Board Thread:General Discussion/@comment-4839682-20140819182912/@comment-5106672-20140821152027

Mmh, let's see…

1. Regina going back to evil. That's my top unwanted thing, whatever the circumstances. As much as I love her when she's evil, I do even more when she's downright fighting it. She's had the best character growth arc of the whole show and I would hate if they threw it away just to add more drama. Besides, her going back to evil for flimsy reasons was already done during the Cora arc (yeah, she wasn't fully good back then, but I think they kind of forced her back to evil the moment she didn't turn on her mother upon finding out what she did to Eva = how she manipulated everything in her life. No more of that, please).

2. Charming marital drama. I know how difficult it is to keep up the audeince's interest on two characters who already had their happy ending, since most of said interest comes from unresolved conflicts. But I honestly found most of the Charming's couple struggles in Season 3 (especially the first half) to be forced and plain uninteresting. Snow's pregnancy kind of gave them a new spark and I think that, if they don't exaggerate it, the baby arc might help that too, but I don't want any more couple dramas between them. I mean, you are the very epitome of True Love, aren't you, so we already know whatever doubt, drama, argument, anything will just pass through leavin you unscratched.

3. Wasted storylines. Season Two had plenty of them. The writers got a set up, they had a beautiful idea, they threw it away because they needed to twist the story to get to Neverland and almost never mentioned them again. We had Mr. Gold having to work hard to get Belle's memories back, except it was resolved with Mother Superior's deus ex machina memory potion, which felt less than satisfying. We had Belle having to deal with her actions as Lacey, which was never addressed at all because the Neverland arc got in the way. We had the Dark Snow arc which didn't get any more resolution than a few comforting words from David. So dear writers, please, if you get a storyline with so much potential, follow it through, don't just let it unfinished like that because you want to focus on other stuff.

4. Filler episodes. As usually OUAT has two levels of narration (present day and flashbacks), it is almost impossible to get an episode which is totally filler. At least one of the two halves will progress the story. But I hope they don't get lazy with the flashbacks like they did with Ariel and Medusa in Season 3a. Those were indeed filler, although the present day narration went forward. And so were those on The Evil Queen in Season 2. I hope they keep them as good as they were during Season 3b.

5. Babies. I mentioned the baby might add some interest in the Charmings, but I don't want the show to focus on the baby himself. It's dull and boring. If they use him carefull as they did in Season 3b, then it's okay, but I don't want Neal to be like Wyatt Halliwell was on Charmed, constantly the center of attention for about a season and a half. Just no.

6. F**ked up Rumbelle. I totally agree with those who said Belle needs to bitchslap Rumple and stand up to him at last. Things withstanding, Rumbelle has lots of potential for some constructive drama. It has room for a huge character developement, both individual and as a couple, so Belle forgiving Rumple for the umpteenth time, or Rumple binding her with a pregnancy, not only would be annoying, but also frustrating for the loads of potential things it would cut off.

7. Disposable characters. I agree with those who wrote it would be nice to see marginal characters truly supporting the main cast, but I really hope the writers will hold on to them for a little longer than they did last season. No more random Rapunzel or Ariel popping up just for the sake of driving the plot forward without actually giving any insight about them.