Board Thread:General Discussion/@comment-26159109-20151206093403/@comment-25926288-20151206160251

Arctucrus wrote: Eskaver wrote: I do agree that Stephen Lord's performance is underrated. People want young and hot Peter Pan back, but I rather Stephen Lord. He had little character quirks and stuff which made it show how Rumple became who he was.

I'd say that SftDV was good, especially best of 4b, which I think many people can agree.

My overrated episode is not shocking. The Captain Swan adventures Two-parter. It had no real ramifications and everyone knows I don't particularly like Hook and it led into the worst thing to happen to Once since shoddy writing. Selling out.

Underrated: Well, I love all episodes, big or small, but I'll try to list something different. I'll say Dreamy. Or even Price of Gold. These were perfect episodes to have when diverging from the core cast, but even still they continue to develop the core cast.

I'd go even further and say that season 2 was underrated. Season 2, to me, is better than every season following it, even the Greg and Tamara stuff. I never fully understoof the Greg and Tamara hate, because they added an extra focal point and I only saw them as terrible when they were written off so swiftly. Season 2 may have not been the best, but it had a better sense of adventure and actual conflicts that weren't only central to the main casta nd those character plots weren't dropped like they are now. I mean even David and Belle were better off in season 2. And Snow too. I couldn't agree more about Season 2. Season 2, to me, made the most sense out of all the seasons. The plot was smoothed out, it flowed, everything made sense and followed -- unlike current seasons where (unlike Season 2's well-paced, leisurely stroll) we rush everything to the end, then there's an abrupt stop, then we rush everything to the end again, then there's an abrupt stop, etc.

I prefer the old format. :| Yeah, even with the random two week breaks and stuff, it was still superior. I'll give a quick example, to not consume the thread.

Season 5a has set up things in this order:

501: Emma is falling into Darkness. What happened to everyone? What is Merida's purpose?

Then through the remaining episodes, Regina, Snow, Belle, and  Robin get little to no character development. Snow and David play actively inactive parts into the plot. They don;t look like they even are trying to help Emma. They look terrible. Remeber when we thought David Nolan was terrible to MM during that murder investigation. Well, it's a whole lot better than the people we have now.

Merida and the "SB gang of dwarves and Granny' have really amounted to distraction or nothing at all.

Then there is the typical Once shift. The first few episodes build up to Plan A, then it's filler, then it builds up to randomly added Plan B, filler, then it rushes everything it should have done into the preceding episodes or a few moments in the half season. (But to be honest, every season of Once did this, but at least the first two seasons had length to them.)

In season 2, the core cast were always important, the secondary cast felt important, even the background people felt relevant. Then they stopped doing organic character development to rush plots. That all ended in season 3a.