Magical Road Trip

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I saw the Once Upon a Time two-part finale on Wednesday the 18th, the day it was put up on netflix. I wrote down comments while I was watching but until today I didn’t get round to properly making them up into a coherent blog post.

This is the last blog post about Once Upon a Time – Season Five. I have blogged through the entire season, this is my 15th post. Writing 15 posts about 23 episodes is pretty good going. I’m too lazy to check the word count but considering I don’t think any of my posts are under 2k these days, and quite often they go up to 5k, that is a fair few words about what was the worst season of the show.

I love this show, I really do, it’s my favorite currently airing show. There is nothing else on TV (that I know about at least) that is remotely like it. However, that doesn’t mean it gets a complete pass. I call it how I see it, and the show itself and all the characters suffered through this season, no-one came out of it looking good.

I’m going to run through my comments on the finale and then I’ll do a series post-mortem, along with some hopes I have for season six.

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The 200th Edition

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I had this blog 16 months before I broke 100 posts. I said at the top of that one that I had tried to keep a blog before, and that none of them had breached a dozen posts before I abandoned it and eventually took it down out of embarrassment.

34 months later and I’ve reached 200 posts. It took me just over twice as long to double the number. However, the key point is that I did double it, I am still here and still writing posts. I’ve now had this blog over four years and I’ve written about 350,000 words over those 200 posts.

I can’t prove it, without a serious time investment, but I’m pretty sure the length of my posts has increased over the years. Another thing that has changed has been what I’ve blogged about. In my post – the 100th edition – I talked about what had changed over those 100 posts. It was a mixed bag of a post and I’m going to repeat that here.

What has changed over the last 100 posts?

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There is no justice in the world

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I haven’t blogged about Once Upon a Time for about a month. I write these posts, less to talk about the episodes and plot, and more about the characters and their motivations and interactions. It really is all about the characters.

When logic goes out the window and the comments start sounding like “it couldn’t possibly get worse … then it did” or “there is not enough headcanon in the world to explain that much fail” or “it can’t be worse than last week .. then seriously they cranked the stupidity up to eleven” etc. etc.

Watching the show recently has felt a little bit like slipping into an alternate reality. I’m watching characters say and do things that make zero sense, purely because the writers obviously decided they needed x or y to happen. I get the real world motivations but talk about breaking suspension of disbelief. If I’m thinking about the writers and the actors, rather than the show and the characters, then that is a big failure.

It’s fiction, it’s supposed to be immersive. It’s not supposed to make me scream at the TV because I’m so mad at the writers. Screaming is good only if it’s at characters, because that means I’m invested and it’s stirring emotion. I yelled at the TV when Young left Rush to die on the planet in Stargate: Universe because I was shocked – but I believed it! I believed that Young could do that and I have both hated Young and loved that show ever since. Talk about a defining moment.

Anyway, this post is going to be a catch-all for all my comments up to the finale, which I will get to see on Wednesday!

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Her Handsome Hero

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Considering this was a big Rumplestiltskin and Belle episode you’d think I’d have a lot to say. However, there wasn’t as much subtext this week. In a lot of respects it was “what you see, is what you get”, like finally all the disparate elements come together in a big conclusion.

It wasn’t obviously a big conclusion and nothing was really resolved but for the most part, everything just seemed clearer this week. Plus everything I said last week about Rumple, Belle, their respective motives and feelings all still applies. I’m not going to repeat myself. In fact I’m struggling with what to do aside from quoting large parts of the episode and going “I agree” because it was a bit like that.

So was the episode good?

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Living Well Is The Best Revenge

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I didn’t get to watch 5.16 – Our Decay until Friday evening. I’ve been busy.

Just like last week I wrote some notes to myself while I was watching the episode. I had to pause it a few times so I didn’t miss anything. I did think that maybe it would help me remember all the points I have. However, (edited to add) this morning I woke up having remembered something.

Wow this weeks episode was certainly awesome. Next weeks looks to be even more awesome! That’s kind of funny that I said that, given my friends opinion was that the episode was “meh” but then we have different favorite characters.

Anyway spoilers under the cut and all that jazz.

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I want to be a hero!

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Last week, the Once Upon a Time episode was Rumple-centric. This week, there was no Rumple at all. To get last week, the episode before it and the one after had Rumple as credit only. That kind of takes the shine of such an episode.

I half wrote this post while I was watching the episode. Just notes scribbled on my phone because I wasn’t sure I would have time otherwise. Fair warning, there’s no much ‘deep’ insight this week – lot more snark.

Seriously my main comment when the episode was finished was – “No Rumple again!” Which after last weeks cliffhanger, felt like a real letdown. It was akin to the two back-to-back episodes during 5A, where the first one revealed Hook was a dark one and the second was all about Merida and none of the main cast was even in it. Actually I think Zelena was in it, but she’s not exactly “one of the gang”.

So I suppose this episode wasn’t as bad as that. At least the main cast were all present, it was just after last weeks cliffhanger I expected (alright hoped) to see Rumple doing something. About the only really good about this episode was the ending – there was another cliffhanger and it was an interesting one.

On to the snark …

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Deal with the Devil

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I didn’t blog about Once Upon a Time last week. The episode was ok, Regina had some good lines but aside from that it wasn’t noteworthy in any fashion. Regina’s role was small and there was no Rumplestiltskin at all. The episode was Snow White centric and while I don’t dislike her, it holds no particular fascination for me. It was a filler episode and I guess that’s because they were saving all the awesome for this week.

This weeks episode was Rumple centric but Regina had some good development too. With my two favourites taking center stage, it was on to a winner even before we get to what actually happened. Was it actually a winner though? I don’t know, we all have our headcanon and then sometimes it’s hard to tell whether the tone of things has changed, my perspective has changed or if I’m trying to force my beliefs onto something.

Spoilers under the cut.

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Minipost – Spectre

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I saw Spectre last night. Before I watched it I wasn’t planning on writing a review. However, the movie was so awful I feel obliged to write a few words on the subject. I don’t usually write reviews that are purely negative because if I didn’t like anything about it, then I feel it’s not worth my time to bother.

However, Bond is something of an institution. Spectre made an awful lot of money. I checked on wiki, it cost 250 million to make and the box office returns were 880 million. Then there’s the advertising, the sponsorship, the DVD, the merchandise etc. it’s a very profitable franchise. I don’t believe that just because Bond is a licence to print money, means it has a free pass to be terrible.

When I was watching it didn’t feel like a Bond film. If it felt like anything, it felt like a parody of a Bond film. The movie was so disjointed, it was like a couple of dozen pieces had just been randomly stitched together. There was no coherency, there was no reason, nothing made sense and it felt hollow and fake.

Now I know Bond films are supposed to be ridiculous, they aren’t supposed to have deep characterization or meaningful plots. However, Spectre didn’t stack up even under those rules. The action scenes weren’t exciting, the car chase was more like a dance on wheels, the “Bond girl” seduction stretched even Bond believability. It was a long movie and I kept thinking it was going to be over, then it wasn’t and those “reveals” and “twists” weren’t worthy of being called that.

I haven’t seen all of the Bond films. Ok, I haven’t even seen most of them. I’ve seen all of the latest ones, from Golden Eye onwards, plus You Only Live Twice (Sean Connery) and that is probably it. Therefore I’m not really qualified to say Spectre was – The Worst James Bond film ever! However, I would say it is by far the worst one I’ve seen. It even beats Quantum of Solace and I’ve seen that a couple of times now and I still don’t understand who the bad guy was or what was going on.

Even leaving aside the fact it was a Bond film, it wasn’t even a decent action film, or thriller or whatever genre Bond is supposed to be. It was an utterly terrible movie and a real disappointment. If I’m thinking about the ‘Daniel Craig’ era of Bond. They said it was like a reboot of the franchise, bringing Bond back to reality.

It began with Casino Royale which was a solid entry. Then Quantum of Solace which was fairly awful and better best forgotten. Then there was Skyfall which started out incredibly strong, the first half of that movie was amazing, the villain was intelligent, it was all good and then it just degenerated into some very artistically shot scenes that didn’t make much sense. However, on the whole Skyfall was pretty good, it just fell a bit flat after the strong beginning.

Spectre just didn’t fit into anything. I didn’t actually buy the DVD, I borrowed it, so I’m grateful that I didn’t spend any money to see that film. It was so bad I considered stopping watching it after I was about 30 minutes in but I was sure it had to get better – it didn’t. I can’t even say I had two hours of “entertainment” out of it. I was just watching it incredulous that it could be that bad, sort of like watching it to see how bad it actually could get.

Definitely not recommended, do not waste your time. Hopefully the next Bond film will be an improvement, it certainly would struggle to do much worse.

Once Upon a Time – The 100th Edition

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Three months of waiting. Three long months between episodes. Seriously that hiatus is painful but it’s finally at an end. Last Sunday in the US the 100th episode of Once Upon a Time – Souls of the Departed aired. It was put up on netflix on Wednesday and I watched it that evening.

The 100th episode is a landmark occasion. It’s usually marked by something extra special and this was no different. They brought back a lot of old guest stars and there was a lot of callbacks to previous events. It was an episode for the fans and it wasn’t bad. However, it wasn’t that great either as much as it pains me to say that.

The episode itself wasn’t the problem – it’s the Underworld. I have such an issue with this storyline and I’m going to go into greater detail under the cut. Spoiler alert and all that jazz.

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Once Upon a Time Creators – Ask The Fans

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Recently on Twitter the creators of Once Upon a Time put up a fan survey by way of Yahoo TV. On a side note is yahoo still a thing? I thought that had gone the way of MySpace, oh wait no that was Geocities and maybe yahoo groups, I digress. Anyway, they said they wanted the answers emailed by Monday 29th February and they’d publish the best/most interesting.

I’m me so I don’t really dare to email but I found the questions interesting and thought I would make it the subject of a blog post. I love this show so much and part of me wants to email. I doubt that they will read the responses, I’m sure they will have thousands, but I do want to scream at them to be careful, to not wreck the wonderful show they made.

The last part of 5A, the conclusion to the Dark Swan arc, was very difficult to accept. I can usually rationalize away anything that they do, I can make the logic work. However, what happened was just so wrong in terms of who I believe the characters to be, that there was no excusing it unless they do something to address it on screen.

However, whatever is done, is unfortunately done in terms of 5B. That begins airing again, a week tomorrow, so nothing will change it’s course now. All I have are my hopes and dreams, and if necessary a steady supply of ‘fix-it fanfic’ as I have read some really good ones for different points in the past.

Anyway, the questions, they are seven of them.

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