OUAT vs. Other Fairy Tales: Compare & Contrast

[KingOfHearts]

I tried reading a bit of the Fables comic. OUAT most definitely took inspiration from it. The basic premise is almost identical. While OUAT quarantines the fairy tale characters in Storybrooke, Fables is solely about them living in modern day America. It involves a lot of realism and the characters attempting to blend in with society. I haven't reach much of it, so I can't give an educated opinion, but it's interesting. Like I said, it's obvious A&E read it and watched BTVS in the same week.

At this point, I don't understand why OUAT takes place in the real world to begin with. They could do the same storylines in the Enchanted Forest. It really doesn't matter.

Edited January 24, 2017 by KingOfHearts

[KingOfHearts]

I'm beginning to lose interest in Buffy in S3. It's not terrible, I just don't care for where the story has gone. After everything that happened in the S2 finale, S3 has been a massive backtrack not unlike OUAT. Buffy lost everything she had, then immediately gained it all back within the span of a few episodes. It's like Storybrooke returning at the start of 3B. After all the trauma Buffy went through, she's just back doing her thing like nothing happened... well, except with Joyce and Angel. I think it's awkward for both of those characters. While it's fun to see Joyce react to Buffy's slayer life, it still feels strange that now her daughter is putting herself into mortal danger on a regular basis and she's aware of it. Angel... I just can't with him any more. Why is he still here? Doesn't he have a spinoff to run off to? I've had enough Buffy/Angel angst for a lifetime.

Faith and the Evil!Mayor plot don't really interest me. Faith is [insert foil for main character here] and Evil!Mayor is [insert Big Bad here].

That all being said, I loved Lover's Walk. I'm still enchanted by Spike. No matter what character you pair him with, he works so well off of them. I cracked up when he was telling Willow about his tragic love life, then again when Joyce was consoling him over tea. BTVS is just really good at creating satisfying moments. I loathed the Xander/Willow/Cordelia/Oz love rectangle. It exists because Xander is douche and Willow is stupid enough to keep falling for him. (Willow, I don't hate you, but when it comes to Xander, you're basically Belle.) I was so happy to see them all break up. Cordelia and Oz deserve better. Poor Cordy. I really felt sorry for her.

Emerald City has become my hiatus filler for now.

[Camera One]

I wonder if the latter half of Season 3 will grab you back.  I don't remember people being disappointed so early on.  And Faith seemed to be popular.

[Dianthus]

Lovers Walk has always been a special favorite of mine. Spike could often be counted on to take the piss out of whoever, and the scenes with Joyce were fantastic. Also, everyone else is (sorta) ok in the beginning, except Spike, and that's completely flipped by the end of it. He has a plan to go after Dru, and prove to her that he's not so soft ("Tie her up, torture her, until she likes me again.") after all.

The Mayor was one of my favorite villains. I like the juxtapositions in his character.

[KingOfHearts]

So, Buffy did the "Wish Realm" concept and it really worked. It helped that it was an actual alternate reality and there were no questions of, "Are these people real, or are they fake?" There was also more time spent developing the AU.

Edited January 28, 2017 by KingOfHearts

[Shanna Marie]

15 hours ago, KingOfHearts said:

I loathed the Xander/Willow/Cordelia/Oz love rectangle. It exists because Xander is douche and Willow is stupid enough to keep falling for him. (Willow, I don't hate you, but when it comes to Xander, you're basically Belle.) I was so happy to see them all break up. Cordelia and Oz deserve better. Poor Cordy. I really felt sorry for her.

I have to admit, when the initial "clothes fluke" happened, I cheered, but that was mostly because I overidentified with Willow, as the shy, brainy girl who was friends with a guy who didn't know she was a girl. I was crushed along with her when he started seeing Cordelia, since that felt like a huge betrayal, that instead of noticing her, her friend went with the girl who tormented her. The guy seeing her dressed up and being drawn to her was right out of all my teen fantasies. But then I hated how they handled the aftermath of it. There's really no reason for cheating in a high school dating relationship. Not that cheating is ever a good thing, but at least there's some practicality involved when leaving someone for another person requires legal and financial efforts. But when you're a teenager, there's nothing stopping you from ending one relationship to start another one if you change your mind or feelings. If you don't, then you're being a coward and adding insult to injury to keep stringing your significant other along while you pursue your whims. So, that whole thing pretty much ended any identification I had with Willow and made me start being a lot more sympathetic to Cordelia. And there's stuff set up here that could have turned into something interesting down the line but that they went in a different, and very bad, direction with (in that respect, Buffy does sometimes remind me of OUAT).

The thing that's interesting about season 3 is how many of the things that didn't work or weren't really addressed ended up moving over to the Angel spinoff and becoming amazing and interesting. If you don't like something or find it annoying in season 3 Buffy, you need to watch Angel because you'll likely end up liking what they do with it there (well, aside from Willow and Xander, but they aren't involved in Angel other than a brief cameo by Willow later in the run that manages to redeem even her, sort of).

[CCTC]

3 hours ago, Shanna Marie said:

The thing that's interesting about season 3 is how many of the things that didn't work or weren't really addressed ended up moving over to the Angel spinoff and becoming amazing and interesting.

I never liked Faith in season 3 Buffy, even in a love to hate sense -- I just hated her and did not find her that interesting.  I was not happy when I heard she was going to Angel, but they did a much better job with her story.  The actress might have improved her skills by then as well.

[KingOfHearts]

25 minutes ago, CCTC said:

I never liked Faith in season 3 Buffy, even in a love to hate sense -- I just hated her and did not find her that interesting.  I was not happy when I heard she was going to Angel, but they did a much better job with her story.  The actress might have improved her skills by then as well.

She seems like an overdone archetype to me. The show tries really hard to make her the opposite of Buffy. She reminds me of Lily on OUAT, even in her appearance. Granted, her character is more fleshed out and has more of her potential utilized. I don't hate her, but I don't like her either. Her storyline is better than Lily's by far, though.

Whenever A&E need ideas for new episodes, I think they just rewatch BTVS. There's uncanny similarities in almost every single episode. It's creepy.

Edited January 28, 2017 by KingOfHearts

[Camera One]

I hope you keep watching.  I am curious how you will react to each season.  Especially compared to how people in general reacted back then.

I liked "Angel", but there were things I didn't like about it too.  Then again, I was more of a casual fan of both "Buffy" and "Angel".  It was hard to force myself to read the discussion threads way back when, beyond the first page or two.  

Are you reading some archival message boards from back when the episodes first aired?  I usually do that when I watch an old show long after it has ended.  

Edited January 28, 2017 by Camera One

[KingOfHearts]

Quote

I hope you keep watching.  I am curious how you will react to each season. 

I'll be honest. I've been skipping some of the fillers and reaching the summaries instead. Unless an episode sounds interesting or there's plot movement, I pass it.

Quote

Are you reading some archival message boards from back when the episodes first aired?  I usually do that when I watch an old show long after it has ended.  

I have not, but that might be fun. I love reading the speculation and reviews for older episodes of OUAT. Some of our worst fears actually came true!

[Shanna Marie]

3 hours ago, CCTC said:

I never liked Faith in season 3 Buffy, even in a love to hate sense -- I just hated her and did not find her that interesting.  I was not happy when I heard she was going to Angel, but they did a much better job with her story.

In some respects, Faith was the Regina of Buffy: She was flamboyant and sassy, was treated like she was a victim even when she was the one doing wrong, she showed no real remorse for bad things she did, when someone tried to make her face consequences, they were vilified and prevented from doing so, and yet those who prevented her from being dealt with showed no sense of responsibility when she went on to do more bad things. Then she showed up on Angel and suddenly showed remorse and had to face consequences.

[KingOfHearts]

56 minutes ago, Shanna Marie said:

In some respects, Faith was the Regina of Buffy: She was flamboyant and sassy, was treated like she was a victim even when she was the one doing wrong, she showed no real remorse for bad things she did, when someone tried to make her face consequences, they were vilified and prevented from doing so, and yet those who prevented her from being dealt with showed no sense of responsibility when she went on to do more bad things. Then she showed up on Angel and suddenly showed remorse and had to face consequences.

I can definitely see this. I watched Bad Girls, and it didn't make much sense to me. First, Buffy started skipping school, stealing weapons, and putting policeman in danger because the plot needed her to. I initially understood why Buffy didn't want Faith to go to jail. However, after she learned repeatedly she didn't have any remorse, she still pulled for her. Even after she became a threat to other people. Then Giles said something like, "Oh, this kind of thing has happened before. It's just unfortunate casualties in a war." That's really not justification for covering up manslaughter. Faith was reckless and she shouldn't get special treatment for being troubled.

I disliked when the heroes started manipulating Faith to get her to confess. Giles lied about believing Buffy did it. Xander used his one night stand experience with her to get close to her. (At the cost of Willow's feelings, by the way.) This same kind of crap happened in OUAT with the Cricket Game test. Attempting to redeem people through deception is questionable at best.

Oh my gosh. I didn't even realize Anya was the Blind Witch.

Edited January 29, 2017 by KingOfHearts

[Guest]

I was watching the season 2 premiere of Magicians.  There was a scene that had to do with pop culture that happened in a magic realm.  That's all I'm saying because its worth watching unspoiled even if you aren't familiar with the show.  It was that funny in an incongruous melding of realms way.

It makes me wish that Once didn't actively avoid nearly every opportunity for the characters to feel out of place or experience wonder or bafflement at the real world or the various fairy tale worlds.

[andromeda331]

11 minutes ago, ParadoxLost said:

 It makes me wish that Once didn't actively avoid nearly every opportunity for the characters to feel out of place or experience wonder or bafflement at the real world or the various fairy tale worlds.

Me too. That was always one of my favorite parts of Once or any show where they have people from a different world or time experiencing life in the real world. I loved hearing Hook try to describe what cellphone is or ask about his Disney movie. Belle learning about burgers and Rumple explaining to her that condiments was this world's magic. Emma's reaction to things or Rumple at the airport.

[Camera One]

I just watched last night's "Emerald City".

If I didn't know better, I would have thought it was trying to incorporate Disney elements... from the Festival of Fools with masked festival-goers from "The Hunchback of Notre Dame", to the floating lanterns from "Tangled" to Dragon/Lion dance from "Mulan".  

Every time I hear modern music in a medieval setting, I think of Henry.  I blame "Once" for that.

Edited January 29, 2017 by Camera One

[KingOfHearts]

Quote

Every time I hear modern music in a medieval setting, I think of Henry.  I blame "Once" for that.

That usually annoys me, but I thought the Pink Floyd usage was a nice homage to Dark Side of the Rainbow. It actually meant something to the plot, too. Usually modern music doesn't fit the mood or setting, but Breathe did. (At least to me.)

Although, that iPod scene before with Lucas and Dorothy was so very Henry. Ugh.

Edited January 29, 2017 by KingOfHearts

[Camera One]

Yeah, apparently they paid a lot of money to use that song.

[KingOfHearts]

Just watched the episode Earshot on Buffy, written by Jane Espenson. It's the episode where Buffy begins hearing everyone's thoughts. Eventually, it becomes a game of misdirects, teenage suicide, finding a potential mass murderer. It was a strange juxtaposition to me. On one hand, it's supposed to be comedic. On the other, there's a heavy message about suicide and feeling lost among everyone else's thoughts. It was an over-complicated mess to me. The big twist is that Jonathan was trying to commit suicide, not kill everyone in the school. But, he was in a school clocktower with a sniper rifle, watching students below. That just made it really forced. Jane started her Once-style writing long ago.

Xander went off to get jello while a mass murderer was on the loose... his character is supposed to be charming?

[CCTC]

14 minutes ago, KingOfHearts said:

Just watched the episode Earshot on Buffy, written by Jane Espenson. It's the episode where Buffy begins hearing everyone's thoughts. Eventually, it becomes a game of misdirects, teenage suicide, finding a potential mass murderer. It was a strange juxtaposition to me. On one hand, it's supposed to be comedic. On the other, there's a heavy message about suicide and feeling lost among everyone else's thoughts. It was an over-complicated mess to me. The big twist is that Jonathan was trying to commit suicide, not kill everyone in the school. But, he was in a school clocktower with a sniper rifle, watching students below. That just made it really forced. Jane started her Once-style writing long ago.

Xander went off to get jello while a mass murderer was on the loose... his character is supposed to be charming?

Is that the episode where she hears everyone say something a bit different than what they are thinking, except for Cordy who says whatever snarky thought is on her mind?

I did not watch much past the high school years, but I think Xander gets even less "charming" the last few years of the show.

I have been slowly rewatching the show since last summer (mainly during heavy-rerun periods like the summer and the holidays).   I am probably a half a season behind you.  One thing that has stood out to me, is that Xander comes off much more unlikable the second time around.  Not sure if it is because I am older, or sine of the character's humor has not aged well.  I was thinking about continuing and watching the later seasons I missed the first time around, but I have a feeling I won't make it that far.

[Shanna Marie]

26 minutes ago, KingOfHearts said:

But, he was in a school clocktower with a sniper rifle, watching students below. That just made it really forced.

That's the infamous episode that wasn't aired until just before the following season because it was scheduled to run on the same week (maybe even the same day?) that the Columbine massacre happened, so it got pulled (along with the season 3 finale). I suspect it would be written very differently in the post-Columbine world, but since I went to the University of Texas, where there are still bullet holes around campus from a clocktower sniper incident that happened before I was born, I think I would have found it very uncomfortable, anyway. And how do you shoot yourself with a sniper rifle? So, yeah, forced attempt at making a social statement. Though I did love the stuff with everyone else thinking different things than what they were saying while Cordy said exactly what she thought.

I'm of the opinion that the season 2 finale was peak Buffy, and it slid downhill after that point, with the occasional moment of brilliance, and the slide coming faster after season 4. I'd definitely recommend picking up Angel starting at the end of Buffy season 3. That's where it fits, and it's amazing how many of the problems I was having with Buffy got fixed there. It had its own problems in later seasons, but they did some good work there.

We do see in both series that writers falling in love with their own characters to the detriment of the story is something that happens to even good writers. I think in season 3 we started getting big-time what some in the fandom referred to as "Willow-Sue." You notice that she suffers the fewest consequences from the fling with Xander. She only started dabbling in magic when she started hanging out with Buffy and Giles, but somehow turns out to be the Most Powerfulest Witch Ever. And there's other stuff, but I don't remember when in season 3 it started happening, so I won't say more because of spoilers. I got into the series because of that character, but by the end of the series, I hated her on Regina levels.

[KingOfHearts]

Quote

. And how do you shoot yourself with a sniper rifle? So, yeah, forced attempt at making a social statement. 

To me, it was setup to fool the audience into thinking he was the murderer, more than anything. OUAT actually goes a step further and doesn't try to create misdirects at all. It just throws contrived twists at you that doesn't have much setup.

I'm slowly warming up to Mayor Wilkins as a Big Bad. I enjoy the "your dad from the 50s" angle against the backdrop of demonic activity. It was makes me wonder about the alternative ways the writers could have taken with Hades on Once. He lacked a personality beyond being sadistic, and that made him much less memorable. He was basically Rumple of the Underworld, but less like a used cars salesman.

Edited January 30, 2017 by KingOfHearts

[Shanna Marie]

One negative trait common to Whedon's shows and OUAT is the cast bloat, often because of personal feelings of the executive producers rather than story reasons. Both Buffy and Angel were bad about having trouble sending off recurring characters who had run their course, especially if those characters were at all popular or if Joss had become friends with the actors. He also tended to take it personally and could get pretty spiteful if an actor wanted to leave. I've joked that if Firefly had lasted longer than half a season, they'd have had to set up bunk beds in the cargo hold for all the new characters that would have been added along the way. Though I think Joss was better about actually using the characters who were added. He didn't get excited about a guest character, make that character a regular, and then promptly get distracted by the next shiny new toy and totally forget to write for the new character. With him, the new character was more likely to take over the show.

On another note, I'm still rewatching the Wonderland spinoff, and it's like it came from totally different people. How involved were A&E in the day-to-day running of the show? Or were their names just on it because they came up with the original OUAT concept? I'm impressed by how well the plot arcs are structured so that every faction has a goal, and even if each faction doesn't know what the other faction's goals are, they're still working in opposition and taking steps toward their goals. There's Jafar, who needs control of Cyrus to complete his spell, so he needs Alice to make her wishes (a total contradiction to the way the mother show is now showing genie wishes working) and is trying to set obstacles in her way that will force her to make wishes. He's being immediately countered by Cyrus, who's playing mind games with him and tricking him into using obstacles that Cyrus knows Alice can deal with (it's a nice echo of Hook's absolute faith in Emma -- you could imagine him doing the same sort of thing if he were in a similar situation). Meanwhile, Alice wants to find Cyrus, and she has a plan that leads to her taking some kind of action in each episode, and even if she's thwarted, she comes up with a new plan and a new step along the way. She's not just running around in circles and reacting to Jafar until the last episode. In fact, at this point (I've just watched the third episode), she doesn't even know Jafar is involved. But she still has a positive goal -- to save Cyrus -- rather than a negative goal -- stop Jafar and the Red Queen. Then there's also the Red Queen and her side agenda, where she's sort of teamed up with Jafar but has something she wants, and Will and his side agenda, where he's teamed with Alice, but there's something he wants. There's progress toward everyone's goals, but there's also a lot of push-pull going on. The story feels like it's going somewhere. And I don't think it's just because it was a limited run. It would be possible to write any story arc this way.

[daxx]

Wasn't Jane running it? I seem to recall reading that.

[Curio]

Yeah, I think Jane was kind of the head writer of Wonderland along with possibly one other writer, and A&E were only involved in a "let's make sure this doesn't fall apart" mentor position. There's a Nerdist Writers podcast where Jane explains it, I'll see if I can dig it up.

[Camera One]

The main guy was someone new they brought in, Zack Estrin.  Jane was alternating between the "Once" and "Wonderland" writer rooms (since "Wonderland" had a different set of writers).   The pilot episode was written by A&E, Zack Estrin and Jane.   A&E wrote the winter finale with Zack Estrin, as well as the series finale, also with Zack Estrin.   So the pitching of the big ideas would definitely have involved A&E.  I don't think it's a surprise at all that they would be involved.  It's easier to write for a show in the first season, when the characters' backgrounds are still mysteries and they have room to grow as characters.  It's Season 2 onwards when they really falter.  

A&E clearly sees themselves as being in charge.  See this interview:

-------

AX: Who are the show runners on WONDERLAND?

HOROWITZ: We [Horowitz and Kitsis] are running both shows. What we have done is hired Zack Estrin to come help us out in WONDERLAND. He has been there from the beginning and created it with us, along with Jane Espenson, and Zack is enabling us to go back and forth between both shows.

EDWARD KITSIS: Two writers’ rooms, sort of side by side, the ONCE one and the WONDERLAND one.

HOROWITZ: In the same hallway, and we just go back and forth.

Edited February 4, 2017 by Camera One

[Shanna Marie]

19 hours ago, Camera One said:

It's easier to write for a show in the first season, when the characters' backgrounds are still mysteries and they have room to grow as characters.  It's Season 2 onwards when they really falter.  

But the difference between the shows that I'm seeing is structural, not dealing with character background and mystery. The mother show has never really managed a strong protagonist and antagonist with strong positive goals that create conflict. Even in season one, which had some of the strongest writing, they didn't do that. Emma didn't really have a goal other than holding the line against Regina. She didn't believe in the curse or Regina being truly evil on a fairy tale level, so she wasn't actually trying to bring down Regina or break the curse. Regina was just trying to hold the status quo, which isn't a positive goal. She wasn't even brought down by any actions by the protagonist, but rather her own screwup. The closest they've managed to do the opposing goals thing may have been in 2A when Cora and Hook wanted to get to Storybrooke and Emma and Snow wanted to get home but also wanted to stop Cora, and Cora was treating it like a zero-sum game. They sort of managed it in 3A, when the good guys wanted to save Henry and Pan needed to use Henry for his own purposes, but needed to win him over before the good guys found him (hmm, sounds a lot like the Wonderland arc, which probably was being written around the same time), but even there the good guys were mostly reacting to Pan. I don't think the original show has ever done anything as strong structurally as the Wonderland arc, with Alice having a goal that has nothing to do with Jafar and coming up with steps in her plan, while her plan is getting in the way of Jafar's plan, so he has to stop her, even as he has his own plan.

[Camera One]

I think that has more to do with the premise.  The parent show was more ambitious, with many more characters to juggle.  They had the whole amnesia setup and the Emma belief setup, and neither of those could be rid of right away.  "Wonderland" had 3 main protagonists and they basically decided on each character's purpose and goal right from the beginning (two of them being ultra simplistic... find Cyrus and get out of a cage), and those initial ideas would have been from the brains of A&E with the help of Zack and Jane.  The "Wonderland" structure is nothing new.  Tons of shows have that.  So I don't think we can just say A&E are incompetent and capable of nothing.  In the first half of "Wonderland", to me, it was just a bunch of reacting to Jafar.  And in the second half, Jafar kept losing one thing every episode.  I like "Wonderland" but to me, it's not a masterpiece work of writing.

Edited February 4, 2017 by Camera One

[Shanna Marie]

9 minutes ago, Camera One said:

I like "Wonderland" but to me, it's not a masterpiece work of writing.

Oh, it's definitely not a masterpiece, but it is different enough in execution from the mother show to strike me as odd. Season one of the main show was a lot more complicated and couldn't have used that structure, but several of their later arcs would have been a lot stronger if they'd been written more like Wonderland, like Neverland (like I said, basically the same story -- the good guys want to find Cyrus/Henry, but Jafar/Pan needs him to gain power and needs to hold off the good guys long enough to be able to get the power), Zelena, or the Underworld. Those should have been relatively straightforward and simple, lending themselves to that kind of focus and pacing, with the heroes getting to be proactive. And yet every time, they end up getting sidetracked and the good guys being totally ineffective until the last second, when they win with a deus ex machina that wasn't set up.

[KingOfHearts]

Wonderland is much more straight forward, I agree. It's more fun as an adventure-of-the-week show. It's not the grand soap opera of the ages OUAT tries to be.

[Shanna Marie]

Another comparison that's coming to mind is Grimm, which launched at the same time, and though I thought the two shows were apples and oranges, they got compared a lot because they both had fairy tale origins. I think Grimm held fairly steady in the ratings, though on a lower level than Once at its heyday, until drastically tanking last year. Now it's in its final season and only got a half season to wrap things up. With Once, it's been a more gradual unraveling, both in quality and in ratings, and most of it can be traced to the poor development/worldbuilding and the REC. With Grimm, I think they lost faith in their original format and concept and tried to get too ambitious, in a way that just cratered the show. Oddly enough, that had to do with a problem that has plagued Once, the inability to grasp the concept of male rape, only they took it even further over the top, with the man falling in love with the woman who raped him and who caused all kinds of horrible things to happen to his girlfriend. I know a lot of viewers have labeled the girlfriend as a Mary Sue, but I don't think that was ever accurate. The problem there was that they broke new ground in having the cop girlfriend actually be cool about what was going on and figure out a lot of it for herself, even while not being directly involved (she wasn't a monster, magical or anything like that, just reasonably clever and a veterinarian), but then they lost faith in that and did start tangling her up in the magic, gave her powers and launched her on a truly bizarre arc. I don't know if the writers got bored with their initial concept, were getting notes from the network, lost faith in what they were doing, or what, but the result looks like they deliberately imploded the show. I do think one issue was that there was an actress whose character made sense to be written out but they liked her personally and kept bringing her back, and they kept going back and forth on whether she was good or evil. She was introduced as a villain, but then found that the actress had good comic timing and a lot of charisma, so they switched her over, in spite of her having done truly awful things to the heroes (sound familiar? Though at least she has apologized to her victims).

[KingOfHearts]

I'm starting to see what y'all meant when you said BTVS starts to get weird in S4. The writers were obviously attempting to be ambitious with the character departures, the new college life, and the absence of Sunnydale High. From the get-go, the show seems to be aware that things have changed drastically in a risk way. The only time OUAT ever did any substantial changes was S2, after the curse broke. After that, the status quo barely shifted.

I'm not at all interested in Buffy's college adventures. It's very relateable, but again - it's like the world stops so we can deal with Buffy's personal issues. I understand she's the main character and she has undergo the most angst because of that fact, but it gets so tedious. We can't go save the world because Buffy has a bad case of the sads. Boohoo. Her issues always run in circles. Every arc we have to have two or three episodes devoted to her career choices/future plans. Her dilemmas do not change very much. She hasn't grown much as a character since she killed Angel in the S2 finale. (Speaking of which, I'm so thankful Angel is gone. I got so tired of them routinely breaking up and getting back together again.) Emma has started becoming like this on OUAT, and it's disappointing because I used to like both characters.

Whenever I see new characters, I wonder if people hated them or not. I didn't mind Wesley in S3, even though he annoyed the crap out of the people around him. I thought his flirting with Cordelia was hilarious. Maybe I'm easily entertained, but Harmony as a vampire is actually really funny to me. OUAT really needs more guest characters played for humor. (And I don't mean ones that use snarky one-liners that Regina could be saying instead.)

Vampires still confuse me. It was pretty established in S1/S2 that vampires couldn't properly show compassion or love toward humans. Up until Spike, vampires were nothing but bloodthirsty villains out to murder everything. (Except Angel, who had a soul.) Then Spike came along, and he was much more complete. He could love, he could cooperate with humans, and he had a three-dimensional personality. Now there's Harmony, and she isn't entirely a monster either. Vampires seem to be lifeless talking zombies, unless they're meant to chew scenery or form relationships with the main characters. I'm not saying Spike is a saint, but he can be much more cool-headed when he wants to be, unlike his brethren. (And yes, I'm fully aware of the Buffy/Spike romance that's supposed to come later.)

Edited February 5, 2017 by KingOfHearts

[Dianthus]

Spike is/was a very polarizing character on account of he's not your typical vamp. That's what I love about him (I'm drawn to outliers and misfits), but a vocal faction of the fandom thought he pretty much ruined the premise of the show. After all, if vamps can be redeemed, it's wrong to stake them. OTOH, I just see him as this odd exception. I went to a couple of JM's public appearances, and told him how much I enjoyed Spike's evolution over the course of the series, because you so rarely see TV characters change that dramatically.

Spike is no saint, and I wouldn't want that for him anyway, but the complications are what makes him interesting, IMO.

[Shanna Marie]

3 hours ago, KingOfHearts said:

I'm starting to see what y'all meant when you said BTVS starts to get weird in S4. The writers were obviously attempting to be ambitious with the character departures, the new college life, and the absence of Sunnydale High. From the get-go, the show seems to be aware that things have changed drastically in a risk way.

I kind of liked the college parts of early S4 and moving that "high school is hell" metaphor to college life (I've had that demon roommate). But then things kind of went off the rails, where it wasn't really about college anymore and random stuff got thrown in, and they didn't really know how to keep incorporating all the characters who, realistically, would have gone off in different directions. But if you're watching season 4, this is when you really need to pick up Angel, as well. They aired back-to-back, and there were a number of crossovers, not necessarily characters appearing, but story threads that picked up in both shows, or sometimes little Easter egg crossovers. The way it would fit is Buffy 4.1, then Angel 1.1, etc. Plus, you get to follow what happens next to Angel (who becomes dramatically more interesting when he gets away from Buffy), Cordelia, and later in the season, Wesley.

3 hours ago, KingOfHearts said:

Whenever I see new characters, I wonder if people hated them or not. I didn't mind Wesley in S3, even though he annoyed the crap out of the people around him. I thought his flirting with Cordelia was hilarious. Maybe I'm easily entertained, but Harmony as a vampire is actually really funny to me.

"Harmony has minions?" is one of the best moments in the series. I thoroughly enjoyed Wesley because he was so annoying, though when you look at it, he wasn't entirely wrong. He was a major victim of what Usenet started referring to as the Buffy Infallibility Clause, in which Buffy was right about all strategy and tactics, even when she was wrong, and when she was wrong, her wrongness was never acknowledged, and anyone who disagreed with her was wrong and possibly evil. But if they'd supported him in dealing with Faith, it would have prevented a lot of problems later, and he wasn't wrong about how it would save a lot of lives if they didn't cave when the Mayor had Willow as a hostage. They could have destroyed the Mayor then, and Wes was considered wrong and mean and bad for being willing to let Willow die (with some awkward meta there because the actors playing Wes and Willow ended up married to each other, and as far as I know are still married and have a couple of kids). All the graduation deaths, including Harmony, could have been prevented. But that show has the same issue as Once, where the extras' lives don't count, as long as the main cast are okay.

36 minutes ago, Dianthus said:

After all, if vamps can be redeemed, it's wrong to stake them.

It got even more confusing later, when there were semi-friendly vamps, like Harmony. And when they started having good demons who were their friends, so fighting demons became iffy, especially when we learned that demons were beings from other dimensions, so they were basically aliens. In the early seasons of Buffy, demons and vamps just had to die, and then later there were some who were friends, but then there were still no big moral qualms when it came to fight scenes.

[Dianthus]

I was so NOT thrilled to see Wes back on AtS, but he goes on to be a lot cooler on that show. I didn't really care for Anya at first, but she grew on me. There's a character in s7 I kinda liked at first, but hated by the end of it:

Spoiler

Kennedy

 

[Camera One]

I was driving and listening to the radio when the "Every fairy tale has a dark side..." ad came on.  Sheesh, now they're calling "Fifty Shades Darker" a fairy tale?  

[KingOfHearts]

12 hours ago, Camera One said:

I was driving and listening to the radio when the "Every fairy tale has a dark side..." ad came on.  Sheesh, now they're calling "Fifty Shades Darker" a fairy tale?  

Well, it does have Graham. His soul was sent to Erotic Romance Novel World.

[Guest]

4 hours ago, KingOfHearts said:

Well, it does have Graham. His soul was sent to Erotic Romance Novel World.

Twilight fanfic

[RulerofallIsurvey]

37 minutes ago, ParadoxLost said:

Twilight fanfic

Bad Twilight fanfic hell

[Camera One]

It's probably a different tier of the Underworld that Graham is in to punish him for betraying Regina.

[Spartan Girl]

I would so rather have Beauty and the Beast open on Valentine's Day instead of Fifty Shades Darker. Fairy tale my ass.

[Curio]

I recently had to sit through an episode of Sofia the First (don't judge, I was babysitting a seven-year-old), and it dawned on me how much the OUAT writers stole from this show's plot. In this particular episode, Sofia explored a secret passage in her castle which lead her to a secret library. Once she discovered the library, Sofia learned that she was the new guardian of the books, and it was her task to give the people in the books happy endings because all the books currently had sad endings. So her job was to grab a book and give that person a better ending than what they currently have.

Doesn't this all sound suspiciously familiar?

Henry explored the Sorcerer's mansion and discovered a secret library. Henry became the author and is in charge of finishing everyone's stories. Henry was inspired by the secret library to give him and Regina more motivation to finish Operation Dumbass. The Land of Untold Stories characters apparently all have sad endings (or middles?) in their books and it's Team Hero's job to give those people better endings. (I guess Emma and Hook were the only ones successful there.)

It's my new theory that A&E were watching the Disney Channel with their kids, saw this episode, and it inspired them to incorporate it into their own show. This episode apparently came out in October 2015, so the timeline actually matches up to when the writers would have been first brainstorming the Henry/Operation Mongoose/Secret Library/Author stuff. 

What's really sad is that Sofia the First did a way better job of explaining this entire concept than OUAT.

Edited February 7, 2017 by Curio

[KingOfHearts]

Quote

It's my new theory that A&E were watching the Disney Channel with their kids, saw this episode, and it inspired them to incorporate it into their own show. This episode apparently came out in October 2015, so the timeline actually matches up to when the writers would have been first brainstorming the Henry/Operation Mongoose/Secret Library/Author stuff. 

Watch them introduce Elena of Avalor in S7.

Quote

What's really sad is that Sofia the First did a way better job of explaining this entire concept than OUAT.

OUAT's concepts seem difficult to grasp until you watch other shows take them and make them easily accessible.

Edited February 7, 2017 by KingOfHearts

[Camera One]

They can truly turn the most simplistic concept (eg. Wish Realm) into the most convoluted and ambiguous mess of a concept that no one can grasp ("the world is real but the people are not!" "wishes screw things up", "once you wish it, the world is real", "it's not an alternate reality", "the wish realm had its own rules", "the wish realm was punishing Emma for the wish - which overrides biology", the wish realm created by EQ was "twisted", some things are the same and other things are different because reasons (I forgot how they explained this), etc.)

Edited February 7, 2017 by Camera One

[KingOfHearts]

54 minutes ago, Camera One said:

They can truly turn the most simplistic concept (eg. Wish Realm) into the most convoluted and ambiguous mess of a concept that no one can grasp ("the world is real but the people are not!" "wishes screw things up", "once you wish it, the world is real", "it's not an alternate reality", "the wish realm had its own rules", "the wish realm was punishing Emma for the wish - which overrides biology", the wish realm created by EQ was "twisted", some things are the same and other things are different because reasons (I forgot how they explained this), etc.)

Like I said upthread, Buffy did the same concept and even brought over one of the "wish" characters. (Instead of Robin it was Evil!Willow.) Interestingly, Willow didn't even want to kill her vampire self. She had a regard for life, even when it wasn't really life. (As people who become vampires are actually dead.) Meanwhile, Regina was crushing hearts of people she wasn't 100% certain weren't alive. Regina and Willow both had biases, though. Buffy et al wanted to kill Evil!Willow, and they didn't have any emotional connection to her because she wasn't their double. However, the whole thing was much easier to deal with because Evil!Willow was just a vampire and ended up getting staked anyway. The loose ends were tied up very neatly, as opposed to what happened on Once. (Or probably will happen.)

Buffy did bring it up that letting Evil!Willow loose meant that people in the Wish Realm would be in danger. More thought was put into that dilemma than in Rumple going around slaughtering "fake villages". 

Edited February 7, 2017 by KingOfHearts

[Writing Wrongs]

nm

Edited February 7, 2017 by Writing Wrongs

[tennisgurl]

On ‎2‎/‎4‎/‎2017 at 5:31 PM, KingOfHearts said:

Vampires still confuse me. It was pretty established in S1/S2 that vampires couldn't properly show compassion or love toward humans. Up until Spike, vampires were nothing but bloodthirsty villains out to murder everything. (Except Angel, who had a soul.) Then Spike came along, and he was much more complete.

Yeah, I always felt like the Buffyverse fell into some trouble as it went on when it came to its demons and vampires, especially vampires. It started out by saying, very plainly, that all demons are evil monsters automatically, and all vampires are basically corpses that are possessed by demons. They have their human memories, but nothing else of the original person exists. That made it ok for Buffy to hang around cemeteries, staking vampires as soon as they rose from the ground, and any demon she comes across, and there aren't any moral or ethical questions about her killing them. Then you meet Spike and Drusilla, who are more complex vampire characters, who are capable of love and compassion, even if its in a murderous, twisted way. Then, especially on Angel, its shown that demons are more like a species than a kind of morality judgement, and we meet some friendly demons (a few even join the main cast), as well as some vampires that are evil, but are also capable of working with humans, having real emotions, and can even feel love. Its not like Buffy could stop killing vampires and demons, because so many of them did kill tons of people and many of them really were just about killing, but it does raise some...questions. If Spike could eventually become redeemed, even without a soul, why not random vampire #5? Just because we know him better? I guess the writers wanted to create some more compelling supernatural characters, so they had to ignore making them all mindless killing machines in the beginning.

I wouldn't say its quite as bad as things get on Once, but there is a feeling of "who cares about the random masses, the characters whos names we know are all that matters!" kind of thing we get. "Who cares about those nameless villagers that were slaughtered, how does it affect characters whos actors are regulars?!?!".

[KingOfHearts]

Quick update on my Buffy watch.

I'm not a fan of Riley. There's just something about his nice-guy-ness that rubs me the wrong way. It's not that I don't trust him, I just don't see how he could be a serious contender for Buffy's love interest. He's a fill-in for Angel if anything. I thought his connections with the Initiative (*cough* Home Office *cough*) was contrived. It's funny how every single person Buffy interacts with turns out to be a demon or related to demons in some way. He reminds me of Robin in that his main trait is he's safe to date, but doesn't have much personality beyond that.

Anya's alright. She's the designated Seven of Nine archetype, but she bounces off of everyone else pretty well. I find it so ironic that Xander is dating a vengeance demon, since I find he objectifies women on a regular basis. I think Once is seriously lacking a character like her. A more blunt, tell-it-like-it-is character would fit nicely over the whimsy of everyone else. Emma used to fill that role, but that was dropped completely after 3B.

Spike reminds me so much of Zelena in 5A at this point - the captive bad guy who says snarky lines. You just know he'll betray everyone the first chance he gets, just like Zelena did.

Edited February 10, 2017 by KingOfHearts

[Camera One]

I liked Riley but I remember he was almost universally hated.  I did find Anya pretty entertaining.  Do you find the show's quality dropped once the protagonists graduated from high school?  

I finished watching Season 1 of "A Series of Unfortunate Events" and I'm impressed how faithful the series is to the books.  

[Shanna Marie]

I generally found that anyone dating Buffy became less interesting, and they got more interesting once they left her orbit. I think it may have had something to do with worry about keeping her strong and central, which meant her boyfriends got weakened. I thought Angel was extremely dull when he was on Buffy, but he became a lot more interesting when he got his own show. As for her other love interests, discussion of that will have to wait until later. I didn't mind Riley. I just felt like he belonged on an entirely different show. The whole Initiative thing never worked for me. It was trying to add science fiction to a fantasy series, and bringing in the military seldom helps a non-military story.

Meanwhile, I'm continuing with my Wonderland rewatch, and one thing I love about it is that they cliffhang on hope. The standard ending of an episode seems to be that we see something go horribly wrong for our heroes, and then there's a little closing bit in which something is starting to go right. Like in the one I watched this week, the Jafar backstory one, we end with Will turned to stone and Alice having used a wish, and she's huddled up in despair. Cyrus was making a knife out of a bone, and the guard took it away from him and threw it into the pit. But then the last scene is of Cyrus pulling the other half of the wishbone out of his pocket and showing that the two halves would try to get together, and he started to be able to open his cell. The whole thing that had seemed like a loss was actually his plan all along, and it was a wonderful note to end on. In contrast, the original show now tends to cliffhang on doom and gloom, in spite of all the talk about hope.

[KingOfHearts]

Quote

  Do you find the show's quality dropped once the protagonists graduated from high school?  

I don't know if it's gotten worse, per se. It's sort of like OUAT after 3A. It's the same characters and similar plots, but the overall feel is different. It's like a whole new show almost. Sunnydale High kept things tighter and centralized. Now everyone lives off in their own little world and their experiences are less common with each other. You can tell the writers are struggling to keep everyone together while trying to explore new territory. I haven't seen it yet, but I could see it having the same issue OUAT has, with all the characters functioning on separate plot threads.

Quote

 The whole Initiative thing never worked for me. It was trying to add science fiction to a fantasy series, and bringing in the military seldom helps a non-military story.

The Initiative is contrived. It doesn't really fit into the universe of the first three seasons. At least with the Mayor, it had setup and filled in some of the worldbuilding blanks. The Initiative just doesn't need to exist. Even with all the potential magic baddies out there, we're stuck with an inept government agency with dubious intentions. And yeah, it's sort of a misdirect because Adam is the real villain. I just got to him so I don't have an opinion of him yet. I actually think the Home Office on OUAT had more going for it. It was grayer and brought up issues that the show had hinted at in the past. But the Initiative is just doing a poorer job of Buffy's duties. Organizations fighting off supernatural beings already existed in the form of the Watchers' Council. The Initiative is just not interesting.

One thing the Initiative and Home Office do have in common is their existences are bent on twists. Ooo August knew Tamara! Ooo Prof. Walsh is their leader!

Edited February 10, 2017 by KingOfHearts