A Thread for All Seasons: OUaT Across All Realms

[RulerofallIsurvey]

So in the last episode (Changelings) Belle found a spell for the removal of hair.  I guess all the ladies of Storybrook don't need to worry about shaving or waxing.  Which, actually, explains quite a bit about Neverland....  But it makes me wonder why The EQ/Regina couldn't come up with a spell to make herself a talented dancer (since Mommy and Daddy never taught her to dance) instead of having Charming have to give her lessons.  Especially since we've also seen her giving herself/magicking/practicing swordsmanship on an unlucky Black Knight.  All those years she spent bored in her castle, she never thought to whoosh up a potion for dancing ability and force a Black Knight to be her partner?  Then, she could have wiped his memory if she was embarrassed and didn't want word to get out.  Or also use him as her next pin cushion...

[Curio]

My casual viewer friend has only watched the first two episodes this season and asked me to recap what has happened since then. I honestly have no idea how to even sum up this season. When you're forced to actually type it out, it really puts into perspective how confusing and disjointed everything is...

Well, after Regina killed the Count of Monte Cristo, no one really cared about that and we haven't heard from him since then, and the next episode was about Emma, Hook, and Henry trying to find Cinderella because she stole her husband's shotgun and they thought Cinderella was going to kill her stepsister, but actually Cinderella got stabbed in the stomach by her stepmom instead, but Emma used her magic to heal Cinderella and then she asked Hook to move in with her, except we haven't actually seen Hook move into the house that he picked out, and before Hook moved into Emma's place he was rooming with Belle on his ship, and Belle was living on his ship because she didn't want Rumple in her life, but then Rumple put a spell on the ship that forced Belle not to leave it, and then Jekyll almost killed Belle because of that spell, and oh yeah surprise Dr. Jekyll was actually a bad guy, but Hook came in at the last second and killed Jekyll which accidentally killed Hyde as well, and oh yeah Mr. Hyde and Dr. Jekyll are both dead now because if you kill the main one you kill the other, and that kind of freaked Regina out because she doesn't want to kill herself to save the town, but she made Emma promise to destroy her if necessary, except Emma didn't keep her word and refused to kill Regina when the town was being threatened because she still totally believes she's going to die and doesn't want Henry to be motherless, and somewhere in there the Evil Queen put a sleeping curse on Charming and Snow's hearts so that when one of them is awake the other is under a sleeping curse, and the curse kind of bothered them at first but they're actually kind of enjoying it now, and Snow grades school papers with Jasmine while Charming sleeps, and oh yeah by the way Jasmine is Snow's teacher aid because Snow wanted to go back to work instead of helping Team Hero figure out this Evil Queen mess, and Jasmine needed to find Aladdin because he used to be a Savior and she needs his help to find Agrabah that apparently just disappeared, but Aladdin faked his death and Jasmine was sad but didn't bother to ask Emma the current Savior if she'd be willing to help her find Agrabah, but then they found Aladdin so Jasmine was happy again, but Jasmine and Aladdin still haven't left Storybrooke to find Agrabah because they're lazy and Aladdin is a genie now, and oh yeah there's an object called the shears of destiny that can do a lot of things like unlock locks, cut ties with fate, and make Saviors not Saviors anymore, and Emma wanted Hook to throw away these shears because she didn't want to be tempted to cut away her Savior status even though that wouldn't have been a huge deal, but Hook realized the idiocy behind this plan and kept the shears around as a backup plan without telling Emma, and so that made Henry mad at Hook which made things awkward when they both got captured by Hook's half-brother Liam II who is actually still alive, and Henry and Hook were kept captive in Captain Nemo's Nautilus, but Hook was able to patch things up with both Henry and his brother by the end of the episode and we never hear from Liam II or any of the Land of Untold Stories people again, and oh yeah everyone in town kind of gave up trying to help those people, and then Belle's pregnancy was sped up so she just had her baby, but she doesn't trust Rumple anymore so she sent her baby away with the Blue Fairy, and throughout all of this there's been random makeout sessions between the Evil Queen and Rumple and that kind of makes Zelena jealous and now here we are looking at the midseason finale and...you guessed it...we're going to an alternate universe where Emma is a princess.

Any questions?

Edited November 29, 2016 by Curio

[Rumsy4]

Quote

and now here we are looking at the midseason finale and...you guessed it...we're going to an alternate universe where Emma is a princess.

Any questions?

So, the winter finale is a non-sequitur to the episodes preceding it? ;-)

[Curio]

4 minutes ago, Rumsy4 said:

So, the winter finale is a non-sequitur to the episodes preceding it? ;-)

Every episode this season has been a non-sequitur of a non-sequitur. Hey, I just managed to sum up Season 6 in one sentence!

[Mari]

3 hours ago, RulerofallIsurvey said:

But it makes me wonder why The EQ/Regina couldn't come up with a spell to make herself a talented dancer (since Mommy and Daddy never taught her to dance) instead of having Charming have to give her lessons.  Especially since we've also seen her giving herself/magicking/practicing swordsmanship on an unlucky Black Knight.  All those years she spent bored in her castle, she never thought to whoosh up a potion for dancing ability and force a Black Knight to be her partner?  Then, she could have wiped his memory if she was embarrassed and didn't want word to get out.  Or also use him as her next pin cushion...

The most reasonable answer:  She lied.  She knew how to dance, but by saying that was able to both guilt Snow (something Regina usually gets a small happy from.) and get positive attention at the same time.  

[RulerofallIsurvey]

35 minutes ago, Mari said:

The most reasonable answer:  She lied.  She knew how to dance, but by saying that was able to both guilt Snow (something Regina usually gets a small happy from.) and get positive attention at the same time.  

Ah!  That makes SO much more sense!  And I actually like the thought that Regina is still being subtly manipulative ('winning' by playing Team Hero) instead of 'Poor Poor Pitiful Evil Queen.'  Thanks!  (Unfortunately, I doubt it's what the show runners are going for, but I think I'll have fewer problems with Regina going forward if that's how I view her.) 

[KingOfHearts]

It's going to be hard for me to just call it "S6" now that we're getting a winter finale with a well-defined break and a separate arc.

[Mari]

2 hours ago, RulerofallIsurvey said:

Ah!  That makes SO much more sense!  And I actually like the thought that Regina is still being subtly manipulative ('winning' by playing Team Hero) instead of 'Poor Poor Pitiful Evil Queen.'  Thanks!  (Unfortunately, I doubt it's what the show runners are going for, but I think I'll have fewer problems with Regina going forward if that's how I view her.) 

You're welcome!  ?

Oh, I'm sure it's not what A&E were going for,  but it's by far the most reasonable  answer.  I could--and have--rant for a frightening amount about why it's simply not plausible that Regina had never danced before.  Raised by status-obsessed Cora?  In a culture that has complicated, structured dances?  And, let us not forget the "Any excuse for a ball!" culture.  Uh-huh.  Regina lied.  She could dance.

[KingOfHearts]

Quote

Every episode this season has been a non-sequitur of a non-sequitur. Hey, I just managed to sum up Season 6 in one sentence!

So generally:

The Evil Queen came to Storybrooke to screw with everyone. Meanwhile, Hyde and his Land of Untold Stories people came too. Meanwhile, Emma started getting visions of herself being stabbed by a cloaked figure and went to Archie about it. Meanwhile, the Evil Queen implied Charming's dad's death might not be an accident, so Charming has decided to start an investigation about it behind his wife's back. Meanwhile, Snow wants to be a teacher again, so she went back to work and met Jasmine. Meanwhile, Emma and Hook are moving in together. Meanwhile, the Evil Queen and Rumple have started relationship with sucking face periodically. Meanwhile, Regina and Zelena have had a falling out and now the Evil Queen is bonding with Zelena. Meanwhile, Jasmine's kingdom has disappeared and it turns out Aladdin has been in Storybrooke, so she went to him for help. (Oh, and it turns out he's a Savior too.) Meanwhile, Belle has been talking to her fetus in her own personal dream world and has been hiding from Rumple on the Jolly Roger. Meanwhile, the citizens of Storybrooke have been dealing with the murderous LoUS folks. Meanwhile, Regina has been grieving over Robin offscreen. Meanwhile, Henry has been dating Violet and coming to terms with having three moms. Later, the Evil Queen curses Snow and Charming so one of them will always be asleep while the other is awake.

That's like 14 plot threads, gee whiz. The main problem with the arc can be found in the premiere - too much going on. Most of it is already a blur to me. 2B and 4B didn't have this much.

Edited December 2, 2016 by KingOfHearts
Fixed a mismatch of a plural and a singular.

[maryle]

This thread is so much more creative and fun than the show! 

Applause I laughed

[KingOfHearts]

So far we've had three parents of the main characters introduced and dropped immediately afterwards. Colette, Brennan, and now (presumably) the Black Fairy. Moe seemed shady over Colette's death, so I'd actually like to see what really happened there. Brennan would have been perfect for the Underworld arc. I would love to see the Black Fairy get a bigger part in the future since she's been in the show's DNA for quite a while.

[Shanna Marie]

On 11/30/2016 at 10:42 PM, KingOfHearts said:

That's like 14 plot threads, gee whiz. The main problem with the arc can be found in the premiere - too much going on. Most of it is already a blur to me. 2B and 4B didn't have this much.

And at the same time, there is no real plot arc. Try doing the Writing 101 exercise of filling in the blanks to get the basic bones of a plot: "Character wants (goal) because (motivation), but (conflict), so he/she must (plan or action)." About the only case where the plot kind of works is Rumple and Belle: Rumple wants to not lose his second son because he's already lost his first one to his lust for power, but Belle is determined to keep the child away from him and the fetus already hates him, so he must keep Belle under his control and use the Shears of Destiny to keep the child from being destined to hate him. (Mind you, it doesn't make sense when you look at it, but at least it's all there). Belle wants to protect her unborn child from Rumple because Rumple always chooses power over love, but he's the Dark One and uses his magic to control her and has the Shears, so she first tries to escape to another world and then sends her child away with Blue so Rumple can't reach him. You can't really do the same for any other character. The Evil Queen wants, um, to show that Regina's the real villain? revenge against Snow? An affair with Rumple? because she's evil, I guess, but sometimes her schemes actually work and sometimes they don't, so she must come up with more schemes. Emma wants to be the Savior but not die of it because she has love and family and wants a future, but the Oracle and Aladdin say that can't happen, so she gets the Shears and wants to get rid of them, and then she searches Gold's shop and finds the sword that will kill her. Still no story there. I can't even get that far with any other character. Regina doesn't seem to actually want anything that she's working toward -- Regina wants to defeat the Evil Queen because that's her own dark half, but killing her requires killing herself, so she ... basically does nothing.

Compare that to season one, where we have mirroring protagonist/antagonist plots: Regina wants to maintain her curse because she wants to torture Snow, but Henry has brought the Savior who can break the curse to town, so she must convince Henry that he's wrong about her and try to get Emma out of town before she believes the truth and breaks the curse. Henry wants to break the curse because he's realized his mother is the Evil Queen and he wants to reunite his family, but Emma refuses to believe and Regina keeps trying to stop her, so he has to try more and more desperate ways to prove the truth to Emma.

2A works pretty well, too: Snow and Emma want to get back to Storybrooke to be with their family, but Cora is also trying to get the means to get to Storybrooke, so they must get the things they need to open a portal before Cora does. Hook wants revenge on Rumple because he murdered his love and cut off his hand, but Rumple is an immortal Dark One who is impossible to kill, so Hook must find a way to track him down in a world without magic where he's vulnerable. It's hard to do Regina in season 2 because she's all over the map, and it's also hard to do the good guys in 2B because they don't have an actual goal that spans more than one episode.

3A works -- The Nevengers want to rescue Henry from Pan because he's their family and Pan is using Henry to get more power, but Pan controls Neverland and it's a dangerous place, so they must draw upon their knowledge and resources as heroes, pirate, villain, and former Lost Children to find Henry, stop Pan, and get home. 3B even works better than you might think: Zelena wants to go back in time and change things so that she gets Regina's life because she's always felt second-best, but Regina and her friends are determined to stop her, so she must first cast a memory spell so they don't know what she's up to, then strip Emma of her powers so she can cast the spell without interference. The gang wants to stop Zelena because her spell might erase the existence of a lot of them, but she's too powerful for them to fight, so they must find the key to ridding her of her powers.

4A mostly works from the villains' perspective, since the heroes are mostly passive. Ingrid wants to create her perfect magical family because she's always felt like a freak, but Elsa and Emma aren't receptive, so she must cast the Shattered Sight spell to show them how awful everyone else is and get rid of everyone else so she can have them to herself. Rumple wants to be able to leave town while keeping his powers because he can't bear the thought of not being powerful, but his power doesn't work in the outside world, so he must do a ritual involving the hat, as many magical people as possible, and Hook's heart. You can't really do this for the heroes because they don't know most of what's going on and are just reacting on an episode-by-episode basis, or else they're not taking action (Elsa wants to find her sister, but she can't until she unwittingly does a spell and Anna arrives).

4B gets silly: Regina wants a happy ending because she feels she deserves it, but she thinks the Author is keeping her from it, so she must find the Author and demand a happy ending -- except she learns nothing is actually stopping her from having a happy ending and the Author is evil.

5A: Emma and the others want to save Emma from being the Dark One because duh, but Arthur and Nimue have their own schemes that derail everything, so Emma and Hook must make a great sacrifice to save everyone. Except all the action comes in the last couple of episodes. 5B sounds good on paper when you outline it like this, but that's not really how the season went: The gang wants to save Hook from the Underworld because his sacrifice was hijacked, but Hades doesn't want to let Hook or anyone else go, so they must find a way to get around Hades' tricks to get themselves and Hook safely out of the Underworld. But almost all of that is in the first couple and last couple of episodes of the arc, and it gets derailed in the middle.

[Camera One]

2 hours ago, KingOfHearts said:

The fact [Aladdin and Jasmine] were never used until now and shoehorned in just shows they were a last ditch effort to generate buzz. Merida came earlier and she had a more coherent story... that's really sad.

It's something we always worry about, but the distracting guest characters sometimes end up being better than the main plot. Frozen and the Queens of Darkness were both entertaining to me. During their arcs, it was the Storybrooke stuff that was crap. But on the flip side, there's Merida and Jaladdin. So it could go either way. The benefit of having a side franchise arc is that it's usually a shorter story with a satisfying conclusion. The risk is if it's bad, it's going to really tank because no one cares about it due to the lack of main character involvement.

I'm curious when they conceived Aladdin and Jasmine and what would have changed.  The flashback Aladdin stuff in the premiere could easily have been made later and then put into the premiere.  Now, did they decide that Aladdin was a Savior AFTER they had already planned the Emma-Dies-Because-She's-Savior plot?  What about the Magical Shears?  Was someone else other than Aladdin originally going to give that to Emma?  I suppose with magical objects, it could've been anyone... heck, Hyde could have brought it with him.  Now, what about the subplots we've had.  Who was Emma going to be paired with in "Dark Waters" if it hadn't been for Aladdin?  Jasmine was written into Episode 4, which suggested that was when they decided to bring Aladdin and Jasmine in early.  So, was Snow originally paired with someone else in the school subplot?  Or did they create that because of Jasmine?  I suppose they could have considered the Snow stuff filler, so it was just plug-anybody into that formula.  Now, who was going to go into Gold's Shop to steal the Apprentice's wand, if not Aladdin?  Or would Zelena have just gone herself?  

[Camera One]

I like the actor who plays Morpheus (I guess I should stop calling him that), though the only way to get him on the show would be for them to up-age the baby to adulthood.  If they did that, it's kind of a huge slap in Neal's face.  I mean, the Writers had no interest in developing his character in terms of the anger and disappointment he felt towards his father, but NOW they bring on a brand new son who has the same issues.  Next, they'll be advertising the second half of Season 6 is JUST like Season 2... we explore the bonds of family... what it feels like for Rumple to find his estranged son, etc.

[Rumsy4]

10 minutes ago, Camera One said:

Next, they'll be advertising the second half of Season 6 is JUST like Season 2... we explore the bonds of family... what it feels like for Rumple to find his estranged son, etc.

And they'll sideline that arc in favor of Lacey redux.

[Camera One]

14 minutes ago, Rumsy4 said:

And they'll sideline that arc in favor of Lacey redux.

Perfect... everyone goes to Land of Old Sitcoms, where we meet Fresh Prince of Belle Air.  

[Rumsy4]

1 hour ago, Camera One said:

Perfect... everyone goes to Land of Old Sitcoms, where we meet Fresh Prince of Belle Air.  

You win the internet for today. ;-)

[KingOfHearts]

Fairy Matters. Who's the Queen? Cheers: Granny Edition. And, the Golden Mills, where Zelena, Regina and Rumple live as... you know what, nevermind.

Edited December 4, 2016 by KingOfHearts

[Curio]

Well @KingOfHearts, I think I'm finally joining your "6A is worse than 4B" camp. I was dragging my feet and waiting until the midseason finale to give my final judgement, but that episode pushed me way over the edge. I didn't think it was possible, but the writers did it...they managed to find a plot that pisses me off more than the Author and Lily.

[KingOfHearts]

1 hour ago, Curio said:

Well @KingOfHearts, I think I'm finally joining your "6A is worse than 4B" camp. I was dragging my feet and waiting until the midseason finale to give my final judgement, but that episode pushed me way over the edge. I didn't think it was possible, but the writers did it...they managed to find a plot that pisses me off more than the Author and Lily.

I would say it's the worst arc to date, mostly due to the lack of enjoyable moments and real tension. 2B and 4B were bad, but you still had "The Miller's Daughter" or "Sympathy for the DeVil" or "Poor Unfortunate Souls". The only notable episode in 6A was "The Other Shoe", but you could have stuck it anywhere. Also, 2B and 4B at least had some sense of urgency. Stop the Home Office. Stop the failsafe. Stop the villains from using the Author to change fate. 6A's conflict involved trying futility to swat away annoying gnats.

6A takes the boredom of 3B and the aimlessness of 2B/4B and smashes them together into a whole new level of atrocity.

It's funny how 5B was more like an A arc and 6A was more like a B arc. I guess 5A was its own season.

Quote

Agreed.  6A (and likely S6 as a whole) is most definitely worse than 4B.

I'm interested to see if 6B can actually be worse than 6A.

Edited December 5, 2016 by KingOfHearts

[Mathius]

Agreed.  6A (and likely S6 as a whole) is most definitely worse than 4B.

[tennisgurl]

This season, while having some nice moments, is just a depressing bore. Maybe I was especially disappointed by this episode because I thought it had some real potential. The Land Without Stories was actually an interesting and cool idea, and would give us room to see some old characters, or explore some new lands. Plus, I really enjoyed Jekyll and Hyde, I was even open to the Evil Queen stuff. But, as we all know, Once is the show where good ideas go to die. The Land Without Stories hasnt been used in ages, and, with the exception of the Cinderella story and the Nemo story (to a lesser extent), the idea of forgotten stories/plots was over before it started. We had the people in weird costumes wandering around, and the screwing up of a few classic characters, and that was it. All the imagination of a multiverse filled with all fiction ever thrown away, again. And Jekyll and Hyde? Dead after only a few episodes, without actually doing anything, and some lame backstory and more screwing up of classic characters. The Evil Queen? Just a lamer version of old school Regina. This season has just been so painfully boring, I have to remind myself its on sometimes. Granted, it hasn't pissed me off as much as some seasons (except for that god awful finale), but maybe thats worse. At least I would have feelings of some kind. All I have now is lameness. 

[KAOS Agent]

6A really was all about Regina. Her screentime in just 10 episodes was 163 minutes, which was more than an entire episode's run time than any other character - 52 minutes more than Emma at 111 minutes and 71 minutes more than Snow at 92. Regina also had the most screentime in 5B (171 minutes), which makes for a lot of Regina in the last season (5B & 6A). 

One thing that helps with one character being front and center is if there is slightly more balance with the other characters getting large amounts of time on screen as well. In 5B, Emma had only 16 minutes less time than Regina, so it's less obvious that one character is dominating the story. This helps the audience too because if you're not enamoured of the lead character, there's another character you might like better with a big story to keep you interested. 4A had a lot of Emma for example, but most would consider that the Season of Frozen because Elsa/Anna were really the main thrust of the story (their combined screentime was significantly higher than Emma too). 6A went all out with Regina and the ensemble basically disappeared. David and Snow took turns sleeping through entire episodes. I understand that Regina is a popular character, but an ensemble show should feature all the characters. 

I think it's also not just because of the overabundance of Regina. If there was an actual plot surrounding her character, it would be less tedious. I don't know what the Evil Queen wants. I have zero clue what this season was about. Whether you liked the Dark Swan arc or not, I understood what Emma was doing. She had a plan, even if we weren't clear on the reason. There was mystery as to how she went all out dark in the flashbacks too. Both stories had a through line and a plot. I could explain 5A or 5B in a couple of sentences. Someone explain to me what 6A was about in two sentences. You can't do it.

Edited December 5, 2016 by KAOS Agent

[Mathius]

28 minutes ago, KingOfHearts said:

I'm interested to see if 6B can actually be worse than 6A.

Well, since S6 is more like S1 in that its "A" and "B" segments are part of the same arc (used loosely here) rather than separate (S2 attempted it too but ended up making a distinct A arc purely by accident), I would not be surprised if the quality at the very least doesn't improve with 6B, if not get worse.

Edited December 6, 2016 by Mathius

[Camera One]

I would say it's the worst arc to date, mostly due to the lack of enjoyable moments

That's the reason why 6A is also the worst season for me.  There were very few moments I enjoyed.  It used to be that when we got a rare Snow or Charming or Snowing/Emma scene, I would enjoy the minute we got, but now, there's not even that.  All the storylines are either retread or bland.  Even the guest star appearances don't have the spark they used to have, except for the Cinderella episode (though that was largely due to awesome casting for Lady Tremaine).  

[KingOfHearts]

Quote

All the storylines are either retread or bland.  Even the guest star appearances don't have the spark they used to have, except for the Cinderella episode (though that was largely due to awesome casting for Lady Tremaine).  

Lady Tremaine carried that episode hard. Without her, it was just passable. She made it great. All the other guest characters (aside from Aladdin et al) were just okay. Not bad, not good, just meh. You know who I'm talking about - Jekyll/Hyde, Captain Nemo, Monte Cristo. They were all pretty forgettable, except for maybe Hyde.

The lack of Captain Swan has dragged the quality down, to be frank. Their story has always been better written than most everything else. I expected (and kind of hoped) they wouldn't get much dramatic tension or focus in 6A because they dominated S5 so much and needed a break, but we needed to see more of how Emma's issues were affecting their relationship and of course, their new domestic life. They are both much stronger as a whole than as individual characters to me. After all the CS development in S5, we needed to see them enter a new level of intimacy. But, with the secrets and lack of interactions between them, they're really not much different from their S4 selves. I'm not saying they needed a huge sub-arc or a piece of the main plot pie, but they should have at least gotten some scenes here or there to help their relationship continue to grow.

Hook has been extremely useless this season. There's just no point to him being there. He stands around while others are getting things done. Yeah, he got the Liam 2.0 centric, but what did that really do? Henry's okay with him now supposedly, but knowing him he'll find something else to dislike the "dirty pirate" for. 6x06 was Hook mainly reacting to an exterior threat, not actually making choices. His agency has been largely absent this season. 

Current rankings, if anyone is curious:
S1 > 2A > 3A > 5B > 5A > 3B > 4A> 2B > 4B> 6A.

Edited December 6, 2016 by KingOfHearts
Forgot 3B existed. I guess it was just that boring.

[Shanna Marie]

I'm definitely in the "6A is worse than 4B" camp. The plot for 4B was dumb, but at least it was a plot -- the good guys wanted to find the Author to give Regina her happy ending, but the bad guys also wanted to find the Author because they believed it was the only way to get a happy ending. There was also some actual relationship stuff. The Charmings and Emma had to work through the eggbaby stuff, so they actually talked to each other. Emma and Hook didn't interact a lot during the main parts of the plot, but they usually had their wrap-up scenes near the ends of episodes. I felt like we even got more organic development of the friendship between Emma and Regina then. As much time as they've spent together this season, I don't feel like we've really learned anything more about them or seen anything new in this friendship. Emma and Hook should be in a different place now and have a lot more going on, but we don't know where they stand because they aren't allowed to talk.

I feel like we also had more fallout from previous stories still having an impact -- Belle was still mad at Rumple from the events of 4A, and there were references to what he did to Hook. Hook was wrestling with his own past and worried about his villain status. Regina spent more time in 4B moping about Robin leaving town than she's spent addressing the aftermath of his death. I'm utterly baffled by the fact that Hook died and returned to life last season and I don't think that's been mentioned once. You'd never know it happened. He hasn't made any quips about having been dead or knowing what it's like to be killed. Belle wasn't surprised to see him alive when the last she heard, he was dead. You'd think dying and coming back to life would be kind of a big deal.

[Mathius]

58 minutes ago, KingOfHearts said:

Current rankings, if anyone is curious:
S1 > 2A > 3A > 5B > 5A > 4A> 2B > 4B> 6A.

Swap the positions of 2A and 3A, and 5A and 4A, and you have my ranking.

[KingOfHearts]

6 minutes ago, Mathius said:

Swap the positions of 2A and 3A, and 5A and 4A, and you have my ranking.

It was close on 5A and 4A. While I'm not a big fan of either arc, I thought 5A had more to offer overall. The Frozen stuff in 4A was mostly great, but the Storybrooke side of things was just as bad as 4B for me. I remember being bored with 5A and finding it too dark/depressing, but in retrospect I appreciate its cinematic style and legitimate drama. Its biggest problems were inconsistent pacing and anything to do with Merida.

As for 2A and 3A, it's just personal preference. Both were written equally well. I've just always had a soft spot for 2A.

Quote

I can understand that, it's pretty much the same with me since I think 3A and 2A are close in quality, but I have fonder memories of when 3A was airing.

I began watching the show in 2A (before I really got into it much later in 3B), so that's probably why I'm partial to it. Aaand... I just realized 3B was absent from the list. Let me fix that...

Edited December 6, 2016 by KingOfHearts

[Mathius]

3 minutes ago, KingOfHearts said:

As for 2A and 3A, it's just personal preference. Both were written equally well. I've just always had a soft spot for 2A.

I can understand that, it's pretty much the same with me since I think 3A and 2A are close in quality, but I have fonder memories of 3A since that was the first part of the show that I tuned into live (I had caught Season 1 on DVD and Season 2 online with the exception of the two-part finale.)

Edited December 6, 2016 by Mathius

[superloislane]

1 hour ago, KingOfHearts said:

The lack of Captain Swan has dragged the quality down, to be frank.

As someone who watches this show only for Captain Swan now, I was totally fine with them taking a backseat this season. I felt they needed a breather since they had gone through so much already and had a lot of focus in season 5 so I figured that they might have a few small scenes dealing with things this season while the big drama went to other characters. 

Now that I've seen 6A, it turns out that CS was actually the only thing holding the entire show together and without them it all fell apart.

[Katherine]

I'm really interested in trying to gauge the general consensus on each season. In this forum, I think seasons 2, 4, and so far 6 tend to be viewed as the weakest ones (with the consensus being that the B halves are usually weaker than A). Does anyone know if this seems to be the wider audience consensus as well? I find it tough to analyze TV ratings because there are a lot of different factors at play.

I checked out viewer ratings (on a scale of 1 to 10) of each individual episode on one website, and while it obviously wasn't a representative or wide enough sample, I was surprised that there didn't seem to be huge drops in ratings across seasons. There was some variation, but generally episode ratings seemed to fall between 8 and 9. I couldn't see any noticeable patterns at a quick glance. Something that stuck out was that Ruby Slippers only had a 7/10, which was much lower than the majority of episodes. Anyway, I'm curious about the general audience (who probably don't take the time to rate each episode online). I would like to believe that the GA shares my view that Regina is overrated/overhyped and the writing around her is a notable limitation of this show, but I don't have any evidence to back that up. My sense is that in addition to having vocal fans on Twitter, Regina is also popular among the GA.

[Mathius]

46 minutes ago, Katherine said:

In this forum, I think seasons 2, 4, and so far 6 tend to be viewed as the weakest ones (with the consensus being that the B halves are usually weaker than A).

Actually, the B halves being weaker was the consensus for 2, 3 and 4 only.  S1 didn't have a traditional A-B structure, people seem equally divided as to whether 5A or 5B was better (IMO, 5B was better), and nobody wants to think about how 6B could be even worse than 6A (but it just might be.)

Also, I think that Season 2 was actually stronger than Season 5.  To me, the first three seasons were mostly good, the latter three mostly weak.

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My sense is that in addition to having vocal fans on Twitter, Regina is also popular among the GA.

She is....as the Evil Queen.  The biggest audience drops in the show have happened in big "Woegina" arcs.  THAT Regina is not popular among the GA.

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I find it tough to analyze TV ratings because there are a lot of different factors at play.

Sure, but when the largest and most irreversible audience drops happen in 2B and 4B, then the factors in those arcs are easier to analyze.

Edited December 6, 2016 by Mathius

[KAOS Agent]

The B arcs tend to be weaker in part because the writers don't have as much time to plan them out. Not that they have a lot of time for the A arcs, but they do have a six week break where they've done a bit of brainstorming about what's coming, but those ideas have a little more time to percolate and manifest into a semi-coherent arc. Also, I think they come back fresher after a break and they can take in audience feedback from the previous season (e.g. Greg & Tamara were unceremoniously killed off in the 3A premiere because the audience almost universally hated them). The character focus in the B arc may or may not be the audience's cup of tea, but I think the coherency of the narrative is a bigger factor and the B arcs tend to fall apart.

[Mathius]

Very true.  I said it before, but I like 5B better than 5A because it's lack of a solid plan was less offensive than 5A's solid plan crashing and burning.

6A, however, is a different case altogether since it and 6B are just two halves of the same arc....and it is anything but semi-coherent.

Edited December 6, 2016 by Mathius

[Souris]

I liked 5A waaaaaaay better than 5B, even with the egregious Merida-ness of it. Even if it was hella angsty stuff for CS, at least they had some actual focus on their relationship. And Camelot was interesting for a hot minute. 5B had far too much Regina/Zelena focus. That gives me the hives. Plus things like Regina getting closure with her horse but confronting no murder victims apart from her father. Haaaaaaate!

I must go backward to figure out my fave.

6A < 5B < 4B < 2B < 3B* < 4A < 5A < 2A < 3A < S1**

Congrats, Show Nadir 6A! You beat the trend of all A arcs being better than all B arcs! But you've still got 6B to bump you out of Final Show Nadir. (Actually, what am I saying, I'm not planning to watch 6B, so that's likely my final ranking.)

*Although the finale were my fave eps ever, there was Regina TLKing Henry without a heart & pulling light magic out of her ass. And I hated Zelena and never wanted to see her again.

**The glory days before Woegina.

2A/3A are about the same rank for me. Difficult to decide between those. And I actually really loved the Frozen Trio actors, so that lifts 4A.

Edited December 6, 2016 by Souris

[Camera One]

The other similarity with 2B, 3B and 4B, and actually 6A is that they were all Storybrooke-based without a *new* realm taking dominant focus, which could have been another reason for weakness.

The strong arcs --- 3A was actually set in Neverland, 4A featured Arendelle big-time, 5A featured Camelot... in both 4A and 5A, the current-day Storybrooke stuff was the weakest aspect.  2A had half the action taking place with Team Princess - for the second season, there was still novelty in going back to the Enchanted Forest, post-apocalypse (by 4B, the Enchanted Forest flashbacks were old hat and no longer new).  5B somewhat bucked the trend of B arcs by going to the Underworld, a new realm.

The general trend is that these writers are not good at writing arcs that take place in Storybrooke.  The characters spin their wheels reacting, waiting until the big twist, usually taking place in the flashbacks.

ABC should have forced the Writers to send EVERYONE to Agrabah in 6B.   Or Black Fairy Darkness Land Where Time Is Screwy, but that was probably too vague.  Heck, send everyone to the AU and maybe give Real Snow and Charming 5 seconds with Emma to reflect on her life if there had been no Curse?  No?  Off-limits?  Okay fine.

Edited December 6, 2016 by Camera One

[Souris]

6 minutes ago, Camera One said:

ABC should have forced the Writers to send EVERYONE to Agrabah in 6B.  

That may still happen for part of the season. In fact, that's what I think WILL happen.

[KingOfHearts]

Storybrooke is just too realistic of a setting and does not provide the high fantasy the writers are looking for. Plus, it's been there so long that they have no interest in exploring it further. Granny's is as about as far as they want to go with it. What made SB such a great setting beforehand was the curse and the fake personalities. Since the We Are Both concept got thrown down the drain after 2A, that's all gone now. It's not that SB can't be interesting any more, but it's TS,TW. The writers are simply incapable of utilizing its full potential.

Whenever there's a new realm, the writers can create the basic rules and leave it there. Again, they excel more at narrower storytelling.

Edited December 6, 2016 by KingOfHearts

[Mathius]

1 hour ago, Camera One said:

The general trend is that these writers are not good at writing arcs that take place in Storybrooke.  The characters spin their wheels reacting, waiting until the big twist, usually taking place in the flashbacks.

True, that was a big fault of 2B, 3B, 4B, 6A, and the Storybrooke parts of 4A and 5A.  Even in 5B once Hook was saved most everything about the Underworld that was uniquely Underwold-ish disappeared and it pretty much became just like Storybrooke in more than just appearances, with the wheel-spinning with nothing being accomplished until the very last few episodes.  It's funny to think that people used to complain about the heroes running around questing for Mcguffins in 2A or walking around potted plants in 3A, when now those are starting to look pretty good given that stuff actually got accomplished through those quests and walk cycles, in terms of both plot and characters.  Can't say the same for Storybrooke now.

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Storybrooke is just too realistic of a setting and does not provide the high fantasy the writers are looking for.

Despite what they claim, A&E do not want to write "small-town stories" and have not been writing them.  They've been writing high fantasy stories that just happen to take place in a small town, even though the setting clashes with this style and creates these problems.

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That may still happen for part of the season. In fact, that's what I think WILL happen.

A&E have pretty much confirmed that it will in recent interviews.  It will start in episode 15, according to Karen David.

Edited December 6, 2016 by Mathius

[KingOfHearts]

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 It's funny to think that people used to complain about the heroes running around questing for Mcguffins in 2A or walking around potted plants in 3A, when now those are starting to look pretty good given that stuff actually got accomplished through those quests and walk cycles, in terms of both plot and characters.  Can't say the same for Storybrooke now.

There was plenty of time for talking in the McGuffin questing. Oddly enough, even though they were on adventures, the characters had more meaningful conversations than in SB, where they had more opportunities for private one-on-one's. I enjoy seeing the characters a little out of their comfort zones and reacting to new settings with the audience. It just feels more true to the nature of the show and fits the high fantasy better. 

S1 had different objectives. It wanted to be an adult small-town drama juxtaposed against a family fantasy adventure series. Nowadays, it's purely an adventure fantasy drama.

Edited December 6, 2016 by KingOfHearts

[Curio]

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6A really was all about Regina. Her screentime in just 10 episodes was 163 minutes, which was more than an entire episode's run time than any other character - 52 minutes more than Emma at 111 minutes and 71 minutes more than Snow at 92. Regina also had the most screentime in 5B (171 minutes), which makes for a lot of Regina in the last season (5B & 6A). 

 

When you look at the total screen time for all the regular cast members in Season 6A (Regina-164, Emma-111, Snow-92, Hook-90, David-89, Henry-81, Rumple-78, Belle-66, Zelena-31), Regina's screen time is the only data point that stands out as an outlier. Even Zelena, who only got 31 minutes of screen time, isn't considered a low outlier. In order to be considered an outlier, the data point would have to be below 28 minutes and above 146 minutes. So, Regina is statistically unusual this season. Thanks, math.

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One thing that helps with one character being front and center is if there is slightly more balance with the other characters getting large amounts of time on screen as well. In 5B, Emma had only 16 minutes less time than Regina, so it's less obvious that one character is dominating the story. This helps the audience too because if you're not enamoured of the lead character, there's another character you might like better with a big story to keep you interested. 4A had a lot of Emma for example, but most would consider that the Season of Frozen because Elsa/Anna were really the main thrust of the story (their combined screentime was significantly higher than Emma too). 6A went all out with Regina and the ensemble basically disappeared. David and Snow took turns sleeping through entire episodes. I understand that Regina is a popular character, but an ensemble show should feature all the characters.

 

TS;TW haven't been capable of writing a true ensemble show since Season 3. That was the last time there was a legitimate balance between all the main characters, and I don't think it's surprising that Season 3 is considered to be one of the best seasons because of that reason. They made a huge miscalculation making Regina as front and center as she is. She should have been treated more like Rumple where it's actually more rewarding to see her character because she doesn't dominate the screen time. When a character chews the scenery and is larger than life, you can't sustain a 22-episode season around them, which is pretty much exactly what we've gotten since the 100th episode until now. In the past year, every major episode has primarily focused on Regina's character: The 100th episode, the Season 5 two-episode finale, the Season 6 premiere, and the Season 6 winter finale. All episodes written by A&E. 

Edited December 6, 2016 by Curio

[maryle]

Season 6a i worst for many reason

1) the repetitive and stalling of all the characters. Rumbelle is the perfect example of that. Don't know how many time they broke off. The only creative that still there is how low and disturbing they make the relationship before putting them together. 

Regina) all the her arc is to establish Regina as some great hero totally redeem and deserve to be h. But, that her arc since she use white magic. Even her relationship with Emma is similar that what we saw previously.

Emma, Snowing were mostly stalling but not real development for neither.

EQ was the weakest baddies of them all. I still don't know what her overall plan was. Her overboard presence killed the little mystery she still had. 

Now, it is impossible to really know what the G.A love or not. But, it is obvious that the EQ or Regina is not a big draw for the general audience.  Yes, draw still exist Frozen was definitely one or when a show bounce in rating because of a wedding or special episode. 

In fact, I could easily say that since the final last year the general audience seem tired of Regina heavy episode because they always lost a lot of viewers between the first and second half or are lower than the previous episode like this final also did.

So, maybe some love her but that is truth for all character. General audience is interested in the ensemble and overall arc. The mistake is when a single character is swallow the show like Regina this year. It is not more a ensemble and hope they corrige that rapidly.

[Free]

9 hours ago, KAOS Agent said:

The B arcs tend to be weaker in part because the writers don't have as much time to plan them out. Not that they have a lot of time for the A arcs, but they do have a six week break where they've done a bit of brainstorming about what's coming, but those ideas have a little more time to percolate and manifest into a semi-coherent arc. Also, I think they come back fresher after a break and they can take in audience feedback from the previous season (e.g. Greg & Tamara were unceremoniously killed off in the 3A premiere because the audience almost universally hated them). The character focus in the B arc may or may not be the audience's cup of tea, but I think the coherency of the narrative is a bigger factor and the B arcs tend to fall apart.

Barely anything feels planned out in either half, it just feels like they get bored every few episodes and try to do something else.

[Mathius]

2 hours ago, Free said:

Barely anything feels planned out in either half, it just feels like they get bored every few episodes and try to do something else.

In 5A maybe, but I think 2A, 3A and 4A were pretty consistent and it felt organic whenever they shifted gears rather than abrupt like in 5A.

[YaddaYadda]

13 hours ago, superloislane said:

As someone who watches this show only for Captain Swan now, I was totally fine with them taking a backseat this season. I felt they needed a breather since they had gone through so much already and had a lot of focus in season 5 so I figured that they might have a few small scenes dealing with things this season while the big drama went to other characters. 

Now that I've seen 6A, it turns out that CS was actually the only thing holding the entire show together and without them it all fell apart.

I was okay with CS being sidelined while they dealt with this EQ/Regina storyline, but they also right off the bat decided that Emma was going to have visions of her impending death, so they had to regress Emma back because DRAMA! They had to manufacture angst with secrets when all they had to do was actually address how Hook just came back from being dead and he and Emma were happy about finally getting on with their lives, and now it's all questionable because Emma is supposed to die. 

Sideline them, fine. But I don't know, let's address how they feel about this? 

It's writing by numbers with these guys.

[Free]

40 minutes ago, Mathius said:

In 5A maybe, but I think 2A, 3A and 4A were pretty consistent and it felt organic whenever they shifted gears rather than abrupt like in 5A.

S2-3 felt choppy, it felt like they changed their minds on things (abruptly ending the Greg/Tamara plots as well as relegating Home Office to the Lost Boys and dropping the non-magical threat altogether, same with Neal/Baelfire once he reunited with everyone).

S4a definitely felt like them jumping on the Frozen bandwagon from the higher-ups.

These seasons were still messy, but nothing to the magnitudes of the last 2 seasons, which have been a completely trainwreck.

[Mathius]

30 minutes ago, Free said:

abruptly ending the Greg/Tamara plots as well as relegating Home Office to the Lost Boys and dropping the non-magical threat altogether

The Home Office was always the Lost Boys.  That was spelled out pretty obviously at the end of the S2 finale.  It's not like it was supposed to be a different group altogether and then in the S3 premiere they retconned it into being the Lost Boys, the S2 finale made a big deal out of Greg and Tamara not actually knowing who constituted the Home Office and then Gold says at the end that they're unknowingly working for Peter Pan.  

The non-magical threat, the people working for the Home Office aka Lost Boys on Earth, yeah, that was clearly dropped aside from John and Michael, who knew exactly who they were working for and didn't care about destroying magic at all.  I feel there were meant to be more agents than that.

Edited December 6, 2016 by Mathius

[Free]

45 minutes ago, Mathius said:

The Home Office was always the Lost Boys.  That was spelled out pretty obviously at the end of the S2 finale.  It's not like it was supposed to be a different group altogether and then in the S3 premiere they retconned it into being the Lost Boys, the S2 finale made a big deal out of Greg and Tamara not actually knowing who constituted the Home Office and then Gold says at the end that they're unknowingly working for Peter Pan.  

The non-magical threat, the people working for the Home Office aka Lost Boys on Earth, yeah, that was clearly dropped aside from John and Michael, who knew exactly who they were working for and didn't care about destroying magic at all.  I feel there were meant to be more agents than that.

That whole storyline felt awkward when it transitioned to the Neverland arc, because it did feel like things changed and they had to get rid of the dead weights once the arc started hence them killing them off as soon as they arrived there.

[Shanna Marie]

I really doubt that the Home Office was always the Lost Boys. That seemed to be a pretty abrupt shift in the season 2 finale when they decided to go to Neverland. Earlier in the season, when we were getting Gregor/Owen's arrival in town and Tamara's backstory with August, there was absolutely no indication whatsoever that this was what was going on. It seemed like an awfully complicated scheme with way too many moving parts for Pan to find Henry and get him to Neverland. They just sort of waved their hands in the 2 finale and 3 premiere and said, "Uh, yeah, the Home Office was really Pan! Moving on ..."

More reasons why 6A is worse than 4B:

The 4B plot was really stupid, but at least it provided a throughline because everything else tied into it. Everyone was looking for the Author for their own reasons, and the good guys were trying to figure out what the bad guys' reasons were, and then the quest to darken Emma was still about the Author. Even the one-off Hook episode was driven by that plot, since his way of getting info on what Rumple was up to was to give Ursula her happy ending back. 6A has a lot of totally unrelated, or at least extremely tangential, plot silos. The Untold Stories plot doesn't even really count as one, since they've forgotten about it. There's no concerted effort there, no plan to deal with those people or help them get home or show them integrating with the town. It was just an excuse to have Jekyll and Hyde to create the Regina/Evil Queen split, to bring the Oracle to town to give Emma her message of doom, and to have Jasmine conveniently in town. We had a few one-offs related to the Untold Stories, but it wasn't a real throughline. Then there's Emma's Savior destiny, where the only link to Aladdin was the shears, and then the Evil Queen used her wish against her, but the stories are otherwise completely unrelated so far. Aladdin and Jasmine may be setting something up for the future, but otherwise their story consisted of them sitting around and talking about Agrabah before finally going there. Zelena's off in her own little world with the Evil Queen. Belle and Rumple are in their own little world, aside from the couple of episodes when Belle was interacting with Hook. At least the Gideon stuff seems like it might intersect with Emma, but we'll see if that has anything to do with her being Savior. Hook and Emma had the moving in together story, but that amounted to a scene with her asking him to move in and the scene with her leaving during breakfast, and otherwise has taken place offscreen. There's a lot going on, with almost no overlap. It's like we're watching four or five entirely different shows.

Then there's the gloom. If anything, I think the air of oppression is what's driving ratings down. It's just not fun anymore. Again, the 4B plot was stupid, but at least it was hopeful, since it was all about trying to get a happy ending. Two of the three Queens of Darkness had their fates turned around. Regina learned A Valuable Lesson and got her boyfriend back. Emma resisted all Rumple's efforts to turn her dark. And then there was the finale. Everything since then has been so gloomy. We got to spend half a season watching Emma be psychologically tormented by the Darkness, at the end of which she got to kill her boyfriend. Then there was half a season in the Underworld. Just when it looked like at least something was going to work out for Emma after all her torment, she started getting the shakes and visions of impending doom. The relationship between Zelena and Regina that we spent so much time rebuilding has fallen apart and become even more toxic. The Count of Monte Cristo was a victim forced to die. Hook's centric was bittersweet, with his brother saved from the vengeance path, but with Hook still being an outsider. The Rumple and Belle marriage is ruined (even if they do get back together). Snow and David are separated. The one potentially happy and uplifting thing, Emma and Hook moving in together, has taken place entirely offscreen. The show's just not fun anymore.