Board Thread:General Discussion/@comment-1916997-20150312220054/@comment-26159109-20150818182327

Eskaver wrote: Farerb wrote: Good television shows are planned. Maybe not how many seasons, but they should know what is their end game and what their characters are gowing to face and when, every good story need a structure. Honestly, I really like Once Upon A Time but at the same time I know that it is not good, one of the reasons is the fact that it isn't very planned. Every season feels like a cartoon episode where the things that the characters face and go through don't have any effect afterwards.

The biggest retcon that bothers me is the rules of the Dark Curse and how they change however it suits the plot. Not necessarily. Once is planned too. I beleive the writers know what their endgame will be, just not how many roadbumps they'll have and if that endgame changes. Once Upon a time does good with casting, costumes, and some other things. I actually like this way better than having episodic villains which would make it like a cartoon episode.

Once, long ago, I was reading online and people said Once had bad writing and was campy, but I didn't relly see any of that then. To me Season 1 was quite serious, season 2 was finding the balance of campy fun and seriousness. Season 3a pretty serious, but then went quite campy afterwards. But that is for another thread.

The rules of the Dark Curse weren't retconned as far as I know. Downplayed and avoided, yes, but not retconned. The first season is great, but I do see why people thought that way. Espacially how they lived in the real world without actually living in it and things that may seem very illogical (there's a thread about how could Henry find Emma) or how its tone was very uneven - one episode had Red turning into a werewolf and eating her boyfriend, when the previous episode had fully grown man hatching from an egg. Unfortunatly, the chose to stick with the latter.

I like having long arcs and not episodic structure, but I do think both are meaningless if they don't have any long effect on the characters. In the end, the characters are what matters. When you go back to a story is because you care about the characters and what happens to them. When the same thing happens to them over and over and they never change then it's not that thrilling and exciting story.