A Thread for All Seasons: OUaT Across All Realms

[Rumsy4]

7 hours ago, Camera One said:

Old posts from 2014 above... Can't believe now in Season 6, Rumple is still making "progress".  

LMAO

[Mathius]

6 hours ago, Camera One said:

This show brings "repeating a storyline" to a whole new level.

See also what they're doing with Hook, who already had perfectly good closure for his self-loathing and redemption back in 5B.

Edited March 27, 2017 by Mathius

[jhlipton]

On 3/21/2017 at 8:26 AM, daxx said:

I'm on my third rewatch of A Series of Unfortunate Events and it's still entertaining.

Which one -- Jim Carrey or Neil Patrick Harris?

[daxx]

44 minutes ago, jhlipton said:

Which one -- Jim Carrey or Neil Patrick Harris?

Neil Patrick Harris, the Netflix one, its fantastic!

[Souris]

Truly sad and telling screentime charts. It looks like they're pretty much writing out characters before they're gone, which is their pattern.

 

[KingOfHearts]

Quote

Truly sad and telling screentime charts. It looks like they're pretty much writing out characters before they're gone, which is their pattern.

Yeah, I too feel sorry for Belle.

;)

[Camera One]

The top 3 screentimes are villains or former villains... of course.

If "Page 23" was the big resolution for Regina's conflict in the Season 5 finale, none of it makes much sense.  This all came about when Regina revealed to Emma that she hated "every minute of doing good".  So is that not a problem anymore?  Because???

[Curio]

38 minutes ago, Souris said:

 

For those keeping track at home, Regina's screen time for all of Season 6 so far is still a statistical outlier compared to the rest of the regular cast.

[KingOfHearts]

Quote

If "Page 23" was the big resolution for Regina's conflict in the Season 5 finale, none of it makes much sense.  This all came about when Regina revealed to Emma that she hated "every minute of doing good".  So is that not a problem anymore?  Because???

Maybe the Evil Queen hated her "good" self and Regina hated her "evil" self? 

Neither Robin nor Regina got any sort of satisfying conclusion, only their clones. I don't see how alternate versions of characters getting their "happy endings" could give fans any warm or fuzzy feelings. If you're mad that Robin's death was abrupt, you still should be. If you want Regina to find happiness, you're still waiting. Don't expect her to remember the lesson of loving yourself. She'll drop it like a sack of potatoes when the writers want her to be angsty.

On another topic, I'm actually glad they retconned Snow's dark spot in 4B. She said it started after the eggnapping, long before she killed Cora. That makes so much more sense to me.

Edited March 28, 2017 by KingOfHearts

[Free]

1 hour ago, Souris said:

Truly sad and telling screentime charts. It looks like they're pretty much writing out characters before they're gone, which is their pattern.

 

That's exactly how I knew both Neal and Hood were on their way out, their characters were being phased out on the show and that's even before the set spoiler leaks.

[Rumsy4]

Emma's been on screen for 5 minutes in the last three episodes, right? And next week is Hook-centric away from Emma. I guess Emma got completely phased out of her own Show.

Edited March 28, 2017 by Rumsy4

[Mathius]

3 minutes ago, Rumsy4 said:

I guess Emma got completely phased out of her own Show.

That happened a long time ago, it's just more blatant now.

[Souris]

ZELENA has more screentime in 6B than Emma.

[KingOfHearts]

8 minutes ago, Souris said:

ZELENA has more screentime in 6B than Emma.

Really? She's only been in like six scenes!

Edited March 28, 2017 by KingOfHearts

[KAOS Agent]

Snow & David sleep through entire episodes and they've been onscreen more than Emma. 

[Curio]

David hasn't even been in the past two episodes.

[Camera One]

David had a centric and was in the B plot for the first episode of 6B.  

Snow was a prop for Regina in "Murder Most Foul"... I'm actually surprised at her screentime.  Do they count the minutes when she's just lying in bed?

[Free]

1 hour ago, KingOfHearts said:

Really? She's only been in like six scenes!

 

1 hour ago, KAOS Agent said:

Snow & David sleep through entire episodes and they've been onscreen more than Emma. 

Yup, they're there just to be in the background which is more than what I can say about Emma herself.

[Arnella]

Remember how we loved this show in the beginning?  I still have fond memories of Grumpy and Astrid, Ruby and kick ass Granny, Bandit Snow (who knew what a threat Regina was because she saw and cared about all the dead innocents), and OH! the initial Rumple and Belle romance.

This forum has arguably become a place to complain about this show but I think that is because we know what it could be and still have a tiny, surviving hope that it will come back. 

It obviously won't at this point.  We will get a contrived and unearned happy ending for Regina and probably Rumple.  I can only hope that the rest of the characters will be given some measure of happiness and closure.  However, I fear that the writers will end the show with all our favorites smiling beatifically at Regina because her happiness is all that REALLY matters.

[Free]

46 minutes ago, Arnella said:

Remember how we loved this show in the beginning?  I still have fond memories of Grumpy and Astrid, Ruby and kick ass Granny, Bandit Snow (who knew what a threat Regina was because she saw and cared about all the dead innocents), and OH! the initial Rumple and Belle romance.

This forum has arguably become a place to complain about this show but I think that is because we know what it could be and still have a tiny, surviving hope that it will come back. 

It obviously won't at this point.  We will get a contrived and unearned happy ending for Regina and probably Rumple.  I can only hope that the rest of the characters will be given some measure of happiness and closure.  However, I fear that the writers will end the show with all our favorites smiling beatifically at Regina because her happiness is all that REALLY matters.

I think we're already way past that point, if they're going to reboot it in a potential next season with new characters anyway.

I think I missed when it captured that small town community feel with the characters, back when it was a purely character drama.

[Arnella]

1 hour ago, Free said:

reboot it in a potential next season with new characters anyway

What?!  Is this a thing?  It would set me free if Robert Carlyle is gone but that sounds just awful!

[Souris]

35 minutes ago, Arnella said:

What?!  Is this a thing?  It would set me free if Robert Carlyle is gone but that sounds just awful!

Yes, it's what's happening if there's a S7. New characters coming in, some regulars leaving.

And yes, it sounds just awful.

[Free]

53 minutes ago, Arnella said:

What?!  Is this a thing?  It would set me free if Robert Carlyle is gone but that sounds just awful!

 

16 minutes ago, Souris said:

Yes, it's what's happening if there's a S7. New characters coming in, some regulars leaving.

And yes, it sounds just awful.

There's a possibility of a S7 being a reboot with the new characters they're introducing at the tail end of the season, hence why they've been wrapping up the main storyline and why there contract negotiations going on with possibly several actors on their way out to cut costs.

[Mathius]

1 hour ago, Souris said:

And yes, it sounds just awful.

To be fair, it probably can't be any more or less awful than what's currently going on with the old characters.

[orza]

I think the 6B screen time chart reflects which actors ABC wants to retain for a possible season 7.

[Curio]

7 minutes ago, orza said:

I think the 6B screen time chart reflects which actors ABC wants to retain for a possible season 7.

So...Lana.

[orza]

18 minutes ago, Curio said:

So...Lana.

Lana, Colin, Robert, maybe Gilles as a recurring character, if he is popular with the young female viewers. Networks do ongoing market research and know which characters and actors are popular with viewers. Story arcs and screen time get adjusted to reflect this. Lots of shows do this.

[Curio]

9 minutes ago, orza said:

Networks do ongoing market research and know which characters and actors are popular with viewers. Story arcs and screen time get adjusted to reflect this. Lots of shows do this.

If ABC's market research said that doubling Lana's screen time would improve Season 6's ratings, they should fire that marketing director.

[orza]

11 minutes ago, Curio said:

If ABC's market research said that doubling Lana's screen time would improve Season 6's ratings, they should fire that marketing director.

The same could be said about season 5. The Dark Swan story arc and Emma's quest to save her boyfriend also suffered from declining ratings the entire season. Jennifer Morrison was not able to keep viewers interested, either.

I see season 6 as just a continuation of a ratings decline for an aging show. That is a problem with lots of shows that rely mainly on serialized story telling for their A plot. Eventually they run out of steam. It's no coincidence that the most successful and longest-running scripted dramas on broadcast TV are police, medical or legal procedurals with maybe some serialized elements for the B and C plots. They can go years, even decades without running out of stories.

[Free]

24 minutes ago, Curio said:

If ABC's market research said that doubling Lana's screen time would improve Season 6's ratings, they should fire that marketing director.

ABC pretty much left OuaT on its own and let A&E tank their own show until contract negotiations happened this season sadly.

[Mathius]

42 minutes ago, orza said:

Lana, Colin, Robert, maybe Gilles as a recurring character, if he is popular with the young female viewers. Networks do ongoing market research and know which characters and actors are popular with viewers. Story arcs and screen time get adjusted to reflect this. Lots of shows do this.

I highly doubt that Robert would be coming back even if OUAT got a S7.  He's clearly done with the show.

And let me guess, they do that market research totally online.   That would explain a lot.  It sure as heck hasn't seemed to pay off for them.

Quote

The same could be said about season 5. The Dark Swan story arc and Emma's quest to save her boyfriend also suffered from declining ratings the entire season. Jennifer Morrison was not able to keep viewers interested, either.

The declining ratings in S5 were nowhere close to the decline in S2, S4, and S6.  And 5B ("Emma's quest to save her boyfriend") was pretty damn steady, opening at 1.3 / 4.01 and ending at 1.2 / 4.07.  Although I do agree that Jennifer Morrison couldn't keep viewers interested during 5A, since her performance as Dark Swan was lacking and wasn't helped by the tepid writing which ended up amounting to "Surprise! Hook's the real villain!"

Edited March 28, 2017 by Mathius

[Curio]

16 minutes ago, orza said:

The same could be said about season 5.

If you look at the overall screen time for Season 5, the distribution of time was much more evenly spread out than in Season 6. I definitely agree the Dark Swan arc turned viewers off, but I think that had more to do with how dark and pessimistic the story line was. Season 6, however, has a very clear lead character at the moment, and that's Regina. It's not even close, and you can use math to determine that her screen time is a statistical outlier compared to the rest of the regular cast. You can't argue with math. (Although you could argue how accurate those bar graphs are.)

Serialized shows can actually gain viewers over time if they're written well, as we've seen with Breaking Bad. Well-written serialized shows can have good word-of-mouth and attract viewers later in its run, but OUAT is not a well-written show. Being a network show doesn't help either, but we know it's possible for OUAT to get a ratings surge as we saw with the Frozen arc. Every season before Season 6 was never in extreme cancellation danger, so it makes you wonder what happened in Season 6 to make it officially a "bubble" show. Mostly it's the bad writing, but the screen time chart does show a fairly significant difference in Season 6 compared to other seasons.

[orza]

Apples to oranges. Breaking Bad only produced 62 episodes over 5 seasons and had less than 2 million viewers for most of its run. That is equivalent to less than 3 seasons of a typical broadcast network show that has to crank out 22+ episodes in 10 months. It only did consistently well for the final 8 episodes. I see cable shows that only produce maybe 8 or 10 episodes a season as a different animal from broadcast network shows that have to produce more than twice as much programming in an extremely tight time frame.

Lana played a dual role in season 6 so it's not surprising she got more screen time. It was divided between Regina and the Evil Queen.

[Shanna Marie]

37 minutes ago, Curio said:

I definitely agree the Dark Swan arc turned viewers off, but I think that had more to do with how dark and pessimistic the story line was.

As one of my friends put it, "I'm not watching a show about fairy tales to watch the main character be psychologically tortured as a punishment for sacrificing herself to save the town." Seriously, they turned a good-guy character into a villain-type entity who had to be stopped because of something good she did. There have been shows that turned a main hero into a villain temporarily because the character always had latent villain tendencies and struggled with darkness, and it usually happens when the character does something very wrong that comes back to bite him. But this was a bizarre kind of punishment for doing something good. My friend quit watching the show at that time because she used to use it as a Sunday night way of distracting herself from dreading Monday mornings, but it was so depressing and painful that it just made matters worse. Fortunately, she quit before she got to see Hook also getting turned into a Dark One as a "reward" for coming to Snow's rescue. If that's their idea of a show about hope, they need to get out a dictionary and look up what "hope" means.

[Curio]

17 minutes ago, orza said:

Lana played a dual role in season 6 so it's not surprising she got more screen time. It was divided between Regina and the Evil Queen.

It's not surprising, but it's still a conscious decision the writers made to include Regina in the show more often than the other characters. They went into Season 6 knowing Regina would play both the hero and the villain and that Lana would have to put in a lot more hours to pull it off.

[KingOfHearts]

I'm pretty much done with all the characters, except Zelena. To be honest, I wouldn't mind if the Charmings were completely gone. I used to watch for Regina, but it has become clear there's nowhere else for her to go. She's stuck in perpetual whining. I wasn't a fan of Hook in the past, but lately I've been much more sympathetic toward him than Emma. Is there really anything to say about Rumpbelle? There's definitely more story to be told for Belle, but she's nothing without Rumple in the eyes of the writers. 

[orza]

21 minutes ago, Curio said:

It's not surprising, but it's still a conscious decision the writers made to include Regina in the show more often than the other characters. They went into Season 6 knowing Regina would play both the hero and the villain and that Lana would have to put in a lot more hours to pull it off.

This is a network-owned show. Making one actor/character the focus of a season is a decision that the network would be heavily involved in. Writers and show runners don't have nearly as much decision-making power to determine the direction of the show as some fans may think. The network is calling the shots in the background. The show runner's job is make the show the network wants. I think the shift in focus from Emma to Regina had a lot to do with the change in leadership at ABC. Paul Lee had his vision of what he wanted the show to be. Channing Dungey clearly has a different vision.

[Curio]

8 minutes ago, orza said:

This is a network-owned show. Making one actor/character the focus of a season is a decision that the network would be heavily involved in. Writers and show runners don't have nearly as much decision-making power to determine the direction of the show as some fans may think. The network is calling the shots in the background. The show runner's job is make the show the network wants. I think the shift in focus from Emma to Regina had a lot to do with the change in leadership at ABC. Paul Lee had his vision of what he wanted the show to be. Channing Dungey clearly has a different vision.

I can definitely see that being the case, and that kind of goes back to what I was saying earlier about whoever was involved with making the decision to shift the focus more to Regina didn't do proper market research. Regina is a popular character in hardcore fandom, but clearly, doubling her screen time didn't connect with the general audience like they thought it would. 

[Mathius]

41 minutes ago, Curio said:

I think the shift in focus from Emma to Regina had a lot to do with the change in leadership at ABC. Paul Lee had his vision of what he wanted the show to be. Channing Dungey clearly has a different vision.

Nonsense.  The shift of focus to Regina happened back when Paul Lee was in charge, Channing Dungey simply didn't change it.

Honestly, I think Channing Dungey's vision for the show just plain wasn't followed through with by A&E, and they're in trouble for it.  Her vision of the show sounded like she wanted it back like S1, with not half-season arcs and a more procedural, "small-town stories" type of format, which A&E set up with the Land of Untold Stories characters and their problems.  Then that all got dropped like a hot potato and they resumed their ADHD style of writing, resulting in a severe lack of focus and cohesion in the season.  It's clear that not even the network can stop these showrunners from sucking.

Edited March 28, 2017 by Mathius

[KingOfHearts]

Quote

Honestly, I think Channing Dungey's vision for the show just plain wasn't followed through with by A&E, and they're in trouble for it.  Her vision of the show sounded like she wanted it back like S1, with not half-season arcs and a more procedural, "small-town stories" type of format, which A&E set up with the Land of Untold Stories characters and their problems.  Then that all got dropped like a hot potato and they resumed their ADHD style of writing, resulting in a severe lack of focus and cohesion in the season.  It's clear that not even the network can stop these showrunners from sucking.

I'm thinking Dungey pulled for Aladdin, and wanted that to have a stronger focus. A&E have always been apprehensive about Aladdin for some reason. 

[Curio]

6 minutes ago, KingOfHearts said:

A&E have always been apprehensive about Aladdin for some reason. 

Well it sure shows in the writing. Jasmine and Aladdin have been in how many episodes now, yet I can barely tell you what they've actually done on the show. Like, why are they here? What are their personalities? I sometimes forget they were even in multiple episodes of 6A.

I wonder if A&E purposely didn't write as exciting of scenes for Aladdin and Jasmine so that ABC would allow them to stop focusing on them.

Edited March 28, 2017 by Curio

[KingOfHearts]

Quote

Well it sure shows in the writing.

They did Cruella DeVil, Hercules, and Jekyll/Hyde before one of Disney's biggest blockbusters. People have been asking for Aladdin since S1. Dungey probably thought EQ and LoUS weren't strong enough for a 22-episode arc. (Rightfully so.) Yet, A&E decided to shoehorn it in instead of giving it its own arc. Maybe we should have gotten LoUS in 6A, then Aladdin in 6B. They could have thrown a few inklings of Aladdin there, like have Jasmine come over toward the end of 6A, then reveal her identity in the finale.

Edited March 28, 2017 by KingOfHearts

[Free]

7 minutes ago, KingOfHearts said:

I'm thinking Dungey pulled for Aladdin, and wanted that to have a stronger focus. A&E have always been apprehensive about Aladdin for some reason. 

 

3 minutes ago, KingOfHearts said:

They did Cruella DeVil, Hercules, and Jekyll/Hyde before one of Disney's biggest blockbusters. People have been asking for Aladdin since S1. Dungey probably thought EQ and LoUS weren't strong enough for a 22-episode arc. (Rightfully so.) Yet, A&E decided to shoehorn it in instead of giving it its own arc. Maybe we should have gotten LoUS in 6A, then Aladdin in 6B. They could have thrown a few inklings of Aladdin there, like have Jasmine come over toward the end of 6A, then reveal her identity in the finale.

This is what I think too, it would make sense given what both would want this season and why it's a jumbled mess (even more than usual).

[Olivia Y]

I don't know if I'm in the minority here, but I'm not that interested in the romantic relationships on the show. Not saying I don't like them, but a lot of them feels 'done' already, and also most of the 'true love' plotlines aren't that convincing (there's only so much 'love at first sight' I can accept). What I was really interested in was all the family dynamics that seemed to have so much potential in Season 1. I remember loving all the scenes with Mary Margaret and Emma talking like friends all the while knowing they're mother and daughter.

First episode of Season 2 gave us a conflicted Emma, wanting to be happy to be reunited with her family but also harbouring a lifetime of bitterness, and Snow desperate to form a connection. I remember being so intrigued by that! I was surprised that they didn't have super-happy sugar-coated reunion, but was happy to follow that arc because it made sense! Of course she's going to be conflicted! Her parents are from a different world that she didn't' understand so of course they'll have trouble connecting! The next few episodes of Season 2 were also great, that scene in what was meant to be Emma's nursery, Emma realising how much her parents wanted to give her the perfect life and that final moment with Snow remembering how the nursery was meant to look and mourning all that they had lost - I was almost in tears! It was such a powerful scene! 

And then...what happened? Nothing that followed ever came close to that. That was as far as their relationship seem to get. For all the emphasis that the Frozen arc placed on family (and I do think that was one of the better arcs), there was shockingly little focus on how that relates to the central family on this show. As a result their relationship never evolves - Emma still keeps things from her parents, and Snow and Charming seem preoccupied with...whatever issue of the week (or Regina) to try and get closer to her. It's like they took that interesting idea from the start of Season 2 and just...put it on pause, or repeat.

[Mathius]

Here's the way I see it: the split Evil Queen, the Land of Untold Stories, and the Aladdin stuff that they shoehorned in to relating to Emma's Savior status were all thrown together at the start of the season and competing for screentime.  A&E started on the former two already in the S5 finale.  I think Dungey was fine with the LOUS since it was a good springboard for more self-contained procedural-esque stories, but the EQ as the ongoing arc amidst these episodes didn't appeal to her and she made them also do Aladdin as well.  This was bad enough, but then as I said, A&E's ADHD-style writing struck midway through and now suddenly all of this has been pushed to the side in favor of the Black Fairy / Gideon drama.  The LOUS was dropped after just six episodes, the EQ was literally thrown out when Gideon arrived in 6x10 (only resurfacing for a single-episode resolution and then it's right back to Gideon), and as said above, the Aladdin story is barely focused on (as is the Emma story it's meant to link to, for that matter.)

Edited March 29, 2017 by Mathius

[Souris]

5 hours ago, Shanna Marie said:

As one of my friends put it, "I'm not watching a show about fairy tales to watch the main character be psychologically tortured as a punishment for sacrificing herself to save the town." Seriously, they turned a good-guy character into a villain-type entity who had to be stopped because of something good she did. 

Exactly. Any ratings issues with S5 weren't because of JMo, Emma or Captain Swan specifically. They were because the storyline was depressing as all get-out. Fans didn't want to see Emma as a villain. Fans didn't want to see Hook turned back into a villain. I saw more than a few hardcore CS fans really upset about that whole storyline because of how upsetting it was; it was non-stop angst.

This is (supposedly) a family show about hope and happy endings. It's a fairy tale show, which brings expectations of heroes prevailing over villains. Viewers have been catching on that the show isn't really about any of that. It's depressing and prioritizes villains over heroes. Nobody ever gets to be happy. There's always angst and death hanging over everybody. Nothing has been FUN about the show for ages. S5 went from Emma being a villain into the Underworld, for cripe's sake. That's just too dark for a lot of people at 8 p.m. on a Sunday who are expecting fairy tales.

I think hope finally ran out for viewers.

[KingOfHearts]

Quote

Nothing has been FUN about the show for ages.

I'm certain Merida was meant to be the "fun" part of 5A, and that's unbelievably sad.

[Shanna Marie]

9 minutes ago, Souris said:

Nothing has been FUN about the show for ages. S5 went from Emma being a villain into the Underworld, for cripe's sake. That's just too dark for a lot of people at 8 p.m. on a Sunday who are expecting fairy tales.

We spent 4A with Emma feeling like something was wrong with her and wondering if she should give up magic in order to protect the people she loves. Meanwhile, Hook had his heart ripped out and was being forced to do things he hated. In 4B, the arc was spent with Emma knowing Rumple wanted to turn her dark, and she learned that her parents had been so afraid of her turning out wrong that they gave her a pre-natal darkectomy, at the expense of another child. Then at the end of the season, she got turned into the Dark One while saving the town from Rumple's darkness run amok. She spent 5A as the Dark One, with the previous Dark Ones in her head, taunting and tempting her, unable to sleep, with her family acting worried about what would become of her. In the present, she was pretending to be a super-dark Dark One, her family treated her like she was a full-on villain, and it turned out she was desperately trying to find a way to save Hook, who was turned into a Dark One when he was mortally wounded, and the big culmination of the arc was her having to kill him. 5B was spent in the Underworld, with Hook being tortured, Emma and Hook having to be tested for their love, only to learn they were tricked. 6A was about Emma's impending doom, learning that being a Savior is somehow fatal (whatever happened to her hand shakes, anyway?), and being punished for making an offhand remark about sometimes wishing she weren't a Savior (that she took back a second later). Now 6B is about how Hook's past is tearing Emma and Hook apart.

But it's totally a show about hope, y'all.

[Mathius]

Agreed.  S1 through S3 (most of 2B aside) wasn't perfect, but it felt like a legitimately fun show about fairy tales and, yes, about hope.

Then things took a hard dark turn midway through 4A and it's just kept at it from there.  That, above all else, is what has been killing the ratings.

Edited March 29, 2017 by Mathius

[jhlipton]

6 hours ago, orza said:

Writers and show runners don't have nearly as much decision-making power to determine the direction of the show as some fans may think. The network is calling the shots in the background. The show runner's job is make the show the network wants.

I think it depends on how much clout the show runner has.  Dick Wolf, Chuck Lorre, Greg Berlanti and Shonda Rhimes almost certainly get less network interference than a show runner with a single average (or below average) rated show.