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MC Fruit Stripe posted:They successfully executed the double turn - Emma is now a thieving, spying person out only for herself, while Regina is an innocent person who is tormented by a petty individual. Guess we're supposed to root for Regina now? Um, go Regina. Hooray. Oh yeah, Regina is good now. She only stalked Emma, used what she learned to intentionally enrage her, had Sidney offer her false aid, then whisper in her ear like a devil on her shoulder to try to push her too far, fake an assassination attempt when that didn't work, all so she could publicly humiliate her, gain leverage over her, and place Sidney in her confidences as a double agent. And Emma meanwhile is obviously evil, she actually got angry Regina after she leveled Henry's favorite place in the world to the ground, then let herself become convinced to, after repeatedly resisting the idea, spy on Regina because she was tricked into believing Regina embezzled thousands of dollars and cut her brake line. Black is now white, Up is now down.
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| # ? Jan 30, 2012 05:34 |
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| # ? May 24, 2013 16:03 |
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I've loved this show from day one... But that was just way too much cheese for me. I did not like this episode, despite the fact that I absolutely adore Giancarlo Esposito. What a shame. 
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| # ? Jan 30, 2012 08:16 |
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About halfway through the episode I was sure that Snow White was going to somehow foil the assassination plot and cause him to get trapped in the mirror, thus explaining what she did to earn Regina's hatred and offering a kind of explanation for Regina's generally coldheartedness. But I guess they're determined to keep that a secret for a while longer.
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| # ? Jan 30, 2012 09:04 |
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I'm pretty shocked to find out that this show actually exists, since I am a big fan of Fables. I'm trying to tip-toe around spoilers here, so I'll just ask briefly: How good is this, generally? I don't just mean in relation to Fables, but more regarding the general tone. I feel like it's real easy for a show like this to be a complete cornball melodrama - whereas Fables avoided this primarily by playing with different interpretations of the original tales/characters in a serious manner that made perfect sense for the setting.
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| # ? Jan 30, 2012 10:42 |
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Honestly? I don't consider it that good. I find it entertaining and generally interesting enough to keep me watching week to week, but I definitely wouldn't consider it top 10, 20, or even 30 material. It's not empirically bad, though -- just disappointing compared to my expectations more often than not. Also, as some have pointed out earlier in the thread, just appallingly horrid use of green screen effects almost all of the time. Anyway, without giving away any spoilers (but I'm sure you already know this much): the premise of this show is drastically different from Fables. In Once Upon a Time, the fairy tale characters have been trapped in the real world by a curse, and have no recollection of their past lives. Whereas in Fable (of course you already know this, so I'm stating it for those that don't), the fairy tale characters migrate into the real world knowingly, no memory loss involved. Overall, I like the show's premise and story, but the actual execution I find to be sub-par. I would say that a Fables adaptation would be preferable, except with the production values of this show, I don't think it would've done very well. Oh, and you're right about the melodrama -- it exists in droves on the show, though it's generally played to be over the top on purpose in fairy tale land. Though, as I delve further into the episodes, this show is actually growing on me. Right now, my favorite actors on the show by far are Robert Carlyle and...honorable mention goes to Lana Parrilla. 
KenjiKaizoku fucked around with this message at Jan 30, 2012 around 11:55 |
| # ? Jan 30, 2012 11:48 |
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This was definitely a clunky episode. The thing which pushed Emma over the edge was that a ruined, hazardous, clearly broken play structure was torn down? How EVIL!
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| # ? Jan 30, 2012 12:37 |
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Stabbey_the_Clown posted:This was definitely a clunky episode. The thing which pushed Emma over the edge was that a ruined, hazardous, clearly broken play structure was torn down? How EVIL! Yeah, you know it's bad when even I can't defend it.
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| # ? Jan 30, 2012 13:44 |
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Stabbey_the_Clown posted:This was definitely a clunky episode. The thing which pushed Emma over the edge was that a ruined, hazardous, clearly broken play structure was torn down? How EVIL! I think it was more the fact that rather than allow something that meant the world to her son to be repaired, Regina leveled it to the ground as the boy watched in horror.
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| # ? Jan 30, 2012 13:52 |
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VBane posted:I think it was more the fact that rather than allow something that meant the world to her son to be repaired, Regina leveled it to the ground as the boy watched in horror. Plus there's the fact that the book went missing (which turned out not to be Regina's fault). And instead of telling Henry "Don't worry, I'm gonna build you an awesome new playground," she basically just kept her mouth shut so she could entrap Emma. That's a pretty god damned lovely thing to do to someone. But at the same time, this show rests far too much on its archetypes; it expects people to just go with the idea that Regina, being the Evil Queen, has to be in the wrong here no matter what. We've seen her be straight-up evil in Fairy Tale land, but both Emma and Henry have no earthly reason to believe that she's anything more than a total bitch, aside from the fact that they can kind of smell it on her. However much I've defended it in the past, I have to agree that it's not really a strong dramatic motive. More than that, it just bothers me that Emma was so willfully dumb this episode. It was necessary, to be sure -- Emma couldn't keep charging Regina like a bull without heavy repercussions -- but this felt like a different kind of dumb. Cutting down Regina's apple tree, for instance, was "LOOK AT ALL THE FUCKS I DON'T GIVE" dumb. This was "Oh, now you suddenly hate Regina after supporting her for however many odd years? I'm not going to believe you at first, but I will after you bitch and moan about her for a few minutes!" dumb. I used to be a part of "clubs" in the AOL days, and we would try to infiltrate "rival" "clubs" using a similar strategy. Spoiler alert: It didn't loving work. Young teenagers and adolescents, who were dumb enough to think that AOL fanclubs were serious business, were still smart enough to see through that bullshit. How the gently caress am I supposed to respect Emma if she isn't?
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| # ? Jan 30, 2012 14:24 |
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DivisionPost posted:However much I've defended it in the past, I have to agree that it's not really a strong dramatic motive. I feel like if you wrote this show it would be a lot better. It doesn't suffer from a lack of scope, or a lack of thematic possibilities, or even a lack of good acting. You could draw on this well basically forever if you wanted to. I just feel, like I said before, there's a lack of clarity in their tone and themes. I always want to know how they make the sausage in writer's rooms, but here I am even more curious what they think the show is about and what their goals were when they started out. What show did they think they were making versus what we're seeing? What did they think the point was? I really want to know!
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| # ? Jan 30, 2012 14:30 |
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DivisionPost posted:Plus there's the fact that the book went missing (which turned out not to be Regina's fault). And instead of telling Henry "Don't worry, I'm gonna build you an awesome new playground," she basically just kept her mouth shut so she could entrap Emma. That's a pretty god damned lovely thing to do to someone. And how is the sheriff driving around in a car without airbags?! I liked seeing Gus, er Sidney dressed up as a genie with an obviously fake beard and mustache, that was enough to keep me entertained. KenjiKaizoku posted:Though, as I delve further into the episodes, this show is actually growing on me. Right now, my favorite actors on the show by far are Robert Carlyle and...honorable mention goes to Lana Parrilla.
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| # ? Jan 30, 2012 15:37 |
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One last thing to have in mind, I get the feeling the Fairy-Tale side of the story came first, then the Real-World was shaped to mirror it. So they needed a story where Regina blinded Emma with emotion, and tricked her into doing something amoral. Add that it had to heavily feature Sydney, who is a reporter, and it mostly writes itself. All they needed was something to piss off Emma that Regina could come out of looking good, and if it helped put the book in the strangers hands, all the better. Yeah, for all the defending I am doing, the real world storyline wasn't all that good, but if thats the price for an GREAT Fairy-Tale side of the story and getting some plot points accomplished, I am okay with it.
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| # ? Jan 30, 2012 17:48 |
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Sophia posted:I just feel, like I said before, there's a lack of clarity in their tone and themes. I always want to know how they make the sausage in writer's rooms, but here I am even more curious what they think the show is about and what their goals were when they started out. What show did they think they were making versus what we're seeing? What did they think the point was? I really want to know! Anyway, in summation I don't feel like Once Upon a Time has any idea where it'll be in two weeks - they just had this idea about fairy tale characters and they're writing whatever they want within that context.
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| # ? Jan 30, 2012 18:27 |
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I'm not sure how "morally ambiguous" Regina's supposed to be, she did just straight up murder Graham in cold blood. The characters might not know that, but we certainly do.
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| # ? Jan 30, 2012 18:37 |
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I wasn't compelled by either sides of the show this week. "I'm forever in your debt, hey wanna die?" And I normally like him, but Richard Schiff's delivery of his lines was just awful. Way too cheesy, even for the cheesiness that is supposed to infuse fairy tale land. Edit: Also, who the hell builds a playground out in the middle of the creepy woods? Why not build it close to town? Why would so many kids use a place you have to drive to, that's literally just a little play area, without facilities like bathrooms, water, etc? Tupping Liberty fucked around with this message at Jan 31, 2012 around 03:39 |
| # ? Jan 31, 2012 03:34 |
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Phylodox posted:I'm not sure how "morally ambiguous" Regina's supposed to be, she did just straight up murder Graham in cold blood. The characters might not know that, but we certainly do. I don't see her as morally ambiguous at all, and I think that's part of what's bugging me about the show. We get it, she's evil. She's so evil she evils evil. Like the other week, she's in the grocery store just so Mary Margaret can see the pregnancy test and Regina can say "I hope you'll be discreet. It's no one elses business." Because Mary Margaret has such a history of gossiping about town! No, she's only there to say to the audience "Hi, I'm an evil bitch." They really haven't shown her as nice about anything.
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| # ? Jan 31, 2012 13:58 |
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Tupping Liberty posted:Edit: Also, who the hell builds a playground out in the middle of the creepy woods? Why not build it close to town? Why would so many kids use a place you have to drive to, that's literally just a little play area, without facilities like bathrooms, water, etc? Distances in Storybrooke are like those in a soap opera. No apparent time is needed for people to get from one place to another so it's really difficult to gauge the size of the town or distances between various buildings.
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| # ? Jan 31, 2012 14:24 |
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chesh posted:I don't see her as morally ambiguous at all, and I think that's part of what's bugging me about the show. We get it, she's evil. She's so evil she evils evil. Like the other week, she's in the grocery store just so Mary Margaret can see the pregnancy test and Regina can say "I hope you'll be discreet. It's no one elses business." Because Mary Margaret has such a history of gossiping about town! No, she's only there to say to the audience "Hi, I'm an evil bitch." We still haven't seen her real origin story yet though. All we know is Snow White did something that made her the way she is. It seemed like it might be the conflict between her and the king. That was all just a ruse to get Sidney to kill the king though. Hopefully we'll get her full origin story before the end of the season.
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| # ? Jan 31, 2012 15:40 |
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Sophia posted:I feel like if you wrote this show it would be a lot better. Maybe, but you'd only get six episodes a year at most. I'm such a tinkerer.
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| # ? Jan 31, 2012 15:42 |
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DivisionPost posted:Maybe, but you'd only get six episodes a year at most. Coach Tinker Taylor
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| # ? Jan 31, 2012 18:34 |
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LesterGroans posted:Coach Tinker Taylor Yeah, let me know if you want a copy of The Honourable Schoolboy once I finally finish writing it. 
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| # ? Jan 31, 2012 19:10 |
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chesh posted:I don't see her as morally ambiguous at all, and I think that's part of what's bugging me about the show. We get it, she's evil. She's so evil she evils evil. Like the other week, she's in the grocery store just so Mary Margaret can see the pregnancy test and Regina can say "I hope you'll be discreet. It's no one elses business." Because Mary Margaret has such a history of gossiping about town! No, she's only there to say to the audience "Hi, I'm an evil bitch." I feel bad because while no, she wasn't necessarily uber nice, they did show her with some depth in the beginning, even a facsimilie of it. She was an overworked single mother whose son was acting out because he wasn't getting enough attention, nothing supernatural or evil about it. But slowly, like you said, in non fairytale land her only goal seems to be "Oh hai I'm evil!" I'm not asking for a kitshcy novel that's ~so edgy~ because hey guess what Snow White was the evil one and the poor Stepmother was just a victim all along, but I liked the middle ground route the show seemed to be taking. The Queen had motive, Snow White had motive, and it kind of transferred into NonFairyTale World. But now it's like you said. She's just evil to evil.
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| # ? Jan 31, 2012 19:54 |
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chesh posted:I don't see her as morally ambiguous at all, and I think that's part of what's bugging me about the show. We get it, she's evil. She's so evil she evils evil. Like the other week, she's in the grocery store just so Mary Margaret can see the pregnancy test and Regina can say "I hope you'll be discreet. It's no one elses business." Because Mary Margaret has such a history of gossiping about town! No, she's only there to say to the audience "Hi, I'm an evil bitch." But the problem is that we as the audience know that she is supposed to be evil because we see all the stuff she gets up to and we know the backstory, but in the world they inhabit no one has any reason to think that she is Evil with a capital E except for maybe Henry because of his magical book or whatever. Even Emma's "sometimes it works" magic lie detector ability only really knows that she apparently was lying when she said she loved Henry, which is not a harbinger of doom. And apparently the biggest proof of her evil ways in this world, from the show's perspective (before she killed the sheriff) was about Henry... who she's not at all evil to! So we're constantly being told "she's evil!!!!", and shown some evil things she does, but most of the time we're meant to apply that to her situation with Henry, in which she's not being evil in the least and is actually the one in the right. It's perplexing. So it might not be moral ambiguity so much as moral confusion for the audience.
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| # ? Jan 31, 2012 20:01 |
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We're going to find out that Regina was horribly abused as a child by the Good Witch in Storybook Land and feel really bad for her. Although I like the idea of tying her as a child to Rumpelstintz via her father and the spinning-straw-to-gold legend. Maybe the original barter with him cost Regina her "virtue" or something, turning her into a miserable, compassionate-less witch. Or she also has a true-born child out there who was taken from her, and she's just revisiting her pain on all those in her wake.
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| # ? Jan 31, 2012 20:26 |
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I think it's going to be something like Snow White did something (magical or not) to make sure her father could never truly love Queenie.
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| # ? Jan 31, 2012 20:40 |
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Sophia posted:(Henry) who she's not at all evil to! Uh.. Are we watching the same show? While she at first wasn't just 100% evil, she was also never 100% and certainly not 'not at all evil'. Because, I don't know, messing around with a kid's psychiatrist to do what she wants regardless of how it affects the child who trusts said psychiatrist completely is actually pretty hosed up. And I can't name them off the top of my head as that's the one that most sticks out, but haven't there been various times where it's been made abundantly clear that she'll absolutely put Henry's welfare in the backburner when it comes to her various pissing contests with Emma? Like that whole thing where she set it up so Emma would show up at just the right hour to say something in confidence to Regina in front of Henry that would break the child's heart? Doesn't matter how in the wrong Emma was, that was a hosed up thing to do to a lonely kid who thinks they just now found a friend. Now, Emma too will put the kid's welfare in the backburner when it comes to her pissing contest, but it's worse with Regina because- as she's said various times- she's Henry's mother. Emma is Henry's fantasy mom biological or not but Regina's been there his whole life, his one constant. That she would go out of her way various times to destroy his self esteem because he (a small child) is acting out is actually incredibly vindictive. quote:she's not being evil in the least and is actually the one in the right. Yeeeah, see above. LEFTENANT RIGHTIE fucked around with this message at Jan 31, 2012 around 21:10 |
| # ? Jan 31, 2012 21:01 |
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LEFTENANT RIGHTIE posted:I feel bad because while no, she wasn't necessarily uber nice, they did show her with some depth in the beginning, even a facsimilie of it. She was an overworked single mother whose son was acting out because he wasn't getting enough attention, nothing supernatural or evil about it. But slowly, like you said, in non fairytale land her only goal seems to be "Oh hai I'm evil!" I'm not asking for a kitshcy novel that's ~so edgy~ because hey guess what Snow White was the evil one and the poor Stepmother was just a victim all along, but I liked the middle ground route the show seemed to be taking. The Queen had motive, Snow White had motive, and it kind of transferred into NonFairyTale World. Yes! In the beginning she had some modicum of depth in the real world, but lately she exists solely to be a bitch.
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| # ? Feb 1, 2012 14:54 |
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I think the writer dude is Henry from the future. 
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| # ? Feb 1, 2012 16:07 |
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Stabbey_the_Clown posted:This was definitely a clunky episode. The thing which pushed Emma over the edge was that a ruined, hazardous, clearly broken play structure was torn down? How EVIL! THAT CASTLE WAS HENRY'S AND BLARGHGLE BLOO BLOO BLOO!!!  Huh, storm-damaged playground? Yeah, it kind of sucks but as an adult we all know that letting kids play on hazardous playsets is just not a good idea. Explaining that to Henry would have been a decent move rather than racing to confront Regina because RARGHGH SHE BAD! ME DEFEND MY BIOCHILD! Maybe Emma is just under a spell of being dumb as rocks this episode because she really didn't even *try* to figure out what the hell was being built in the woods and accepted Sydney's story without question. Good job Nancy Drew! Sophia posted:What show did they think they were making versus what we're seeing? What did they think the point was? I really want to know! Ugh. Why the hell am I watching a show on ABC again?
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| # ? Feb 1, 2012 17:20 |
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Mr. Snazz posted:I think the writer dude is Henry from the future.
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| # ? Feb 1, 2012 17:31 |
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MC Fruit Stripe posted:Know what I should do? Go back to the past and freak myself the gently caress out.
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| # ? Feb 1, 2012 19:06 |
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Soothing Vapors posted:It would also mean he went into the past to start macking on his birth mom Maybe he changed his name to Philip J Fry?
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| # ? Feb 1, 2012 19:10 |
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Mr. Snazz posted:I think the writer dude is Henry from the future. After this last ep I had that EXACT same notion and I really have no idea why. Peculiar, right?
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| # ? Feb 1, 2012 19:33 |
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So playing catch up with this show, and Grumpy is the second greatest character in this world (the first being Rumpelstiltskin). If nothing else, it's because he uttered one of Captain Kirk's greatest lines http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WLzJAebfEIg
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| # ? Feb 7, 2012 04:28 |
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Mr. Snazz posted:I think the writer dude is Henry from the future. Yes, because hitting on my birth mom in this instance is totally not creepy? I finally caught up on the last two episodes. The Grumpy episode was great, but the Man in the Mirror was awful. I hope the next one is much better.
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| # ? Feb 7, 2012 05:26 |
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This episode wins no matter what just for that van. Game of Thorns Florist? Awesome. Edit: Oh! Cinderella is back? Princesses' night out? ReEdits: And Belle is in her signature yellow ballgown. Oh, Gippetto's parent dolls are in the background :{ Chip reference?! Aaand her signature blue dress. No one fights like Gaston. No one resists like Gaston. No one gets distintegrated into a fine purple mist like Gaston. VBane fucked around with this message at Feb 13, 2012 around 01:24 |
| # ? Feb 13, 2012 01:06 |
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Snip a little off the end...
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| # ? Feb 13, 2012 01:22 |
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Is Rumplestilskin supposed to be the Beast too?
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| # ? Feb 13, 2012 01:31 |
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Was that Pocahontas in the background during the proposal scene? EDIT: Might have been Jasmine, too. Dark-haired woman in a blue necklace suits both, I guess. Phylodox fucked around with this message at Feb 13, 2012 around 02:40 |
| # ? Feb 13, 2012 01:43 |
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| # ? May 24, 2013 16:03 |
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Not so charming afterall. That was terribly unsmooth.
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| # ? Feb 13, 2012 01:43 |
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