[Abyss]

QuickTidal, on 30 January 2012 - 07:44 PM, said:

Last night's ep was kinda painful.....

That Mirror/Genii episode was beyond bad into outright stupidville.

Only the Ladybyss' masochistic enjoyment of the show is keeping me watching.

QuickTidal, on 13 February 2012 - 05:07 PM, said:

Huh, last night's Belle/Beast (Rumple) episode was much better than I thought it was going to be. ...Basically last night's episode got me back on board for the remainder of the season to see where this plays out to.

Oh god i hope i agree with you. The level of stupid in the previous ep was legendary... 'The brakes!' :headthump:

[QuickTidal]

Abyss, on 13 February 2012 - 05:30 PM, said:

Oh god i hope i agree with you. The level of stupid in the previous ep was legendary... 'The brakes!' :headthump:

the other fun thing in last nights ep was a girls night out between Emma, Snow, still-super-slutty Red Riding Hood, and Cinderella...which was simply fun because of the realization that Emma is essentially out clubbing/drinking with her mother. *snort*

[McLovin]

Did you catch the flower truck emblazoned with "Game of Thorns"? I LMAO'd at that.

This was probably my favorite ep so far.

[QuickTidal]

McLovin, on 14 February 2012 - 04:22 PM, said:

Did you catch the flower truck emblazoned with "Game of Thorns"? I LMAO'd at that.

This was probably my favorite ep so far.

Yeah, my GF actually noticed it first. A nice little nod.

Indeed, last night's ep was indeed one of the best (if not THE best) they've done so far. It was really firing on all pistons.

[acesn8s]

Finally caught up with all the episodes.

So, do you think the writer was hired Regina and is not actually a true stranger, or is there a 3rd player in town (Gold, Regina, and Writer).

That was not the Mermaid I was expecting, I was hoping to see Ursula in some modern guise. The Mary Margret/James (or is Charming's modern name Dave?) angle has hit the artificial (for plot purposes) awkward phase. I'm really tired of seeing them circle around and around. It's like the Sophia angle from the Walking Dead.

I love the Mr. Gold/Rumpelstiltskin story arcs. Best character on the show.

i didn't mind the Genie episode too much. I thought the idea of merging the Magic Mirror with the Genie was clever, but saw the set up as soon as the vipers were introduced. "Shouldn't hav made that wish." Loved it.

[McLovin]

Anyone else still watching?

I liked what they did with Red Riding Hood.

[QuickTidal]

McLovin, on 16 March 2012 - 12:56 PM, said:

Anyone else still watching?

I liked what they did with Red Riding Hood.

For me the Belle episode and the Red episode are the best two hours of television the show has produced in 15 episodes, the rest have ranged from decent to awful, and I don't think that bodes well for the show improving a lot. That said, it's still a phenomenon with consistent rating numbers each week, so people must still be watching and enjoying. I find more often than not that I can take it or leave it. If I have the choice between watching the latest ep of ONCE or catching up with DOWNTON ABBEY or ONE PIECE, then it is simply no contest as I will choose either of the latter shows.

I'd like to see them do more dark eps like Red's or Belle's as I truly feel that is where the niche for this show lays...I think they just need to realize it.

[Abyss]

backlogged on the DVR, can't say i'm feeling much drive to watch.

[Binder of Demons]

Abyss, on 16 March 2012 - 02:15 PM, said:

backlogged on the DVR, can't say i'm feeling much drive to watch.

PRetty much the same sentiment here. I thought it started out well with a good premise which gave plenty of scope for some interesting storytelling. But the episodes veered wildly as QT said, from only decent to awful (very soap opera-ish at times too). I have plenty of episodes to catch up on, and with the decline of several other shows, i may come back to this soon.

Funny how when this started out, I compared it to GRIMM, and yet the quality progression has gone in opposite directions. I though GRIMM looked cheap starting out, and would quickly devolve into a monster of the week variety. While it does still do the monster of the week (and still looks horribly cheap at times), they seem to have an idea of where they want to go, and pieces are being gradually being put in place for a larger story. Plus, while the story is obviously fantastical in nature, the various characters possess enough strengths/flaws and acceptable motivations/conflicts that you can actually root for them (more so than ONCE....).

For all of ONCE UPON A TIME's premise of "end the curse" giving us an obvious ending to aim towards, I couldn't muster enough enthusiasm to stick with the weekly grind, cos so many of the characters are just boring on screen.

I look forward to seeing what you make of the next episode or two QuickTidal to see if it's worth coming back to.

This post has been edited by Binder of Demons: 16 March 2012 - 03:57 PM

[acesn8s]

Caught up to Red's episode. I like the twists they put in. They really are slow playing the plots, but I don't mind all that much.

[QuickTidal]

Last night's episode could have been called "Mary Margaret does all the predictable things you expect her to and shows that she's not a good actor, while the mayor writes villain on her forehead".

I liked what they attempted to do, but it was FAR too predictable for my tastes and strangely written. Like Henry shows Emma that the mayor has a ring of keys on which is a skeleton key which might exonerate Mary Margaret from the planted evidence of her supposed complicity in Katherine's murder...and as they try the plain gold keys and they don't work...Henry actually says "Come on, just try ONE more. Try this one" and holds up the COMPLETELY DIFFERENT TARNISHED SILVER KEY WITH THE FUCKING SKULL IMPRINTED ON IT...sweet merciful crap WTF?!

Okay, smart villain 101:

A. If you have a skeleton key that will open all the doors in town....MAKE IT NON-DE SCRIPT and FFS don't for any reason imprint it with a SKULL! The facepalms...there are too many.

B. If you have a skeleton key that will open all the doors in town...KEEP IT ON YOUR PERSON OR HIDE IT VERY WELL...seriously, WTF?!

C. Did I mention it's got a skull on it and is on a ring with other totally blank normal keys? Fuck, you might as well write the word EVIDENCE or PROOF or even VILLAIN on the key.

I think I am a pretty easygoing TV watcher who will more often than not give the benefit of the doubt and suspend my disbelief in the notion of good fiction (Hell, I watch DOCTOR WHO, a show with more Time Travel plotholes and issues than any that have come before)...but some of the stuff they do on ONCE drives me absolutely batty!

This post has been edited by QuickTidal: 19 March 2012 - 02:23 PM

[Abyss]

QuickTidal, on 19 March 2012 - 02:19 PM, said:

Last night's episode ...C. Did I mention it's got a skull on it and is on a ring with other totally blank normal keys? Fuck, you might as well write the word EVIDENCE or PROOF or even VILLAIN on the key.
...

This.
The show's trend to playing down to the lowest common stupid viewer needs stupid story denominator has thrown me right out.
I don't need genius and subtlety in every show i watch, but ONCE eroded into such braindeadingly dumbassedness masquarading as plot and character development that i get irritated. It's rare that a show genuinely irritates me... bores, sure, fails to surprise ok, fine... but when the level of storytelling is so bad that i can prdict the entire hour after the first ten minutes, i'm out. Or nearly so. The last good episode was the Huntsman one, which had a few nice twists and Emma and Mayor Evil punching each other in the face. It's been downhill ever since.



- Abyss, has the tm registration on use of the terms "braindeadingly dumbassedness" btw...

[McLovin]

*starts guiltily*

What? I wasn't downloading pics of Robert Carlyle's rump. Not me, no sir.

[QuickTidal]

Well, if any of you were wondering if this show had any dignity or surprises up its sleeve?

Last night's episode finally revealed WHY the Queen hates Snow White and why she destroyed Fairytale land as revenge.

Spoiler

It was a case of misplaced anger at her mother.

You got that? She was pissed at her mother for killing her stable boy love...whom she was cheating on Snow's father the King with...little Snow White finds out, and attempts to help Regina not lose her mother's love tells the mother, who promptly kills the stable boy in response. So Regina's mother kills her true love, and she puts all the blame on a 6-year old kid who was trying to help her. So much blame that she destroys the world. Regina is now officially an unequivocal, irredeemable monster. No amount of anything can save her. Any character development in her favour won't...at this point she's a Bond villain. She will have to be killed for being unrepentantly evil. This ruins thew show simply because a show about characters and relationships that has been about "greys" to a certain extent so far...has just pushed a character into full-on villain territory. There's no coming back. And it's all her mothers fault. Regina's reaction is the largest teenage SNIT I've ever seen. I honestly didn't think the show could get worse.

Last nail...meet the coffin.

We're done here.

[Abyss]

I am months behind on this show and started catching up...

Aside... i would have just deleted the whole thing but the LadyByss has decided that she likes the show and i have dragged her through enough genre tv crap (she willingly watched the entire runs of THE EVENT, V and ALCATRAZ with me) that i have no moral high ground from which to object... and as mentioned elsethread, i think this is exactly the trend that keeps this show in business...

Am much as i heart Amy Acker and want to watch her on tv, the Grumpy/faerie romance ep made me want to stab myself in the eyes with a pixie stick. Predictable light fluffy stupid crap, notwithstanding the brilliance inherent in a never seen again Eighth Dwarf named 'Stealthy'.

But the Red Riding Ho episode was actually quite good. Really. The big bad wolf revelation was nicely done.

And i admittedly LOVED the way they used that for one epic scene in the following 'Snow White has lost her love' episode, which was otherwise watchable enough.

But i know worse things are to come... dammit.

[QuickTidal]

Since Mrs. QT is still into the show I watched it:

Spoiler

They basically saved all the decent stuff for this episode...so we had like 5 episodes of lackluster stuff so they could save it all up for the finale...the problem with that is the episode was TOO jammed with good stuff - Maleficent returning in both her human and dragon forms, Henry Dies (only sadly not really...boo, I wish that would have stuck), True Love's kiss makes not only Emma but the rest of Storybrooke remember who they are and what their lives were, Emma truly sees August as wooden (Pinocchio) finally, The Mad Hatter swears vengeance on Regina, frees Belle from mental institute (where Sidney has ended up now), tells her to make sure that Mr. Gold/Rumple KNOWS it was Regina who lied about her death and locked her up, Charming and Snow are reunited and realize all the nonsense that came before was exactly that and they love each other, Gold/Rumple and Belle are reunited...I'm sure the list goes on...but anyway my point can be exemplified in Belle and Rumple reuniting. What should have been a tear-jerking scene filled with various emotions and stuff..was REALLY rushed because they were jamming SO MUCH in an hours worth of TV. That's how all the good beats of the episode felt like....rushed. The writers would have benefited by spreading this stuff out over the last 4 or 5 episodes and given everything it's due to be revealed and thought about....but nope..."let's put EVERYTHING in the finale...because!" Anyways, there was some good stuff, and I wonder what the purple smoke/true love potion poured in the well will mean...are we going to fully return to fairytale land (THAT would be worth watching next season!) or does it just return magic to modern day Storybrooke? The finale was enough to make me see what happens next season...but I wouldn't be doing so if Mrs. QT wasn't into the show...since if we watch TV together, I am inevitably going to watch what she watches and I amke her watch LUTHER, DOCTOR WHO, MERLIN ect...so I can't really complain.

[Abyss]

The finale, and even the ep just before it, weren't bad at all. I resent having to sit through a number of just plain bad eps to get there, but they were totally watchable and even entetaining.

Carlyle still pwns this show and him kicking the crap outof Charming was reason enough to watch.

I was bummed that Emma didn't punch Regina full in the face at least once.

And Emma's fight v Malificent, while entertaining, had a somewhat lame fiishing move moment, although i'll forgive it for the scene where she chucks the sword and yanks out a pistol.

Overall the season was mediocre but (whether i want to or not) i'll be on board when it returns in Sept.

[McLovin]

I am finally caught up.

The finale (and the last couple eps leading up to it) was not bad, actually.

I am interested to see where they're going with this, now that

Spoiler

the curse is broken.

[QuickTidal]

Okay, so I waffled last season as the second half of it just began to aggravate me.

I watched the Season 2 premiere and realized why it aggravated me.

Now that magic has returned and everyone remembers who they are in Storybrooke, it aggravates me less. I spent time last season thinking "Jeezus will someone figure this shit out already!" And they just never did. It allowed for episode after episode where Regina gets to one up the other Fairytale land characters because she knows and they don't...and that was fucking annoying.

S2 however removes that feature. Everyone remembers and we can get good moments like when Regina asks who will look after Henry and Charming pipes up and says "Me.", because he's his grandfather. That was excellent. Regina can't lie anymore (nor can Rumple) at least not about who everyone is and where they came from. No longer will we have whole episodes about how Snow and Charming are whores for cheating ect. and no more manipulative mayor and sheriff standoffs. It's all essentially out on the table now and I think that is ENDLESSLY more interesting than last season.

So consider me cautiously optimistic.

Also, fave new thing on the show:

Spoiler

the fact that we are no longer flashing back to fairytale land....we are flashing present to it....Aurora (Sleeping Beauty) and Mulan are still there...and now Snow and Emma as well....and Regina thinks it's totally gone and it's not. I can't WAIT to see what develops there and what is left after the cataclysm. Pretty epic.

[Catherine]

Can hardly wait til epi ? 6 to learn who that sleazy Dr Whale is. Is it me or did Belle darken her hair from the season finale to the first episode this season?