of Henry being the truest believer. I guess indirectly it was because it was his leap of faith in eating the poisoned tart, knowing Emma could save him with a TLK and that would force her to believe, that led to the curse being broken, but they skipped that part and went straight to the curse being broken because of Henry, no mention of Emma. It was a bit retconny and fit in with the overall Emma erasure of the episode.

In season one, yes, it was Emma being the Savior that broke the curse. Now, they seem to be downplaying Emma's role.

[Camera One]

In the original Black Fairy Curse, it was a way to transport all the newborns to the Land Without Magic (my memory is fuzzy)?  If so, it was again more of a vehicle for transportation.  

So a Curse could technically be selective.  So why didn't Gothel make it so that only she and the Coven would be transported?  (and that's ignoring the fact that she could have gotten to the World Without Magic in multitudes of different ways since the Walls were down.)

I also don't understand what was required to wake Anastasia.  A tear of lost belief?  Was that only possible in the World Without Magic?  (and that's ignoring the fact that Gothel didn't use Anastasia to do anything useful and hardly even tried to stop her from leaving.)

[Mitch]

On 5/8/2018 at 9:44 PM, Shanna Marie said:

It's not even remotely coherent.

Well of course.....when you put it like that....LOL!

 

17 hours ago, Shanna Marie said:

The fans of this show tend to be a wee bit ... emotional.

So true..I have been one of those people who have been accused of "getting the show cancelled" with my negativity..nevermind that it is so illogical that the whole plan could be a plot on this show, but if I had that kind of power I would have made the show good... I have noticed that fans of this show seem to have an almost "personal" relationship with the show, its producers, its characters, its actors...( all those people calling Morrison "Jen" like they are friends or "Bex" like they hang out with Mader, ) Are all TV shows like this? I am on the Walking Dead FB page...(another show where glaring plot holes go to live freely and thrive..) and while those people can be really..intense...its not the same.

 

And can anyone explain what the hell "The Truest Believer" means? I can get "The Savior" I can even get the "Guardian" but how does having the heart of the truest believer mean anything..your slightly mentally challenged as you will believe anything anyone tells you..I don't get it and it really looks stupid on an adult male in his 30s.

Edited May 11, 2018 by Mitch

[CCTC]

14 hours ago, Camera One said:

I seriously don't get why A&E made Tiana a regular and then hardly used her

I wonder if the initial plan was to use her more when they were initially plotting out the season.  She was Ella's best friend, and I would think that Ella was originally going to be on more, and when they cut her time, it might have affected Tiana.  A lot of the stuff from the first few episodes was largely dropped or quickly wrapped up.  

Weren't there also still of her and Hook that never aired and people were speculating they were going to make them a couple?  It would not surprise if that was actually the plan when they were plotting things out and then decided that was not a good idea.  That might be part of the reason why the actress who plays Alice ended up being in more episodes than she initially planned, because they changed their mind on a Hook/Rodgers romance.  Would also explain why Naveen did not show up until later.

She did seem like she was going to be a bigger player at the beginning of the season.

[Rumsy4]

50 minutes ago, CCTC said:

That might be part of the reason why the actress who plays Alice ended up being in more episodes than she initially planned, because they changed their mind on a Hook/Rodgers romance.  Would also explain why Naveen did not show up until later.

I think this was probably the main reason why Tiana ended up having less to do. They scrapped the romance between her and Rogers and focussed his story more on Alice (which should have been the case from the start). I think it was a mistake to introduce Naveen because they had so little interest in that romance. All he did was get Samdi some beignet sugar to power his voodoo dolls. 

[Shanna Marie]

7 hours ago, Mitch said:

I have noticed that fans of this show seem to have an almost "personal" relationship with the show, its producers, its characters, its actors...( all those people calling Morrison "Jen" like they are friends or "Bex" like they hang out with Mader, ) Are all TV shows like this?

The closest I've seen may have been Buffy, but it's hard to compare since social media wasn't the thing it is now. I've been doing online TV discussion since the days of alt.tv.x-files on Usenet in the mid-90s and I don't think I've seen anything quite like this. I don't know that the names are necessarily a sign of familiarity. In X-Files discussion, we tended to use initials so we didn't have to type the actors' whole names -- DD and GA. I tend to use the first names of the actors in discussing this show because it's shorter and easier and seems to have become the norm, though I'll admit it feels kind of overly familiar. The thing that seems different to me with this show is the extreme level of emotional drama, taking everything personally. In one of the interviews about what this show has meant, Colin (yeah, like he's my best friend, but his last name is long) talked about the fact that there were people considering suicide and this show and the friendships they made through it helped pull them out. Don't get me wrong, it's lovely that someone was saved that way, but it's also a little scary that someone could be so invested in a TV show and not having anything in their life outside the fans of a TV show to help that it would make that kind of difference. I've been in fandoms through which long-term friendships were formed (I still get together with and even travel to see people I met through Firefly), but maybe not quite at that degree of intensity.

The thing I find interesting is the way fans seem to map themselves onto the characters, and the fact that Regina seems to have been the character of choice to overidentify with. It's like anything some fans have gone through get put on her, even when there's no evidence of that in the show. Like, there was a big deal about her facing racism, except her grandfather on her "Latin" side of the family was the king and we never saw her being put down because of her skin color. Or there were those who considered her a rape victim because they believed Leopold raped her -- not that we've ever heard anything about that. But for those viewers, possibly rape survivors working through their own issues, Regina somehow became a symbol and role model for surviving.

You'd think that Emma would have been the character of choice for people dealing with emotional issues, what with the abandonment, prison, having to give up her baby for adoption, statutory rape and then abandonment by her lover, foster care, etc. But instead, people who felt victimized related to the queen with magical powers. I think that personal identification on that level led to a lot of the fandom drama, which wasn't helped by the rather clueless approach by the writers in interacting with fans.

[Camera One]

Quote

Booth is grateful that the writers gave her wicked alter ego a memorable swan song. “[Executive producers] Eddie Kitsis and Adam Horowitz called and said, ‘She’s too evil to turn good, so we’re just gonna turn her into a tree,’” recalls Booth. 

I'm surprised there was a line where a character was "too evil to turn good".

[Camera One]

3 minutes ago, KingOfHearts said:

Watched the WHook/Alice scene. The actors sold the hell out of it. They're what make the father/daughter relationship so endearing. I'm glad S7 happened, if just for Alice and WHook to be added to the show's canon.

I was thinking about this, and I think overall, Colin O'Donoghue really lucked out when Jennifer Morrison decided not to come back.  This allowed him to basically play a different character with a different past and a different goal.  It helped that they did a great job of casting Alice and the two shared a lot of chemistry, so it allowed the bond between Whook and his daughter to be developed and strengthened.  

[Rumsy4]

I wonder if the writers would have given Emma and Hook a similar storyline if JMo had stayed. They would've been the Snowing-equivalent separated by the Curse, and Alice might have been their daughter. The Guardian storyline would have fit even more considering Emma's and Hook's history as Dark Ones, and Rumple's betrayal of them. 

12 minutes ago, Camera One said:

It helped that they did a great job of casting Alice and the two shared a lot of chemistry, so it allowed the bond between Whook and his daughter to be developed and strengthened.  

Imagine if they had picked someone as poorly as the actresses who play Jacinda or Lucy. Even the actress who plays Robyn is not as good. 

Edited May 12, 2018 by Rumsy4

[Camera One]

1 minute ago, Rumsy4 said:

I wonder if the writers would have given a Emma and Hook a similar storyline if JMo had stayed. They would've been the Snowing-equivalent separated by the Curse, and Alice might have been their daughter. The Guardian storyline would have fit even more considering Emma's and Hook's history as Dark Ones, and Rumple's betrayal of them. 

That might have worked.  Though I'm guessing they would have Hyperion Hook meet and get to know Hyperion Emma but she has Walls and won't let him in, but when she finally puts down her walls, Gothel pretends to be Hook's long-lost wife.

[Rumsy4]

2 minutes ago, Camera One said:

Though I'm guessing they would have Hyperion Hook meet and get to know Hyperion Emma but she has Walls and won't let him in, but when she finally puts down her walls, Gothel pretends to be Hook's long-lost wife.

That's sounds like a horror story because that's exactly what the writers would've done. I'm devoutely thankful JMo decided not to stick around! lol

[KingOfHearts]

I'm thinking about all the changes I would've made to S7. I'm debating on whether or not just to post a collection of them here or write a fanfic. For broad strokes, I'd play up Henry's ineptitude, make the curse instead a scenario created by Henry's author powers, push a lot of the second half of S7's storylines to the first half. I'd also trash most of the Tremaine melodrama, specifically the Rapunzel and Anastasia. I'd paint Drizella (and Victoria to a lesser extent) in more a sympathetic light. Jacinda would still be a murderous bitch, but characters other than Henry would be more aware of it. Oh, and Lucy would either be fake manifestation created by Henry's authored delusion or a representative of the Pen itself. Weaver would be removed completely and replaced with Wish Rumple.

Quote

All he did was get Samdi some beignet sugar to powder his voodoo dolls.

FTFY.

Edited May 12, 2018 by KingOfHearts

[Camera One]

This was speculated last summer and I didn't want it to happen then, but I think Season 7 would have been better if if it involved only the Wish characters.  Whook and Alice, the best part of this season, could still have happened.  Wish Regina and Wish Rumple would have been more interesting to explore than their counterparts.  I actually liked watching Wish Henry in the latest episode, and I think his journey to let go of his anger and frustrated by his inability to find a love interest would have been more interesting, plus the adult version of the character could have had a bit more edge.  Doing Cinderella again was an epic fail so Jacinda, Lucy and Victoria should have been out.  Maybe they could have cast the Drizella actress as The Princess in the Pea, someone who didn't know she was a Princess but turns out she is.  They could still have kept Tiana as her best friend.  Mother Gothel might have worked too if they reworked the dumb tree nymph origin story.

Edited May 12, 2018 by Camera One

[Shanna Marie]

On the theme of Season 7 ideas that would have been better ... they could have had a lot of fun with Henry's fairytale adventures in the Disenchanted Forest. As much as he's read fairy tales, he basically had the cheat codes to fairy tales and could have come out ahead. There are all those tales of the youngest son who shows kindness to the old person or animal (after the older brothers didn't) and gets supernatural help as repayment, which allows him to carry out the impossible task that wins him a princess and half a kingdom. Henry would know to help out any people he saw in the woods, and that would get him into adventures. That would have been a good way to introduce the various fairytale characters living in Hyperion Heights, and they could have teased whether or not this was the princess he ended up with. Start with a few episodes of young Henry, then switch actors at some point. That would also have pulled in that "it's dangerous to get involved with other people's stories" thing from the premiere (that ended up going nowhere). Whook and Regina could still have joined him early in the season, maybe while he's still young Henry, so the timeline isn't quite so screwy, with Hook and Emma being married more than 10 years before they had a kid.

[jhlipton]

5 hours ago, Shanna Marie said:

Henry would know to help out any people he saw in the woods, and that would get him into adventures.

And it all goes so well until he meets Baba Yaga!  (I read a story where having pearls and gems drop from your mouth every time you speak was a horrible curse.  That was a good twist.)

[Camera One]

5 hours ago, Shanna Marie said:

There are all those tales of the youngest son who shows kindness to the old person or animal (after the older brothers didn't) and gets supernatural help as repayment

Except it's these Writers, so helping strangers end up backfiring on you.  

9 minutes ago, jhlipton said:

And it all goes so well until he meets Baba Yaga!  

I've always wanted to see her on the show.  Along with Bluebeard.  Too bad A&E don't read to find new stories to adapt.

Edited May 15, 2018 by Camera One

[Souris]

On 5/12/2018 at 2:01 PM, Rumsy4 said:

That's sounds like a horror story because that's exactly what the writers would've done. I'm devoutely thankful JMo decided not to stick around! lol

Yeah, no doubt CS would've missed out on raising their child -- a second time for Emma! -- so I am also super-thankful JMo didn't sign up for S7. It would've been a watered-down, more annoying version of S1 Snowing. Dodged that bullet!

[KingOfHearts]

11 hours ago, jhlipton said:

And it all goes so well until he meets Baba Yaga!

The writers missed out on making Gothel into Baba Yaga.

Quote

Along with Bluebeard.  

Rumple could have doubled as Bluebeard as well. I've always waited for the day Belle discovered a basement full of dead ex-lovers or former servants. (RIP, Mrs. Potts.)

Edited May 15, 2018 by KingOfHearts

[jhlipton]

2 hours ago, KingOfHearts said:

The writers missed out on making Gothel into Baba Yaga.

Rumple could have doubled as Bluebeard as well. I've always waited for the day Belle discovered a basement full of dead ex-lovers or former servants. (RIP, Mrs. Potts.)

Both of these would be awesome.  Thank goodness A&E never got hold of them...

[tennisgurl]

A part of me is sad thinking if all the awesome stories, characters, and mythologies that were never tapped into with this show...but another part of me is happy that A&E didnt get the chance to bastardize any more stores than they already did. The world is such a vast and diverse place filled with so many wonderful tales, I would hate to see how they are all somehow tied into Regina and Rumple and how awesome A&E thinks they are. 

[KingOfHearts]

Lucy had illustrations of every major character from the Last Supper scene, yet still couldn't figure out anybody's identities but her father's. (And that was probably only because Henry had the same exact name.) 10 year old Henry would have had evidence from public records in no time. Henry and Emma were both real people. Heck, they could've just done a Facebook search and found some profiles from Storybrookers. It's not like S1, where Storybrooke wasn't on any map and no one there had any records from the real world.

In the pilot, Henry stole a credit card and found Emma through a website. (Which is pretty incredible considering it was a closed adoption. That website has to be illegal.) Did Lucy ever do anything clever?

Edited May 16, 2018 by KingOfHearts

[Camera One]

From TV Guide Interview:

Quote

"What we decided first and foremost is we have to love [the finale]," Kitsis says. "At the same time, we kept the fans' hearts in mind."

Isn't that always the way?  It's pretty much always what they love.  

[Rumsy4]

4 minutes ago, Camera One said:

At the same time, we kept the fans' hearts in mind.

...as we imagined crushing it with our plot-hands.

[Camera One]

27 minutes ago, Camera One said:

I wonder if they had decided Alice was Whook's daughter yet when they planned her original run of only 5 episodes. 

26 minutes ago, Rumsy4 said:

I think she was meant to be his daughter from the start. Nobody else fit the bill in HH.

Unless...she was originally meant to be the Love Interest of WHook’s daughter. And then they made her his daughter instead.

I just remembered this interview, which confirms A&E already decided from the start that Alice was Whook's daughter and they told Colin.  So they planned to have the character just leave after 5 episodes?  Or appear occasionally as a guest?   I don't get how their planning works.

From EW Interview in November:

However, it’s a twist that Reynolds didn’t know from the beginning. “First time I met Colin was in the stairwell of the offices at Bridge Studios,” the actress says. “It was after the read through of episode 1, I introduced myself and he said, ‘Oh, Alice, right? You know what they’ve got planned for you, don’t you?’ I said, ‘No.’ And then he smiled, nodded and walked off! And so then at dinner I was sat next to Adam [Horowitz] and said, ‘So, Colin, nice guy, he said something might be coming up for Alice?’ And Adam told me they intended for her to be Hook’s daughter and I was super excited, [but] mad at C.”

“With regard to finding out who my Mum was, I found this out much later,” Reynolds continues. “Maybe episode 6. I’d been ragging on Colin since I found out he was my dad, because I love him and it’s fun, and one time I joked that, ‘I must have got my good looks from my mum!’ And he replied, ‘You know who your mum is though, don’t you?’ And I said, ‘No.’ And he did the nod, smile, walk away thing again! So I went back to the scripts and reread them for clues and there was a line about Alice being locked in a tower and I knew Emma’s character was doing a lot of that with Rapunzel, so I went back to Colin and said, ‘It’s the Witch!!’ to which he said, ‘Nope.’ And then walked off again! So not only did Colin deny giving me any parental guidance, when I got anything right, he lied about it to my face!”

[jhlipton]

1 hour ago, KingOfHearts said:

Lucy had illustrations of every major character from the Last Supper scene,

Did Lucy ever do anything clever?

Did she have any illustrations other than of Emma?  I thought that was the on;y one they showed.

Lucy did try snooping at Samdi's but she wasn't very good at it.

6 minutes ago, Camera One said:

And then he smiled, nodded and walked off! And so then at dinner I was sat next to Adam [Horowitz] and said, ‘So, Colin, nice guy, he said something might be coming up for Alice?’ And Adam told me they intended for her to be Hook’s daughter and I was super excited, [but] mad at C.”

That's definitely getting into Dad character.

[Camera One]

Lucy couldn't figure out anything and then later in the season, using the same book, Henry constructed the elaborate conspiracy wall.

[KingOfHearts]

7 minutes ago, Camera One said:

Lucy couldn't figure out anything and then later in the season, using the same book, Henry constructed the elaborate conspiracy wall.

And then he immediately denied hard evidence.

[Camera One]

4 minutes ago, KingOfHearts said:

And then he immediately denied hard evidence.

If he were so obsessed, he would go back and look for evidence of his past life with his wife and daughter.  They did absolutely nothing with that whole gravestone reveal way back in 7A.  

[Rumsy4]

5 hours ago, Camera One said:

I just remembered this interview, which confirms A&E already decided from the start that Alice was Whook's daughter and they told Colin.  So they planned to have the character just leave after 5 episodes?  Or appear occasionally as a guest?   I don't get how their planning works.

They either meant her to pop in and out occasionally or it was a wait and see approach. If the actress worked out, they’d keep her for more episodes (though why her and not the Jacinda or Tiana actresses is beyond me). 

This makes it seem like they hadn’t originally meant for WHook to have an important role this season (he wasn’t doing much in the first half).

Or they had planned for a romance between Rogers/Tiana to be the prominent focus for WHook’s character. If that was the case, I’m glad they scrapped that and decided to expland on the father-daughter angle.  

4 hours ago, Camera One said:

Lucy couldn't figure out anything and then later in the season, using the same book, Henry constructed the elaborate conspiracy wall.

I still don’t get why Lucy even thought Henry’s book was real. This was nothing like Storybrooke where nobody aged and people kept repeating their actions. Besides, Henry’s book ended with him meeting Murderella. What made Lucy think she was the product of that union?

Edited May 16, 2018 by Rumsy4

[Mitch]

On 5/12/2018 at 4:02 PM, Camera One said:

This was speculated last summer and I didn't want it to happen then, but I think Season 7 would have been better if if it involved only the Wish characters.  Whook and Alice, the best part of this season, could still have happened.  Wish Regina and Wish Rumple would have been more interesting to explore than their counterparts.  I actually liked watching Wish Henry in the latest episode, and I think his journey to let go of his anger and frustrated by his inability to find a love interest would have been more interesting, plus the adult version of the character could have had a bit more edge.  Doing Cinderella again was an epic fail so Jacinda, Lucy and Victoria should have been out.  Maybe they could have cast the Drizella actress as The Princess in the Pea, someone who didn't know she was a Princess but turns out she is.  They could still have kept Tiana as her best friend.  Mother Gothel might have worked too if they reworked the dumb tree nymph origin story.

Actually, I would have like that and then we wouldn't have timeline insanity and left all of the old gang back in SB. I would have liked to see Parrilla playing an older, more complex EQ, who had time to live life without magic and actually saw the error of her ways, though she isn't "crybaby" Regina the Good. 

They could have explained that the Wish Realm actually was not real, until Emma's sacrifice of last season where the white magic restored all the realms and actually spun off the Wish as a real one, restoring WSnow and WCharms to life and getting Regina off the hook for murder. The EF wouldnt be quite the same as the EF we know, so they could have had no Emma and a new Cinders.  Dumb but not as dumb as what they will come up with I am sure...(hand wave to Regina murdering them..)

[Rumsy4]

13 minutes ago, Mitch said:

They could have explained that the Wish Realm actually was not real, until Emma's sacrifice of last season where the white magic restored all the realms and actually spun off the Wish as a real one, restoring WSnow and WCharms to life and getting Regina off the hook for murder. 

Genius.

[tennisgurl]

Its so weird to me that Wish Realm became as much of a thing as it ended up being. It really seemed like it was what a lot of fantasy/sci fy shows do when they decide to do a "What If" AU sort of episode. Its usually a fun little thought experiment, a way for the actors to get to play their characters in a different way, or lead our main heroes to some clue to help them with something or discover something about themselves. Its not supposed to turn into a pointless way to make up dumb plot twists, or whatever is going on with Wish Realm. Besides, most of these other AU worlds are usually established to be just as real as our main world, its just different. Wish Realm should have been established as a full on AU, and then they could have sidestepped Regina killing AU Snow and Charming, and all this would be so much less bizarre. I dont know why its such a thing that keeps coming back. Other than allowing them to use Hook again, and to give yet another Regina a happy ending, what was the point of keeping it as a reoccurring element?

[Camera One]

51 minutes ago, tennisgurl said:

Its so weird to me that Wish Realm became as much of a thing as it ended up being.

It ended up being a big thing because it was all about Regina and the happiness of her other half The Evil Queen.  A&E even incorporated the Wish Realm into the Season 6 finale so we could see The Evil Queen happy together with Robin Hood.

It might have ended there, but I think the Wish Realm then became even more important out of necessity, as a way to explain Colin staying on the show without Emma's character.  

For the 2-hour finale, I think they saw the Wish Realm as a great way to do cameos of their favorite dead villains, and finishing with a Wish Rumple villain had more impact than Gothel or Facilier.  

The Wish Realm also allowed A&E to explain away some of the "prophesies" from the past.  Like Page 23 with Regina entering the tavern with Robin Hood eventually did happen in the Wish Realm.  Likewise, Henry being Rumple's undoing was actually Wish Henry.  

[KingOfHearts]

21 minutes ago, Camera One said:

Like Page 23 with Regina entering the tavern with Robin Hood eventually did happen in the Wish Realm. 

I don't understand why they didn't dress Clone Queen up like Regina looked in the illustration. It didn't make any sense for her to talk into the tavern in full EQ attire without anyone screaming and running away. At least in common clothing, she'd be just a little less conspicuous. (And it would've connected to Page 23 better.)

[Camera One]

I was reading this article, "Why Once Upon a Time Season 7 Hasn't Worked".  Sometimes I wonder about these TV writers and whether they even watch the show.  I found his argument rather contradictory, weak and vague.  

Quote

The final season certainly started off strongly as it followed through on the showrunners' promise that the soft reboot wouldn't erase season six's happy endings.

Started off strongly?  The first episode of the season was an epic fail at engaging the audience with the new couple and the pathetic villain in a lame boring setting.

Quote

And the season hit a high point that it's struggled to come close to in a heartbreaking fourth episode that focused on Belle and Rumple (Robert Carlyle) as they get sent to a different realm where time moves differently, so Belle grows old and dies in an outing that's basically the Up montage stretched to 40-odd minutes.

I personally don't consider that episode to be a "high point" at all.  

Quote

It's telling that the moments where season seven has been at its most entertaining have been when it focused on the established characters of Regina (Lana Parrilla), Rumple and Zelena (Rebecca Mader). They've consistently been the show's best performers, fully aware of the type of show they're in, but they're also characters we've built up a connection to over the seasons.

The show's tried to make us care about the new characters and, given time, maybe we would have. However, since it's been cancelled, it makes all the work and time spent on this aspect a bit pointless. Season seven needed to be bolder and make it a clean break from everything that's come before, because comparisons to the established characters who have stuck around do the new lot no favours.

The new season was best when it focused on Regina, Rumple and Zelena.  But the new season should have made a clean break.  Uh, which is it?  

Give us all the time in the word, heck, we've watched Lucy and Jacinda for 21 hours, and I still couldn't care less about them.  

Quote

But it seems that Once Upon a Time can't let go of the past, as a recent episode delivered the twist that this season's curse didn't just send Regina, adult Henry, Rumple and co to Hyperion Heights, but actually back in time, too. So everything in the present day has been taking place at the same time as just after the season six finale, meaning Emma, Hook, young Henry and co are still in Storybrooke as we speak.

It's a neat solution that explains why the original characters haven't just turned up and saved Henry when he's been in trouble this season, but it only adds to the complicated timeline of the show, something that even the show itself has been mocking recently.

How is that an example of how it can't let go of the past?  I personally don't even think it's that "neat" of a solution.

Quote

It adds to the feeling of déjà vu surrounding the whole season as its soft reboot nature has effectively seen it repeat season one. Someone who doesn't believe in magic or that they are connected to Snow White and Prince Charming is the key to saving a cursed town filled with fairytale characters, all they need to do is believe again.

That was pretty obvious from the very first episode of Season 7, yet apparently that was a "strong" start?

I'm thankful for this forum because the analyses actually dig into the show instead of this vague, pointless piece of writing which I found annoying even though I don't even like Season 7 that much.

Edited May 17, 2018 by Camera One

[KingOfHearts]

23 minutes ago, Camera One said:

I'm thankful for this forum because the analyses actually dig into the show instead of this vague, pointless piece of writing which I found annoying even though I don't even like Season 7 that much.

It's extremely rare that I find any analyses remotely close in quality to the ones in this board. Whenever I see people "analyzing" the show, it's all very surface-level and biased. (Granted, this board can tilted toward Emma/Captain Swan, but I digress.) They always seem confused or have very vague conclusions. "Uh, it's really complicated," or "they didn't show enough Regina/Rumple" (when those character had the most screentime).

You really don't need to write a whole article about why "S7 didn't work". It's obvious that without half of the main characters it won't be as watched. Everyone knew it was a dying show with no real chance at getting renewed for an eighth season. 

[asabovesobelow]

10 hours ago, Camera One said:

Started off strongly?  The first episode of the season was an epic fail at engaging the audience with the new couple and the pathetic villain in a lame boring setting.

Yeah, I barely made it through Ep 1 of this season as a faithful watcher of all six seasons before it. I was actually looking forward to the reboot, thinking it could give new life to something that was clearly flailing. I thought it failed spectacularly. I still haven't deleted the season off my DVR, but I'm getting closer and closer to finally being able to.

[RolloTomasi]

I’ve seen a number of fans in various places mention that s7 got good in the second half. For a show that was losing half its cast and was rebooting itself, that wasn’t good enough. S7 needed to hit the ground running and instead we got a lame new villain, a bland new location, new characters that were unengaging at best and outright obnoxious at worst, the reintroduction of a hugely divisive storyline from last season, and the killing off of a Disney princess. It’s no surprise longtime viewers left. A&E may have been used to starting seasons slowly in the past, but that’s not good enough if you don’t have the benefit of an audience connection to the characters you had before. They counted on the fans staying even though it was, as they said over and over, a new story. Well, you have to make that new story interesting up front. Waiting until the second half, when you’re seconds away from cancellation, isn’t going to cut it. 

[Rumsy4]

I get the feeling they were woefully unprepared for the reboot even though they started focusing on the definitely returning characters in 6B. The mid-way S7 course-correction was too late to save the Show.

Edited May 17, 2018 by Rumsy4

[RolloTomasi]

Was it season 7 that A&E pitched to ABC and were told to come back with something else? I’m curious 1) what they originally pitched that ABC didn’t like and 2) if they had just gotten word Jen wasn’t coming back and had to rework their plan.  I imagine ABC just didn’t like their original story because otherwise they didn’t do a very good job of working around her leaving (I’m mainly referring to Hook’s story with Rumple. It clearly works better with Original Hook than WHook, but without Emma they couldn’t have Original Hook).

Also, I remember thinking at the time they sent Hook off on his three episode arc away from Storybrooke that it felt like they wanted people to get used to him away from Emma. Which, fine, but I’ll forever roll my eyes at how they tried to sell that as a romantic adventure for the two of them. 

[Rumsy4]

34 minutes ago, RolloTomasi said:

Also, I remember thinking at the time they sent Hook off on his three episode arc away from Storybrooke that it felt like they wanted people to get used to him away from Emma. Which, fine, but I’ll forever roll my eyes at how they tried to sell that as a romantic adventure for the two of them. 

I can't believe they gave Emma the "out-of-sight-out-of-mind" Robin and Neal treatment. They angered a bunch of different fan factions in Season 6 with their offensive storylines. I'm sure a lot of viewers would have stayed on for Season 7 with goodwill if Season 6 had gone differently.

The all-round horrible casting of the new characters (with the exception of Alice and Robin) also severely hurt the ratings. If they wanted to increase cast diversity, they should have gone with a full-on Mexican remake of Cinderella instead of dropping a PoC actress plop in the middle of a version with Disney iconography. All the other players where white. So, why even bother making Cinderella a PoC? Who cares about the blue dress and a glass slipper if that's all this version has in common with the Disney version? 

They also did their usual thing of throwing several storylines and characters at the wall to see which ones would stick. But with so many things already working against them, it ended up damaging what little chance they had to retain viewers. It might have helped if they had started Season 7 with a reduced original cast and slowly introduced new characters over the course of the Season. 

[tennisgurl]

9 hours ago, RolloTomasi said:

I’ve seen a number of fans in various places mention that s7 got good in the second half. For a show that was losing half its cast and was rebooting itself, that wasn’t good enough.

The second half of S7 was definitely better than the first season, mainly because there was more focus on the characters that actually worked more or less (Tilly, Rogers, Robyn) and spent less time on the boring romance between Murderella and Henry, and the bleh Cinderella plot. I mean, its still a mess, but it has more parts that work than the first half. But, the two halfs ended up being so unconnected, and by the time things got better, anyone really interested in the reboot, would have been turned off by the boring and disjointed first half. If they were going to change the show so much, they needed to go hard early, and they didnt.  

[KingOfHearts]

Spoiler-free speculation: Who do you think will die in the finale? Just Rumple and Wish Rumple? I'm guessing we'll either see Belle in ghost form or Rumple reuniting with her in another realm. I still don't know how they're going to resolve Regina's time travel duplicate. She's the only person who would have a 2017 duplicate in Storybrooke, except for Henry who could probably live as an adult with his family. Are they going to travel forward in time? They obviously can't go back to the Disenchanted Forest.

I only ask about deaths since in one of the teasers, Regina says "and more loss".

Quote

The second half of S7 was definitely better than the first season, mainly because there was more focus on the characters that actually worked more or less (Tilly, Rogers, Robyn) and spent less time on the boring romance between Murderella and Henry, and the bleh Cinderella plot. I mean, its still a mess, but it has more parts that work than the first half. But, the two halfs ended up being so unconnected, and by the time things got better, anyone really interested in the reboot, would have been turned off by the boring and disjointed first half. If they were going to change the show so much, they needed to go hard early, and they didnt.  

The writers did not learn their lesson from S6. I would've preferred two distinct arcs. (In the same location to tie them together.) Maybe the first half is Cursed!HH and the second half is with the curse broken? Half of the characters were already awake by 7x11 anyway.

Edited May 18, 2018 by KingOfHearts

[Camera One]

9 hours ago, RolloTomasi said:

I’ve seen a number of fans in various places mention that s7 got good in the second half. 

I was thinking about that.  Part of it was because 7A was a lot of setup with no real aim or direction.  It's not that the serial killer plotline was that great, but at least there was something specific the characters were trying to solve.  It also helped that the weakest three characters (Jacinda/Lucy/Victoria) were used less or gone.  They also consistently used Alice and had consecutive episodes with A, B or C plots about her and her father, or her and Robyn.  That's the type of continuity that was lacking even in the later seasons with the original cast.  Alice/Robyn and Whook/Alice had more one-on-one character moments than Emma/parents for the last three seasons.  

But really, the climax was very low quality.  Overall, the planning and plotting was still very weak, whereby the "big" bad Mother Gothel was MIA in the present for multiple episodes and even in her own final episode.  There were subplots like Dr. Facilier/Regina that went nowhere.  They had Drizella in the 7B premiere and then she disappeared for awhile until her exit episode somewhere in the middle, which was neither here nor there.  They had Zelena exit in the middle without really doing anything of significance.  

[Inquirer]

5 hours ago, RolloTomasi said:

(I’m mainly referring to Hook’s story with Rumple. It clearly works better with Original Hook than WHook, but without Emma they couldn’t have Original Hook).

No, it doesn't. I would have had no interest in watching Hook get ruined by becoming besties with Rumple like Emma and especially Snow were with Regina.