A Thread for All Seasons: OUaT Across All Realms

[andromeda331]

9 minutes ago, KingOfHearts said:

A&E: "Well now that she's gone, we can embrace our true artistic vision! Prepare to be enlightened, world."

Prepare for the viewership to go down A&E!

[andromeda331]

8 hours ago, Curio said:

I could not agree more, and I wrote a fairly long essay talking about this a few months ago, but I forget which thread I posted it in. Basically, I was trying to argue that OUAT would be a much better show if they only chose one protagonist to focus on, but the show doesn't work with both Emma and Regina as yin and yang protagonists. There's a reason the writers have struggled to feature both of them equally throughout the years, and it's also the reason why the split arcs always seemed to come across as either "The Emma Arc" or "The Regina Arc." It was clear when an arc featured Emma as the lead protagonist, which usually turned out to be the fall arc, and the spring arc featured Regina as the lead protagonist. 3A, 4A, and 5A are drastically different in tone than 3B, 4B, and 5B, and a lot of that has to do with who is the focal point.

Season 6 proves that, ultimately, Emma and Regina absolutely and unequivocally do not work well when they share the lead status together. By getting rid of the split season format, A&E were also getting rid of the Emma Arc/Regina Arc split, and they could no longer use that as a crutch to write the season's emotional arc. How do you write a season where there isn't a true lead protagonist? The answer is you can't. Season 6 is a mess. Without one true protagonist to keep everything in balance, A&E are trying to make Emma and Regina equally important, but because their stories and their goals are so different from each other, it ends up becoming a confusing pile of mish-mashed storylines. Instead of one cohesive show, it's like there are separate shows within OUAT competing for airtime. And when Emma and Regina are forced to be in the same episode together, all canon has to be tossed out the window and one of them has to act completely out of character in order for the episode to work.

If Emma and Regina were true "best friends" like the gals on Broad City, then sure, go with two co-leads. But that's not at all what Emma and Regina are. A&E might think their friendship is at that point now, but what has been shown on screen is nothing like what's in A&E's heads. Emma and Regina might be co-mothers to Henry, but that's as far as their friendship goes. Neal was technically a co-parent to Henry too, but that didn't matter to the writers. "Oh, but they both have magic! They bond so much over being so different and special!" Okay, so why hasn't Emma bonded with Rumple, Blue, or Tink? They all have magic too. When I think of the strongest relationship bonds on this show, Emma and Regina don't even crack the top five. When True Love® is a totally legit canon concept on a television show, those relationships are automatically deeper and more meaningful than everyone else. Charming and Snow, Emma and Henry, Emma and Hook, Regina and Henry, and Belle and Rumple are five True Love couples who have much stronger bonds than Regina and Emma will ever have. So why force Emma and Regina to share co-lead status? Just because they happen to be women? Why not make Snow and Emma co-leads after Season 1 then? This show could have been unique where the co-leads were a mother and daughter who happen to be the same age. But A&E went out of their way to make their favorite character more important, and in the end, this series might finish with Regina having far more screen time than anyone else in its final season.

I've seen an argument that says that Emma and Regina are yin and yang and that's why they work as co-leads, but I don't see it. Their reasoning is that whenever Emma is truly happy, Regina becomes miserable, and vice versa. But when has Emma or Regina ever been truly happy? No one on this show is truly happy. Even when Emma has Hook around as a boyfriend, she can't enjoy her happiness. When Regina had Robin around as a boyfriend, she barely paid attention to him. This is the one area of the show where I can actually see the logic behind the Swan Queen fandom when they become convinced that Emma and Regina are endgame—what writers would create two equal protagonists if they weren't going to pair them up in the end? TS;TW, that's who. In fact, I doubt Regina and Emma's happy endings will have anything to do with each other. Emma's happy ending is with Hook and her family, and Regina's is probably with Henry or Zelena.

Why have these two characters whose ultimate endings have nothing to do with each other split equal protagonist duties? I actually think it could have worked if Emma and Regina remained enemies like Lex and Clark throughout the series because at least that way there'd be a reason why their stories are so interconnected. But by forcing the Emma and Regina friendship, they've actually inadvertently made Emma and Regina less important to each other. In Season 1, Emma's battle with Regina was truly significant and was a major storyline, but now that they're friendly to each other, there isn't any major plot line tying them together besides being Henry's mothers. I think A&E fell into the millennial/liberal/special snowflake trap where they truly were offended when people called them out on having a show where two women faught all the time in Season 1. It's probably why the writers and the actors now always give the trite, "What's so unique about Emma and Regina is that the show could have kept them as enemies, but women need to stand up and support each other. Women power! Such a great friendship!" Newsflash, women are allowed to fight with each other. I actually wouldn't have minded a show where the main villain and the main hero were both women because that's also rare. If the writers were so concerned about female friendship, Snow and Emma in Season 1 perfectly encapsulated what it meant for two women to support and befriend each other, but apparently, that wasn't good enough for A&E.

So they went and made Emma and Regina friends. Okay, I guess I could have gotten on board with that, but only if: 1) Emma learned about Graham and Regina, and 2) Emma remained the only lead protagonist. But by splitting equal protagonist duties, it's kind of this weird juxtaposition where the audience doesn't know which story is the most important. If Emma and Regina were mortal enemies, then the yin and yang concept works perfectly, but by having them be friendly with each other, we have the current murky mess where it's hard to decipher who is truly the lead of the show. If they wanted to keep them as co-leads, then their friendship needed to be skyrocketed to super-duper best friend levels, but Regina isn't even Emma's closest friend. Hook is Emma's best friend but also happens to be her boyfriend. A&E have mentioned that Snow is closer to Regina than Emma is. So they've now created two leads where the pitch is, "Here are OUAT's two main characters! Here's Emma, the Savior, and the woman she happens to co-parent her son with. They're decent friends but not really best friends, Emma's best friend is actually Captain Hook, and Regina separated Emma from her parents as a child and has also been keeping a secret from Emma since Season 1, but they're cool now. And hey, they both have magic!"

Ultimately, the lead protagonist should be the heart of the show, and that character is clearly Emma. There is a huge difference between being the heart of the show and being a popular character. The heart is the character who the audience can most sympathize with and has the moral compass to drive the emotional scenes. Regina might get some sympathy from A&E and her fanatical fandom, but she does not have any moral compass in canon. Someone who is a narcissist who lacks empathy for others cannot be the heart of a show where the main theme is about hope. If this show was on HBO or Showtime and these were supposed to be ironic fairy tales, then sure, have the narcissist as your lead. But this show is on ABC. This show is supposed to be unironic and happy. This show is supposed to be about hope and happy endings.

What you described would probably make A&E cry from boredom. No way they would write a show where it heavily featured Emma, Snow, and David family interactions. 

I agree that Regina's character had a reason to stick around after Season 1, but not as a protagonist where it's difficult to debate whether Emma or Regina is the true lead of the show. The issue is that instead of keeping Regina's character around in the same capacity as Rumple or Snow, they went and made her as important as Emma. Emma needed to be kept as the only protagonist with other significant characters supporting her to keep the story grounded like in Season 1. Regina should have been kept around in the same way Rumple is still a significant character—I think we can all agree that Rumple is extremely important to the plot after all these years, but he doesn't ever overshadow Emma. Regina could have been treated the same way, but instead, we have dozens of useless Evil Queen flashbacks and only a handful of Emma flashbacks. Season 6 features so much screen time for Regina that it's actually a statistical outlier when compared to the other main characters. Who is the main character here again?

Yes, A&E have admitted that the entire premise of the show is based around the Evil Queen's happy ending. They've straight-up said that Regina works as a self-insert character for the struggling Hollywood writer. They didn't even think of Emma's character until after they thought of the feud between Regina and Snowing. Emma was so ill-defined as a character in their minds that her name was Anna up until a few months before they shot the Pilot. I think what happened was that Damon Lindelof—who was A&E's mentor in Season 1 and helped them hone in their pitch—realized the show doesn't work with Regina as the lead. In A&E's original pitch, they probably focused more on Regina, but Lindelof saw that the true heart of the show was Emma and Snowing. That's why Season 1 feels like an entirely different show than what it is now. After Lindelof left after Season 1, Season 2 came along and we began the Woegina Redemption Tour.

At the end of the day, this show either had to choose to go 100% with Regina or 100% with Emma as the main character. The Regina Show or The Emma Show would look drastically different than what we have right now, but at least each show would have a clear vision and would be better written.

Awesome post. Would the Regina show even work or last very long? Do people want to see someone curse an entire town, murder a lot of people, rip families apart, hearts out of their chest and win? To get away with it? To become friends with the people they victimized while never apologizing for what she did? There are ways it could have worked yes but not with A&E. Reading your post made me think how insane it is that they try to push the Regina and Emma friends thing. How many friends terrorized their best friend's mother, stole her kingdom, murdered her father, tried repeatedly to murder her mother, destroyed entire villages and is the reason their best friend was separated from her parents and grew up alone? How many best friends murdered the guy they liked? With zero guilt, zero realization of what she did to her "best friend" and put her through. Regina should show signs of guilt and regret when Emma talks about how crappy it was growing up not bored or zero signs she's the one who put her through that. Guilt over murdering Graham.

[Free]

1 hour ago, andromeda331 said:

Prepare for the viewership to go down A&E!

I'm already expecting that, they haven't exactly done much to entice viewers to return or stay on.

[Mari]

2 hours ago, Souris said:

If Jen doesn't sign on for S7, A&E will be thrilled they can have it be All Regina, All the Time. Even more than now.

So, basically, the three Reginas I put out into the universe a while back?  If it happens, I'm so very, very sorry.

 

1 hour ago, andromeda331 said:

Prepare for the viewership to go down A&E!

 

6 minutes ago, Free said:

I'm already expecting that, they haven't exactly done much to entice viewers to return or stay on.

Yes.

I'm struggling to find the enthusiasm to return next month, and I've been pretty loyal.

[Dianthus]

Y'all know I've been redlining on Regina for a while now. Anymore of that already overused toxic bitch, and I'm well and truly done. It's not much of a threat, given the show probably won't make it much further anyway, but there's such a thing as too much of a good thing (which Reggie is decidedly not).

[KingOfHearts]

I hate redeemed!Regina because she's so hypocritical and whiny. But in order for the Evil Queen to be engaging, she needs to do more than make tacos with Rumple or star in cheesy promos. In S1, EQ had a lot of emotion and background driving her every motive. Later, she did little beyond being a cartoon character. Like, her trying to kill Snow during Shattered Sight was supposed to be hilarious or something. Then in 6A, all she wanted to do was have spa dates with Zelena, annoy the Charmings, and suck face with a crocodile. That's it. She didn't have any big scheme like the Curse, which was really disappointing. I thought if they ever brought her back, she would do something huge and diabolical. Forcing the Charmings to take naps is not all that great, and even she knows it. I expected her to recast the Curse or something. Now she's just a pretty face for marketing, and that's sad.

I hate Regina and feel bad for the Evil Queen. I'm not sure what that makes me.

Edited March 1, 2017 by KingOfHearts

[Free]

1 hour ago, KingOfHearts said:

I hate redeemed!Regina because she's so hypocritical and whiny. But in order for the Evil Queen to be engaging, she needs to do more than make tacos with Rumple or star in cheesy promos. In S1, EQ had a lot of emotion and background driving her every motive. Later, she did little beyond being a cartoon character. Like, her trying to kill Snow during Shattered Sight was supposed to be hilarious or something. Then in 6A, all she wanted to do was have spa dates with Zelena, annoy the Charmings, and suck face with a crocodile. That's it. She didn't have any big scheme like the Curse, which was really disappointing. I thought if they ever brought her back, she would do something huge and diabolical. Forcing the Charmings to take naps is not all that great, and even she knows it. I expected her to recast the Curse or something. Now she's just a pretty face for marketing, and that's sad.

I hate Regina and feel bad for the Evil Queen. I'm not sure what that makes me.

That was her biggest problem, her motivation, or lack of one and that took out any tension whatsoever and left the show with boring storylines that went nowhere.

[Shanna Marie]

16 hours ago, Free said:

That was her biggest problem, her motivation, or lack of one and that took out any tension whatsoever and left the show with boring storylines that went nowhere.

That's the biggest problem with this season. There's no story goal, no real narrative drive, which means there's no drama. Halfway into the season, and we still have no idea what the main antagonist wants, other than a generic "being evil." It's obvious that they didn't do the slightest development work on the Evil Queen, not even enough to figure out how she'd be different from Regina, how Regina would be different without her, what she'd want, what she'd do to get it. She's just in town to flounce around in her fabulous costumes and be snarky to kill time before Gideon shows up, apparently. She spent one episode trying to turn Regina dark, then that got dropped. One episode sending Untold Stories people to undermine the heroes and undo what Emma did in season one, then that got dropped. She did the sleeping curse. And the wish. But there doesn't seem to be any real drive or aim. Does this mean that it was the Regina side that put the "scheme" in "evil scheme"?

And as much as they love Regina, they don't seem to have bothered figuring out how all this affects her. This was done so that she didn't have to hate being good. Does she still hate being good, or has it been a weight off her shoulders? Is she happier? Can she tell a difference?

[KingOfHearts]

Quote

Does this mean that it was the Regina side that put the "scheme" in "evil scheme"?

The Regina side cared about Daniel, which put order in the Evil Queen's chaos. Her deeper emotions went beyond lust and boredom, which made her more focused on a long-term goal. In S1-3B, she had Henry. In S4-S5, she had Robin. While the Evil Queen retains some sort of affection for them (which, let's face it, does not make any sense if she's simply Regina's Freudian id), she's too superficial to pursue anything wholeheartedly. She is a manifestation of Regina's carnal impulses.

Quote

And as much as they love Regina, they don't seem to have bothered figuring out how all this affects her. This was done so that she didn't have to hate being good. Does she still hate being good, or has it been a weight off her shoulders? Is she happier? Can she tell a difference?

There's been absolutely no indication that she likes doing good now. She's just the Evil Queen with zero confidence and a heroes don't kill mentality, and that's boring.

Edited March 1, 2017 by KingOfHearts

[Free]

1 hour ago, Shanna Marie said:

That's the biggest problem with this season. There's no story goal, no real narrative drive, which means there's no drama. Halfway into the season, and we still have no idea what the main antagonist wants, other than a generic "being evil." It's obvious that they didn't do the slightest development work on the Evil Queen, not even enough to figure out how she'd be different from Regina, how Regina would be different without her, what she'd want, what she'd do to get it. She's just in town to flounce around in her fabulous costumes and be snarky to kill time before Gideon shows up, apparently. She spent one episode trying to turn Regina dark, then that got dropped. One episode sending Untold Stories people to undermine the heroes and undo what Emma did in season one, then that got dropped. She did the sleeping curse. And the wish. But there doesn't seem to be any real drive or aim. Does this mean that it was the Regina side that put the "scheme" in "evil scheme"?

And as much as they love Regina, they don't seem to have bothered figuring out how all this affects her. This was done so that she didn't have to hate being good. Does she still hate being good, or has it been a weight off her shoulders? Is she happier? Can she tell a difference?

That's the problem with trying to do this Regina/EQ storyline, there was no plan beyond meandering subplots that ended up nowhere.

[KingOfHearts]

Quote

That's the problem with trying to do this Regina/EQ storyline, there was no plan beyond meandering subplots that ended up nowhere.

I could see the EQ subplot working if - surprise - she's actually the sensible side of Regina. Imagine all the heroes terrified that she's back, only to find out it was Regina pinning all the blame on her this whole time. We saw her parent Henry, reconcile with Zelena, and for a while her deeds weren't all that evil. (Aside from an oracle murder...) At least they weren't to be compared to when she was a dictator. Audiences expected her to return as a Big Bad, but would the narrative cover more territory if it went the opposite direction?

[Shanna Marie]

Looking at this season's lack of focus brings me back to that writing 101 way of looking at the core of a story: (Protagonist) wants (goal) but (conflict). Ideally, you can also do this with the antagonist, and not with either of their goals being "stop the other side," but rather with the things each side does to reach their goal being what gets in the way of the other side getting their goal.

So, season one, you can do it with either Henry as the protagonist -- Henry wants to break the curse, but Emma won't believe, and Regina will do anything to keep the curse going -- or Emma -- Emma wants to thwart Regina's power trip, but she has no idea how powerful Regina really is. Meanwhile, Regina wants to keep the curse going but Emma's presence is weakening it.

2A also works: Snow and Emma want to get back to Storybrooke, but it's difficult to create a portal and Hook and Cora are after the same magic. Meanwhile, Hook and Cora want to get to Storybrooke, but Snow and Emma are after the same magic.

2B  is such a mess that it’s hard to say. You can’t do this with any of the good guys in the protagonist role because there’s nothing they really want and are doing anything about. You have to do it with the villains. Hook wants to kill Rumple, but the people of Storybrooke keep protecting and saving the Dark One (it’s really rather crazy when you put it that way). Cora wants to be the Dark One, but nothing really stands in her way until the last second. Greg and Tamara want to destroy magic, but nothing actually stands in their way. Their plan is stopped in the aftermath.

3A: The heroes want to rescue Henry from Pan, but Pan plays mind games with them and is swaying Henry over to his side. Pan needs Henry's heart to revive magic and save Neverland, but the heart has to be given willingly, so he needs time to brainwash Henry.

3B: You kind of have to do this with Zelena as protagonist. Zelena wants to go back in time to make sure she’s the one who gets Regina’s life, but the good guys stop her at the last second (and don’t really stop her, other than sending her to a different time). If you try to do it with the good guys as protagonists, they want to stop Zelena from whatever she’s doing, but they don’t know what she’s doing or why until almost the end of the season. I guess you could say that the heroes want to find out why the curse was cast and break the memory spell, but they don't actually do anything toward that goal until near the end, and it happens pretty easily when they decide to do it.

4A: Again, you have to do this from the villains’ perspectives. Ingrid wants a magical family that will accept her, but Emma and Elsa don’t want her to kill everyone they care about (not that they actually do anything much to stop her until the last second). Rumple wants to do the spell that will give him enough power to leave Storybrooke while keeping his powers, but Belle stops him at the last second. The only thing you can do from the good guys' perspective is that they want to help Elsa find Anna, but they don't actually do much about that, and no one's really stopping them. Otherwise, they're trying to stop Ingrid.

A really big problem with the plotting on this show is that the writers are so keen to surprise us with the revelation of what the bad guys are up to that it means nothing can actually happen until near the end of the arc. The good guys can't know what's going on because that would clue in the audience, and that means the good guys can't really do anything but react. Meanwhile, the bad guys can't do much toward their goals until the very end, so they're limited to a little mwa-ha-haing.

4B is weird because they seem to finally have a proactive goal -- getting Regina a happy ending -- but it's so undefined, and it very quickly turns into more of a focus on finding out what Rumple is up to. The Queens of Darkness don't really do much toward their goals until it's their centric.

5A: Emma wants to free herself from being the Dark One, but she needs to find Merlin, and Arthur also wants the rejoined dagger and Excalibur — and then she has to worry about saving Hook, as well. I guess Nimue/the Dark One is the antagonist here, and she/it wants to rescue all the past Dark Ones from the Underworld, and then there's Arthur, but while he wants the restored sword, I'm not sure what it is he really wants or why he can't let them use it to save Emma.

5B: Emma wants to save Hook from the Underworld, but Hades doesn’t want to let go of his prize and has his own scheme in the works. Hades wants to get out of the Underworld, but first the curse on him has to be broken. The problem here is that they don't seem to actually be working at odds. Hades might have moved closer to his goal sooner if he hadn't been such a jerk, and we never learned why he wanted to hurt Hook so badly.

6: Who the hell knows? Emma wants to find a way out of her Savior doom fate, but there are no good answers. The Evil Queen wants to mess with the good guys. We're halfway through the season and nearly done with these arcs, and we still don't have any specifics. I'm not sure the writers do, either. I think this is one case where they're not withholding anything until the last minute. There really is no purpose to the Evil Queen.

If you're going to dig deeper into analyzing the story, you have a character goal that exists separate from the story goal, and then there's the story goal, plus motivations and stakes, with all of it leading to action, so you get (Character) wants (goal) because (motivation) and must (story goal) or else (stakes), but (conflict), and so he/she has to (action). But you're not really going to get that much from this show.

[Camera One]

From teaser interview for "Tougher than the Rest".

I don't think the explanation works no matter who tries to explain it:

Quote

But facing off against her son may prove more difficult for Regina. “Killing the Charmings, it wasn’t a real sacrifice for Regina,” Parrilla says. “She was really just trying to wake up Emma, but then when Henry comes forward, it’s a whole different ball game. No matter whether Henry’s real or not, it’s still her son, so she can’t even fathom the thought of hurting him on any level. I think the real danger for them is getting trapped there.”

It wasn't a real sacrifice because she doesn't care about them enough?  I thought she did.  Did everyone drink the same Kool-aid whereby they can all answer in the same nonsensical way?

Edited March 7, 2017 by Camera One

[Rumsy4]

Nice reasoning! Regina didn't care. So it doesn't matter. Who cares about the victims, amirite??

But even Not!Henry was abandoned by both Regina and Emma. So, it's not like either of them had any compassion for the poor kid who's now lost his parents and grandparents. Emma cared most about fake!August in the Wishverse, and Regina cared most about fake!Robin, who may be part-real. 

[Camera One]

Not!Henry was really mean.  Didn't you hear him call Regina a witch?  Clearly deserved to die.

[Souris]

I just can't imagine why this season sucks so hard.

 

[MostlyC]

Lovely Posters, please be mindful when you post.  Spoilers, speculation with spoilers do not belong in this thread.  

[KingOfHearts]

Quote

I just can't imagine why this season sucks so hard.

Glad to see Belle is finally getting her day in the sun.

[Rumsy4]

16 minutes ago, KingOfHearts said:

Glad to see Belle is finally getting her day in the sun.

*gigglesnort*

[Kktjones]

No wonder I haven't enjoyed this season! All the characters I like have less screen time and those I don't like have more. This got me thinking about the lack of focus on CaptainSwan and how little screen time they’ve actually shared over the last 14 episodes (this goes back to 5x21 since 5x20 was the last time they were the focus of an episode).

In those 14 episodes, they spent 6 of them in different realms (5x21, 5x22, 5x23, 6x08, 6x10, 6x11).

In terms of solo scenes, they had 2 episodes where they didn’t exchange a single word (6x08, 6x04 (in which they weren’t even onscreen together)), 2 where they didn’t have any scenes alone (6x10, 6x11), 8 where they had only a single one on one conversation (5x21, 5x22, 5x23, 6x02, 6x03, 6x05, 6x06, 6x07) and only 2 episodes where they had multiple solo scenes (6x01, 6x09). So for all those haters who say that the show revolves around CS, I wish I was watching whatever show they are, cause this one sure doesn’t!

[Curio]

2 minutes ago, Kktjones said:

So for all those haters who say that the show revolves around CS, I wish I was watching whatever show they are, cause this one sure doesn’t!

 

Yes, and I wish I could watch that Once Upon a Hook show they claim exists, because it sure isn't on my television screen.

[KAOS Agent]

That screentime chart is very sad. Not because of Regina's extreme increase, but because every other character lost screentime or their gain was so negligible that it amounts to a couple of extra scenes spread over 11 episodes. 5A featured Emma and Hook more prominently, but the screentime was more balanced among the other characters. In 6A, Regina basically has twice the amount of time on screen as any other character not named Emma. That doesn't work well with this show because the characterizations are so shallow.

Guilty!Hook or Walls!Emma or Hero!David or Princess!Adventure!Belle are fine for the brief periods they are featured each half season because the story moves on to someone else. 6A didn't allow for that balance because it made Regina into two characters and focused on each of them quite heavily. There wasn't a break from them and without any real understanding of their feelings or motives, that gets boring really fast. I don't mean this in an anti-Regina way either because the same thing would be true of any character on this show if they chose to focus so much on them. Maybe an exception would be Emma, but only because Emma is usually not the real focus, but the catalyst for other characters' stories. If they focused on Walls!Emma, it would suck too. The Once characters have so little depth to them that they can't sustain interest over multiple episodes of heavy focus and the plot is so stupid that it can't distract from the lack of characterization.

[Camera One]

In terms of solo scenes, they had 2 episodes where they didn’t exchange a single word (6x08, 6x04 (in which they weren’t even onscreen together)), 2 where they didn’t have any scenes alone (6x10, 6x11), 8 where they had only a single one on one conversation (5x21, 5x22, 5x23, 6x02, 6x03, 6x05, 6x06, 6x07) and only 2 episodes where they had multiple solo scenes (6x01, 6x09)

Interesting data.  I wonder how that breakdown would look for Emma/Snow and Emma/Charming.

[Kktjones]

2 hours ago, Camera One said:

nteresting data.  I wonder how that breakdown would look for Emma/Snow and Emma/Charming.

I'd have to think a little bit about Emma/Charming, but I'm pretty sure that there were only two one on one conversations between Snow and Emma during that same 14 episode period (5x21 at the cemetery and 6x05 in the loft). You could probably go back through all of season 5 and only find one or two more (I know they had a blink or you miss it scene in 5x02 before the ball, but I can't think of any others - did they have one in 5x11?). The dearth of Emma/Snow scenes is another total head scratcher. I think most people can agree that their relationship in Seasons 1 & 2 was one of the strongest parts of the show. Now it's gotten almost comical how they give all the parental scenes to Emma/Charming and Snow/Regina. And don't even get me started on the fact that Snow & Hook have never shared a solo scene in 5 seasons! 

Edited March 8, 2017 by Kktjones

[KAOS Agent]

Here's the entirety of Emma/Snow dialogue for S6. Yes, someone is keeping track on Tumblr.

Episode 1: 

Snow: ‘Hey Emma, you okay?’

Later -

Snow: ‘Ignore him Emma.’

Episode 2:  

Snow: ‘What happened?’

Emma: ‘Errol Flynn is not backing down.’

Snow: ‘Where are you taking us?’ 

Emma: ‘I told Regina I’d take you somewhere safe.’

Snow: ‘Emma, no, we are not leaving town. We’re not running from our wine steward. Oh! What the hell was that?’

Emma: ‘Looks like the Count doesn’t want you running either.’

(They have a scene where they stand next to each other at the town line but don’t speak to each other, they only speak to Regina. They also have a scene where they are actually sitting next to each other but they only speak to Regina for the whole scene too)

Episode 3:

Not one line

Episode 4:

Not one line

(They are in the same room about 5 feet away from each other but both only speak to Charming)

Episode 5:

Snow: ‘You should’ve been honest.’

Emma: ‘I didn’t lie. I just…got scared.’

Snow: ‘Which is exactly when you should talk to your mother.’

Emma: ‘Can you forgive me?’ 

Snow: ‘I mean, of course I forgive you. We’re your parents. We’ll always forgive you. But what about him? You’re trying to build something. And look, your father and I may not be perfect, but we don’t keep secrets from each other.’

Later -

Snow: ‘Emma.’

Emma: ‘Just hear me out.’

(Emma speaks to whole group) 

Snow: ‘Well, I choose to believe in us, too.’

Episode 6:

Not one line

Episode 7:

Snow: ‘You okay?’

Emma: ‘No, but I have an excuse. Haven’t you heard? The Evil Queen’s trying to kill my parents.’

(They are then in a group scene but they don’t speak to each other)

(They are in another group scene but again don’t speak. Emma tells Charming to be careful)

Later - 

Emma: ‘Dad, Mom?’

Snow: ‘Emma, most people go through life never knowing where their paths will take them, but somehow we always do. It’s always to each other and then back to you.’

Episode 8:

Not one line

Episode 9:

Not one line

Episode 10: 

Does the Wishverse stuff count? They're fake right? So not one line

Episode 11:

Say it with me now, not one line

Edited March 8, 2017 by KAOS Agent

[Camera One]

LOL at the "You okay?" in Episode #1 and Episode #7.   Using the same expression even?

I guess if it's narrowed down to scenes where the two of them are completely alone with no one in sight, that cuts it down even more.

Edited March 8, 2017 by Camera One

[Curio]

If Season 7 is a reboot and they want to go in a completely different direction, they almost have to get rid of Regina. She's the common denominator for why all the main characters either get less screentime or have to act out of character. Apparently, she even permeates most of Emma and Snow's one-on-one conversations. If she leaves, the entire show changes drastically. 

[Souris]

12 minutes ago, Curio said:

If Season 7 is a reboot and they want to go in a completely different direction, they almost have to get rid of Regina. She's the common denominator for why all the main characters either get less screentime or have to act out of character. Apparently, she even permeates most of Emma and Snow's one-on-one conversations. If she leaves, the entire show changes drastically. 

Can you even imagine A&E getting rid of Regina? I can't. They're more likely to get rid of everybody else and keep only Regina!

[Camera One]

Everyone gets their happy ending and is whisked back to the Enchanted Forest forever, leaving Regina alone.  What's there to do except go to New York City and become a working girl?  Tune in next season for the spinoff "Once Upon an Office"... can the company picnic handle the sass that Regina will bring?  Can she become friends with her blonde roommate wearing a leather jacket who's totally not Emma but acts just like her?  Can she find love with at the bar with a guy sporting a lion tattoo?  Magic is everywhere if you know where to look... next season, on ABC.

Edited March 8, 2017 by Camera One

[Shanna Marie]

13 hours ago, Camera One said:

Everyone gets their happy ending and is whisked back to the Enchanted Forest forever, leaving Regina alone.  What's there to do except go to New York City and become a working girl?  Tune in next season for the spinoff "Once Upon an Office"...

That would actually come a lot closer to what they've said about wanting to do a series about the place where the Evil Queen can have a happy ending -- she'd be to today's corporate America or politics what Snow White is to her world, so she could be exactly as evil as she wants to be and still look like a hero because she's the lesser of multiple evils.

As for the shift in focus/screen time for this season, I really do believe they're reacting defensively to the loudest Twitter feedback. We already know how sensitive they are to having their stand on social issues questioned, with the evidence being an entire episode about the True Love between two characters we'll probably never see again, just to prove that they aren't homophobic. With all the "CS is rape culture/Hook is a rapist" stuff and the outcry about the bit from 6.1 that some people claimed was Hook raping Emma, I could see these guys frantically deflecting it by practically taking Hook and the relationship off the table. They're being wishy-washy about it by not actually changing anything, but they're keeping it from being front and center. There's little counterargument, at least not as loud, because you generally don't rant and rave about liking the status quo, and it's hard to critique the issues with a status quo you like but would like done better in 140 characters. Supporting the relationship between Hook and Emma on Twitter ends up just sounding like "more kissing, plz!" and it's hard to come up with much of a social issues argument that's as urgent-sounding as the anti argument can sound. "I love the relationship" is always going to sound less urgent than "this relationship supports rape culture."

The return of Robin may be a similar thing. They were totally unprepared for the backlash about the way Robin was written out, being not just dead, but his soul utterly obliterated. Then there were the negative remarks from the actor about how it was handled. Meanwhile, the SQ campaign to get him fired with rumors about sexual harassment reared its ugly head when it made it look like Robin being killed that abruptly validated the rumors. The only way to do damage control was to bring Robin back, showing that there were no hard feelings, and doing that required a big focus on Regina.

Meanwhile, something had to fill the vacuum, and they get tons of feedback from the Regina fans, which is what they want to do anyway.

The problem is that the general audience that the ratings come from aren't the same as the loud people on the Internet.

[KingOfHearts]

I actually hate The Cricket Game more than the S5 finale and Wish You Were Here. To me, it was the show's biggest jump-the-shark moment. The core problem with the episode was that the characters' attitudes were twisted all over the place in order to fit the plot. There has never been a more egregious instance of this, imo. It all boils down to an austere mentality - either you are Regina's biggest fan, or you're a terrible person for wanting her to die. Nothing in the middle. The writers had to do a great deal of pigeonholing to create two extreme scenarios. (One in the past and one in the present.) I don't think this kind of thing has ever really dissipated, and it's why the REC is alive and well today.

[Curio]

I was still a casual viewer back when "The Cricket Game" aired (I didn't avidly discuss the show online or nitpick scenes apart) but even I was scratching my head wondering what was wrong with the characters and why they were all so gosh darned stupid. At the time, I thought that maybe I just wasn't paying enough attention and that's why I was so confused, but now I know better.

[KingOfHearts]

22 minutes ago, Curio said:

I was still a casual viewer back when "The Cricket Game" aired (I didn't avidly discuss the show online or nitpick scenes apart) but even I was scratching my head wondering what was wrong with the characters and why they were all so gosh darned stupid. At the time, I thought that maybe I just wasn't paying enough attention and that's why I was so confused, but now I know better.

I always thought it was stupid and selfish for Snow and Charming to let Regina go. What's funny is that detail is not merely forgotten or glossed over - Charming iterates it clearly multiple times. The writers were aware of the problem, but they went through with it anyway. It wasn't just tone deafness.

Edited March 11, 2017 by KingOfHearts

[Camera One]

I have a question about Gideon.  If he has just broken out of the Dark Realm, shouldn't he be happy he escaped?  He wants to kill Emma so he could be a "Savior" and thereby a hero.  But why would he want to be a "hero"?  No one asked him that at all, not even Rumple.  I wonder if all this will be answered when we see his backstory, or will it still make no sense at the end of the 6B arc?

That's the problem with this show.  They write this character moment between Rumple and Gideon, as if we should care because??? When we don't have any backstory about how he got to this point.

Edited March 12, 2017 by Camera One

[Camera One]

I was just watching some Anna/David scenes from "White Out" on Youtube, and boy, they are just horrible.  

[KingOfHearts]

I rewatched 2B, and it was still better than S6 to me. It was apparent the writers had plenty of steam to go off of still. While in S6, it's been dry, insipid, and phoned-in. 2B is awful, yes, but the bigger stakes had to lot to do with it. 2A to 2B was a major fall from grace, so the loss was greater. S6 went from mediocrity to worse mediocrity. 

2B's biggest flaws:
* Regina. Her narrative was confusing, to say to least. We were supposed to sympathize with her, but then she would murder entire villages. Half the time she was an evil villain the heroes were supposed to be afraid of, then the other she was this misunderstood single mom who just wanted to be with her precious little son. Talk about whiplash.
* Too much plot. Every episode was about some "big" revelation that worked the characters into a panic. Greg is Owen! Tamara knew August! Belle is now Lacey! Snow has darkness in her heart, OMG! The common complaint with 2B is that there are not enough character moments. I think they were there underneath all the plot, but they weren't the kind anyone wanted to see. (Except Snow slapping Geppeto. I loved that.) The writers thought making Snow suicidal over saving her loved ones from a serial killer was a masterpiece.
* The plot moved really quickly toward nothing. There was all this tension about Cora, Rumple reconciling with Neal, the heroes wanting to move back to the Enchanted Forest, the failsafe, and the Home Office. Cora died a third of the way through, Rumple didn't hardly speak to Neal, the heroes dropped their homeland business until 3B, the failsafe did nothing, and the Home Office was a sham. Most of the 2B plots hit a brick wall, and the show took vastly different directions with most of them. That may have been a good thing in the long run, as 2B's plots sucked, but it made most of the arc's tension pointless.

[Camera One]

Those three could also be Season 6's biggest faults.

[Shanna Marie]

I think a lot of the problem with the disappointment of 2B, aside from the Victim Regina stuff, is that all the storylines had huge potential but they all just fizzled out. It wasn't like 4B, where that was never going to work or make sense. In 2B, everything they started with could have really gone somewhere. Cora was a fascinating character with complex relationships with other characters, but they barely got into her past with Rumple and somehow managed to whitewash her at the same time as they showed just how awful she was. We needed a lot more development of the interaction between Rumple and Neal, given that the entire show was built around Rumple's search for his son. The decision about staying or going home should be an ongoing issue in Storybrooke. And they really, really botched the magic vs. science stuff, as well as the opportunity to delve into the actual costs of magic beyond repeating the "magic always comes at a price" mantra. What about the collateral damage of magic? An anti-magic organization would be really interesting to explore, and you'd think they'd find a number of willing recruits in Storybrooke.

So there's a bigger letdown of lots of interesting stuff brought up and then dropped after it was dealt with in the least interesting way possible. We had zero expectations of 4B being good, and we had qualms about 6, coming as it did after one of the worst season finales ever (possibly the worst, but at least the 4 finale was kind of fun in places, and it didn't have a moment so embarrassing as to be painful).

[Free]

1 hour ago, Shanna Marie said:

I think a lot of the problem with the disappointment of 2B, aside from the Victim Regina stuff, is that all the storylines had huge potential but they all just fizzled out. It wasn't like 4B, where that was never going to work or make sense. In 2B, everything they started with could have really gone somewhere. Cora was a fascinating character with complex relationships with other characters, but they barely got into her past with Rumple and somehow managed to whitewash her at the same time as they showed just how awful she was. We needed a lot more development of the interaction between Rumple and Neal, given that the entire show was built around Rumple's search for his son. The decision about staying or going home should be an ongoing issue in Storybrooke. And they really, really botched the magic vs. science stuff, as well as the opportunity to delve into the actual costs of magic beyond repeating the "magic always comes at a price" mantra. What about the collateral damage of magic? An anti-magic organization would be really interesting to explore, and you'd think they'd find a number of willing recruits in Storybrooke.

So there's a bigger letdown of lots of interesting stuff brought up and then dropped after it was dealt with in the least interesting way possible. We had zero expectations of 4B being good, and we had qualms about 6, coming as it did after one of the worst season finales ever (possibly the worst, but at least the 4 finale was kind of fun in places, and it didn't have a moment so embarrassing as to be painful).

What made S2 disappointing was that it ruined a lot of the set up from S1: Rumple/Bael reunion, Emma confronting Henry's dad, Emma and her family reconciling after the cruse broke, etc.  All of these should've been emotional moments, but they're either swept under the rug or they fall flat in execution.

When S4 came about, that's probably about when the series got tired (at least for me), and the last 2 seasons were even worse in terms of running on fumes (S6 especially).

Edited March 13, 2017 by Free

[Mathius]

1 hour ago, Free said:

When S4 came about, that's probably about when the series got tired (at least for me), and the last 2 seasons were even worse in terms of running on fumes (S6 especially).

Same here, although for the most part I enjoyed 5B more than I did both 4A and 4B.

[KingOfHearts]

On 3/13/2017 at 4:51 PM, Camera One said:

Those three could also be Season 6's biggest faults.

I actually don't think S6 has enough plot. Gideon isn't an urgent threat, the Evil Queen is a cobra, The Land of Untold... wait what was that again? Oh, and Emma doesn't seem to care about her prophesied death either. We better hope and the pray the Black Fairy is the bees knees, because Charming's daddy issues are not enough to carry the season. There needs to be external conflict, otherwise it's just a soap opera. I don't fancy watching the characters angsting and brooding the entire time. 2A, 3A and 5B all worked because they had a plot tying everything together. The only people who are invested in Gideon/Black Fairy are Emma, Rumple, and Belle. (Then again, Emma is going on canoe trips...)

Edited March 14, 2017 by KingOfHearts

[Camera One]

There is a lot of plot.  There just isn't a good strong plot with an effective threat.  

[KingOfHearts]

The first two episodes of 3B were great, aside from maybe too much Regina focus. (Although, if Wicked vs. Evil would have materialized, that would have made sense.) The Tower really strangled the momentum to death, and incidentally it was the first episode where the characters started to go off to their own centrics. I've noticed that the quality almost always drops when the characters aren't allowed to interact with each other. I liked seeing Belle and Neal tagging along with everyone else. They really diversified things with their unique points of view and motivations. They weren't on the Regina cheerleading squad, either. It was really cool seeing them all work toward a common goal.

New York Serenade in particular reinforced my contempt for Snow and Charming. Right off the bat they dropped any grief over Emma so they could run as fast as they could to their thrones. They got all judgey toward Hook for doing his own thing, and then they told Neal he shouldn't try to get back to Emma/Henry. What right did they have to tell a dad not to try to find his son? Say what you want about Neal, at least he had a new determination to be a father figure in Henry's life. (As evident in his speech to Panry in 3A.) It irritated me that the two eggnappers who have done many questionable things out of emotion were telling people to let it go because of some faulty logic. The walls keeping the realms separate were BS.

Witch Hunt is my favorite episode of 3B because I love Zelena's introduction, the Regina/Emma interactions, and the heroes using practical investigation skills to smoke out the witch. We don't get to see Emma use her bailbondsperson tricks very often any more, and in that episode she didn't need magic to contribute. That being said, Regina's use of magic created a nice hybrid of realism and fantasy. They needed both to find Zelena, and they didn't do it wearing BFF bracelets either. As a side note, I really enjoyed everyone's reaction to Oz and the Wicked Witch. "Wait... she's real too?" 

Edited March 17, 2017 by KingOfHearts

[andromeda331]

6 minutes ago, KingOfHearts said:

The first two episodes of 3B were great, aside from maybe too much Regina focus. (Although, if Wicked vs. Evil would have materialized, that would have made sense.) The Tower really strangled the momentum to death, and incidentally it was the first episode where the characters started to go off to their own centrics. I've noticed that the quality almost always drops when the characters aren't allowed to interact with each other. I liked seeing Belle and Neal tagging along with everyone else. They really diversified things with their unique points of view and motivations. They weren't on the Regina cheerleading squad, either. It was really cool seeing them all work toward a common goal.

New York Serenade in particular reinforced my contempt for Snow and Charming. Right off the bat they dropped any grief over Emma so they could run as fast as they could to their thrones. They got all judgey toward Hook for doing his own thing, and then they told Neal he shouldn't try to get back to Emma/Henry. What right did they have to tell a dad not to try to find his son? Say what you want about Neal, at least he had a new determination to be a father figure in Henry's life. (As evident in his speech to Panry in 3A.) It irritated me that the two eggnappers who have done many questionable things out of emotion were telling people to let it go because of some faulty logic. The walls keeping the realms separate were BS.

Witch Hunt is my favorite episode of 3B because I love Zelena's introduction, the Regina/Emma interactions, and the heroes using practical investigation skills to smoke out the witch. We don't get to see Emma use her bailbondsperson tricks very often any more, and in that episode she didn't need magic to contribute. That being said, Regina's use of magic created a nice hybrid of realism and fantasy. They needed both to find Zelena, and they didn't do it wearing BFF bracelets either. As a side note, I really enjoyed everyone's reaction to Oz and the Wicked Witch. "Wait... she's real too?" 

I hate that episode for so many reasons. Snow giving Regina of all people a pep talk when she actually gets to acknowledge she's separated from her daughter for the second time. Yes, she gets to mention it to the person responsible for the whole mess in the first place while she's trying to cheer Regina up. Yes, let's see Regina burying her heart because she was separated from her son, let's see her later preparing a sleeping curse for herself but let's not have one person flat out tell her now she knows how everyone feels or have her realize what she put everyone else through.  Nope, don't need any of that. Let's just feel sorry for Regina wanting to bury her heart and put herself under sleeping curse. The other thing that bothered me was how Snow and everyone else seem to accept there was nothing they could do. Regina undoing the curse came with a cost for Regina to pay not everyone but more importantly we had already seen many ways for them to have traveled between realms. Show Snow, Regina, Charming, Belle, Hook, and Neal trying all of those methods first. Show that they can't get back but also that they tried.  Neal and Belle were the only ones who actually tried to find another way. The others just don't and the next thing you know Snow and Charming are trying for baby number two. Show the desperation as each one fails and the moment when they realize there may not be a way this time.  Show the characters trying to figure out what their suppose to do now when all methods fail and they can't get back to Emma and Henry.  I also really hate that we never got to see anyone adjusting to being back in the Enchanted Kingdom after being gone so long.

[Camera One]

Those are all the things I wanted to see, but that's what you get when the Writers' biases are so obvious.  The characters they don't care about (Snowing) gets contempt, while the characters they love and want to write for (Zelena) get the viewers' support.

I really liked Belle and Neal's adventure in 3B.  It was practically the only "new" interaction we got to watch and then Neal dies because he's another one of those too-boring-to-live characters to A&E.

[Camera One]

It's entertaining to read old teasers... here were some before Season 4, in light of what we've now "learned" in Season 6.

“I think she has something up her sleeve. But is anyone surprised about that one?” star Lana Parrilla laughed. “She’s a bit conflicted. She’s enjoyed being good [and] light magic. However, old habits die hard.”

Actually, she doesn't enjoy being good.  She hates every minute of it.  Who knew, eh?

Hook will be getting a new look. “It’ll be nice to wear something new,” Colin O’Donoghue said, noting that Hook’s leather coat weighs 50 pounds.

We're still waiting for the "new look".

Producer Adam Horowitz promised to “explore the relationship” between Henry and Mr. Gold.

Again, we can see what "explore" means to Adam.  This was 4A, and yeah, we got a deleted scene.  Nothing in 4B.  Nothing in 5A.  Nothing in 5B.  Nothing in 6A.  Now, nothing in 6B.

Robert Carlyle teased a dangerous future for Rumple and Belle: “I think the story’s got a long way to play. I think this dagger may come back again, and get lost again, and come back again..."

Yeah, long long way to play.  It's Season 6 and it's still playing.

Where do Emma and Regina stand? “It’s an impossible situation,” Jennifer Morrison said. “I can’t apologize for saving a life. Yet I’m horrified that I’ve gotten in the way of Regina’s happiness... It adds a nice element of conflict and concern and generosity.”

Don't worry, you will continue to be "horrified" you've gotten in the way of Regina's happiness.

[Shanna Marie]

I find 3B very frustrating. It's not bad, but it should have been so much better. I'm amazed at how these writers didn't seem to even see the potential in the missing year and the return to the Enchanted Forest. They only treated it like an excuse for a cliffhanger, without seeming to care about how the characters and their society were affected, but it could have been so much fun seeing the people who were spoiled by Storybrooke getting used to being back in a quasi-medieval world. A lot of the way they just went back to their lives made no sense. We saw in the Shattered Sight spell that Regina thought her Evil Queen get-up was a bit ridiculous, so why did she continue to dress like that? There didn't seem to be anyone forcing her to look like that. If she isn't the Evil Queen anymore, she doesn't have to dress like that. Would Pantsuit Regina really put up with all that? What about Snow? Was she glad to have her long hair back, or did she get used to the pixie cut and want to chop off the long hair? I think we could have told the difference between present-day Snow wearing modern clothes in Storybrooke and flashback Snow wearing fairy tale clothes in a castle, even if she had the same hairstyle in both places.

The handling of Zelena was just bad and made the characters look like idiots. I think they should have delayed that revelation in the past and introduced her along with maybe some red-herring characters who are closer to what we think of with the Wicked Witch type in the present. If we and the characters had focused on a more obvious Miss Gulch type while Zelena was there, Zelena and the characters would have looked a lot smarter.

On 3/17/2017 at 1:45 PM, andromeda331 said:

The other thing that bothered me was how Snow and everyone else seem to accept there was nothing they could do. Regina undoing the curse came with a cost for Regina to pay not everyone but more importantly we had already seen many ways for them to have traveled between realms. Show Snow, Regina, Charming, Belle, Hook, and Neal trying all of those methods first. Show that they can't get back but also that they tried.

That was a big frustration about them just skipping so much of the missing year. It made it look like everyone was "oh well, never mind" until they went straight to the most extreme measure. We didn't see Neal trying anything at all before he went to raising the Dark One with no plan at all other than "my papa will know what to do." Yeah, the papa who took more than a century to find him? They could have had Neal and Hook teaming up to try to find a way, since Hook knows a thing or two about realm hopping and would have been equally motivated, and then they had a falling out when things didn't go well and went their separate ways -- maybe falling out over Neal's idea of raising the Dark One, since you know Hook wouldn't have been on board with that. Meanwhile, there was that eight-month skip in one episode that made it look like they sat around for the better part of a year, trying to think of what to do about Zelena, before going straight to recasting the Dark Curse. It's especially silly given how easy it was to stop her when they did stop her.

While there wasn't much depth or substance to Zelena herself, I think that arc might have worked better spread over a whole season, to allow them to do more with the missing year and using that to show how the characters were different. Even before Zelena showed up, they could have had to win back their kingdom from the ogres that had taken it over or dealt with some villains who'd been in the Coradome, and those villains could have been caught up in the second curse so that they were in Storybrooke.

[Camera One]

It seems like there are two major reasons why a particular season is bad:
1. Bad writing - This one is simple.  Bad/boring plot, badly written characters, frustrating storylines, poor pacing.
2. Lost potential - The setup was so intriguing and the situation was so full of possibilities that you're disappointed because none of that potential is approached.  This could be in worldbuilding or character development/exploration or both.

I think both 2B and 3B were so bad because it was both.  2B had the possibility of actually exploring these characters' lives after the Curse broke, and the possibility of showing Emma/parents working through all those lost years, and nada.  It didn't help that the actual writing was all-over-the-place as well.  3B followed that awesome mindblowing cliffhanger in "Going Home" and basically, everything was reset by the end of "New York City Serenade".  And then we got Zelena/Regina overload which I was frankly bored by.

4B and 6A were bad too, but there was really no potential in either of those half-seasons (maybe a little bit in anticipation for Maleficent and Aladdin/Jasmine).  The Author plot was dead in the water from the start, and The Land of Untold Stories/The Evil Queen returning were completely uninspired.  The writing also sucked big time.

2A and 3A were better in hindsight because yes, there was a ton of lost potential (experienced during the initial run, because what you hoped was nowhere close to what transpired), but the writing wasn't actually that bad.  

4A, 5A and 5B were a mixed bag.  They actually exceeded expectations in terms of worldbuilding for Arendelle and character development for Elsa and relationship with Elsa/Emma.  But the Bad Writing for the Regina and Rumple subplots were egregiously bad.  Likewise, I think they did have some creative aspects of Underbrooke, but also with lost potential and bad writing.  5A didn't seem that bad maybe because the Merlin actor was so charismatic... there was also a combination of lost potential and bad writing.

Edited March 18, 2017 by Camera One

[KingOfHearts]

Quote

We saw in the Shattered Sight spell that Regina thought her Evil Queen get-up was a bit ridiculous, so why did she continue to dress like that? There didn't seem to be anyone forcing her to look like that. If she isn't the Evil Queen anymore, she doesn't have to dress like that. Would Pantsuit Regina really put up with all that?

I was thinking the same thing while I was watching it. Regina should have been wearing pantsuits if she wanted everyone to forget she was the Evil Queen. In general, there was a lack of culture clash. No one really cared.

Quote

While there wasn't much depth or substance to Zelena herself, I think that arc might have worked better spread over a whole season, to allow them to do more with the missing year and using that to show how the characters were different. Even before Zelena showed up, they could have had to win back their kingdom from the ogres that had taken it over or dealt with some villains who'd been in the Coradome, and those villains could have been caught up in the second curse so that they were in Storybrooke.

The Missing Year had so much to deal with that could have spanned over an entire season, I agree. I think we could have spent more time putting the pieces together and venturing away from Storybrooke. Maybe Emma and Henry could have gone on an Oz adventure or something before meeting with her parents again. There were plenty of opportunities for stories and they were all passed up.

What I noticed watching the 3B episodes mostly back-to-back was there was just way too much Zelena. Don't get me wrong - I love her, but in that arc she was little more than the stereotypical Big Bad. Even when it wasn't about her, the writers worked her in somehow. (Like in Charming's centric and the Ariel/Hook stuff.) After a while, the season started getting tedious. Zelena's scheme was not complicated - she wanted to go back in time to change everything. Yet, we had to spend time watching the characters slowly figure it out (and finally doing so via ghost contrivance) and just go through the plot motions. The story was too simple for the audience for us to be invested. In other words, it was much ado about nothing.

However, by the end of the season, S3 felt really solid. It was probably my favorite. In the finale, the big four couples were all in states of perfection. Snowing just had their baby, Rumpbelle got married, Outlaw Queen were walking down main street with Roland, and Captain Swan just became official. They all represented different stages of a healthy relationship. My friend was so happy, and then she said, "Oh, it's all about to hit the fan, isn't it?" Then Zarian showed up, Rumple revealed the fake dagger,and Emma started avoiding Hook because of Regina. Yep.

Edited March 18, 2017 by KingOfHearts

[oncebluethrone]

I also believe that S3 was solid and it is my favorite completed season.  With all the seasons, there are episodes I love, episodes I like, and episodes I don't care about.  With S3, I loved most of the episodes, liked 5, and didn't care about 1 (The Tower). This is the only time so far that the love has exceeded the like.  It is usually tied or the like is higher.  For 3B, I didn't mind that we didn't get to see the entire Missing Year and I don't care about how long Snow's hair is or what Regina is wearing or anything like that. I cared about what was happening in present day, how the events of the missing year led up to the present, what Zelena was up to, and the Captain Swan stuff.