Once Upon a Time.

[sexonastick]

So I watched Once Upon a Time and … mostly enjoyed it?

I enjoyed it enough to keep watching it and to at least start the second season when it returns.

My thoughts, in list form. Including the negatives.

• Better Than: Smash. So are most things. This is not an actual achievement, but that's the only other new one hour from last year that I watched all of. I think?
  
  
• Worse Than: Lost, which it compares itself to a lot thematically and structurally. (Not to mention the MacCutcheon whiskey, Apollo candy bars, numbers, and Geronimo Jackson direct references that the show is littered with. I await the day someone says, "Don't tell me what I can't do." ... because I will clap and smile like an idiot.) However, it lacks the tension, or the pacing. Does not balance the two story lines anywhere near as well. In Storybrooke things advance more quickly than they ever did on the island and yet it always manages to end up back at status quo so that nothing ever really changes and every scene in Storybrooke starts to feel like just a stop-gap in between the good shit where there's actual potential for change. Even when an individual character is seen to change, there are so many of them that one person going through a metamorphosis in one episode appears to have little to no impact on any of the circumstances of what follows the week after. For a show with an overarching storyline and a complex backstory, it's incredibly episodic and stagnant.
  
  
• Better Than: Lost season 2, which is probably a positive since most of the writing staff who was involved with Lost come from its terrible second season. Also no one on this show is as annoying a character as Jack Shepard who I actively wanted to hit during most of my time spent watching Lost. Emma is a moron and Henry's a hilariously awful little shit, but they're still waaaay better than Jack. That's a plus.
  
  
• Bad: The awful green screen, holy shit. It is DISTRACTINGLY bad, at least for me. How do you come up with an idea for a show that relies so heavily on effects work and then botch it so horribly with such consistency? Either fix your god damn lighting in season two or stop your stylists from costuming everyone with fly-away hair that you are NOT keying effectively. Once or twice, I thought of Dragon Strike. That is not a thing you want on your expensive TV show, ABC.
  
  
• However: I like Snow and I like Charming, although David's a dense and dull moron. Mary Margaret is like a completely different character, but I like her too. (Though I guess she's gone now.) Emma is… an idiot, so I guess she takes after the earth version of her father. At least she's a well meaning idiot and if her expression would ever deviate from that look of slight befuddlement I'd probably eventually find her pretty endearing. Ruby is awesome in both variations, and so is her grandmother. They both should be on the show WAY more often. Grumpy is pretty cool, too.
  
  
• Some of the love stories feel really rushed and while that's common in television it's especially striking when juxtaposed directly against the above average chemistry between Snow and Charming. Minor complaint, I guess, but since love changing a person's life and very identity is like the main theme of the entire show, it'd be cool if it was slightly more believable even half the time.
  
  
• Henry is THE WORST, but has increasingly less screen time as the season progresses. It's almost like they know! Maybe they could do a repeat of Mad Men where the kid started out and REPLACE HIM WITH SOMEONE LESS PUNCHABLE. Say it's magic. He MAGICALLY turned into a person viewers could tolerate.
  
  
• Yes, yes. I do like Regina quite a bit. Lana Parrilla, Robert Carlyle, and Ginnifer Goodwin are the REASON to watch this show really. (Meghan Ory could be if she had, you know, screen time.)

In conclusion: lots of potential despite some glaring flaws, I hope Kristen Bauer is in season two, and I will watch literally every single episode Sarah Bolger is in, even if none of my complaints are addressed in the slightest.

And if all the Lost references could be said to mean that Storybrooke takes place in the same universe that Lost did -- sideways or otherwise -- then I insist that Juliet Burke make an appearance so that it can then become the GREATEST SHOW OF ALL TIME.