Once Upon A Time: I Was Relieved There Was No New Episode, This Week
I don’t think that’s a good thing. The problem is most of the pleasure I’d gotten from watching this show has pretty much ebbed away to be replaced by increasing disgust and discontent at how this show has become nothing but a love letter to the Charming family. I’d hoped these former LOST writers would have learned from the mistakes made on that show and not do them on this show. Unfortunately, they’ve just multiplied them times 4 and instead of trying to make the show all about one unappealing character played by an unappealing actor they’re making this show all about for unappealing characters played by four unappealing actors.
At least with Matthew Fox you had the Jack faces to look forward to. There’s nothing to look forward to with Josh Dallas’ one-note performances. Of all The Charmings, his character is by far the worst one. Watching him sitting his carcass in the Sheriff’s chair when he has no right to even be there makes one have flashbacks of Barney Fife, especially when the fool starts waving a gun around. He even goes off on people the way Fife used to. The way Mommy and Daddy Charming think when Emma leaves town that makes them the new sheriff in town and go around acting like they’re sheriff is ridiculous. You didn’t see Aunt Bea and Opie strapping on a gun and strutting around Mayberry acting like they were sheriff every time Andy Taylor stepped out of the office. The show would vastly improve if Poppa Charming was given a permanent dirt nap or put back into a permanent coma.
The above mentioned example is just one example of the ridiculous way these characters are written. Equally ridiculous is how 95% of the characters got turned into Charming butt lickers once the curse was over. Ruby had started to emerge as an interesting character until she dropped to all fours and paid homage to Daddy Charming’s backside. At least on LOST when the Jack crap got pretty deep there were still a lot of interesting characters to make the show worth watching who were given stories of their own. With Once Upon A Time there are two characters to try and counterbalance the Charming stench and to a degree they’ve been pretty marginalized this season.
Rump manipulated everyone and everything to create the curse so he could come to Storybrooke and find his son. Aside from one brief scene between Rump and Bae, Rump has pretty much been completely pushed out of his own story. It’s become all about Emma and Henry. This is exactly why I was so adamantly opposed to Neal being Bae. I didn’t want any of the Charming stench on this story. I wanted a story that was Charming-free that could counteract from their entire takeover of the show. Now it’s pretty much become Rump-free.
Another story that seemed to have some promise is Cora coming to Storybrooke. Instead of Cora wreaking havoc on all of Storybrooke and Regina and Rump having to team up to stop her, Cora was quickly dispatched when Snow White manipulated Regina into killing her own mother because she didn’t have the guts to do it, herself. What made it so tragic was after Cora’s flashback story there was plenty of story to be explored between Rump and Cora in the present, but the writers couldn’t have that. That would take focus off their beloved Charmings.
Now Cora’s story has become all about Snow White, who is sitting around throwing a giant pity party for herself and whining because she put a black spot on her pure white little heart. Regina was the one that was victimized and tricked into killing her own mother, and if she’s already gotten beyond it then so should the one who victimized and manipulated her. I mean, Regina is hardly the first person good old Snow White has done the manipulation number on.
What about Graham? Who sits down and writes some noble little letter that you hope will convince the person chasing you to not murder you once he reads it while running for your life? Graham bought the whole thing hook, line and sinker. Did Snow White give one second of thought to what would happen to Graham for letting her go? Heck no.
She pulled the same thing on Red when she used Red killing Peter and proclaiming how she stood by her so she owed her, to manipulate Red into taking her to Rump for the potion so she could forget all about Charming. This chick is a born and bred manipulator, and I think she always had that black spot on her heart. Look at what a vile snot she was as a child until Mommy Dearest whispered a few words in her ear and then dropped dead on the spot.
Even the side story of Greg Mendell being in town will ultimately be made all about The Charmings. You can already see it via Neal’s girlfriend, Tamara. It’s like these writers are so obsessed with The Charmings they can’t allow any story to not have their stench on it. Look at Jefferson and his daughter; they got together because of Henry. I’m sure we’ll never see anymore of Aurora and Mulan trying to find a way to revive Phillip. That story would be free of the Charming stench.
These writers don’t get their Charming obsession is destroying this show. It wouldn’t be so bad if all the Charmings weren’t so one-dimensional. They’re just not interesting. Unfortunately, the complex characters either get marginalized like Rump and Regina, get killed off like Cora or just disappear like King Charlie Widmore, Jefferson and Dr. Whale. One of the best episodes this season, which was free of Charming stench, was the revelation that Whale was actually Victor Frankenstein. It was a true game changer, but Whale has pretty much vanished from Storybrooke since then.
Maybe when all is said and done the Once Upon A Time writers can pen a book of how they had an enormous hit show on their hands and ruined it by their obsession for four very dull and bland characters. It could be a what not to do if you’re ever in this situation yourself type of book.
It’s really amazing in a not very good way how a show that was an overnight success has gotten sandbagged by its own writers’ insane belief that in the vast array of fairytale stories Snow White was somehow the most important story of them all. I’m sorry, but the tale isn’t even all that unique. In Sleeping Beauty Phillip also awoke Aurora with true love’s kiss. The only difference is Aurora hadn’t been living in the woods with seven men.
Cinderella could have just as easily replaced Snow White in the story. Rump could have wanted her first born child because he knew it would be the child who would break the curse. He could have sent it away in a wardrobe he got Gepetto to make in exchange for turning Pinocchio into a real live boy. The actor who played Prince Thomas seemed to have a lot more charisma and acting talent than Josh Dallas has. And bonus points for being a real prince and not a pretender to the throne.
There would have been more to play with what with Cinderella’s evil stepmother and two stepsisters. Cora could have been the evil stepmother and Regina one of the wicked stepsisters. And Prince Thomas’ father could have been plotting against the couple, as well. I’m sure he was hardly thrilled about his son marrying a peasant, and then said peasant signed a contract with Rump to give him his firstborn grandchild. He’d have a lot of motivation there to try and sandbag this relationship.
See how easily Snow White and Fake Prince Charming could be replaced in this story? They’re not the be all and end all of anything. Now if the writers could only get that basic fact through their thick skulls and stop driving this show into the ground with their Charming obsession before they end up getting the show cancelled.
By the way, I don’t believe the writer’s claim that they’d had the idea for this show for years and have it all planned out. I still think they ripped the idea for the show off from the movie, Enchanted. It’s way too similar to this show and it was made before this show ever happened.
