Board Thread:General Discussion/@comment-26261400-20161005224646/@comment-1916997-20161007193231

Hmcooper4 wrote: While I tend to agree that Emma's storyline may be drawing to a close, it would not be that hard to introduce new characters. Look at how LOST progressed, for example. You had essentially 4-5 core characters, and a host of supporting cast that breifly elevated to starring and then were dropped. Take a show that has had a longer run, like ER or Law & Order. In both cases, the final season had managed to turn the entire cast over at least once during the run of the series.

Honestly, if they were to start focusing less on Emma and her involvement, and focus more on some other character that they want to promote (say Zelena, or maybe someone brought over from the LoUS), they could shift the focus of the show to developing the new set of characters, maybe 1 or 2 at a time as they rotate them in and current chars out.

I think where that would cause a problem for Once is that characters like Regina and Emma, that have been here since the beginning, are fan favorites, so removing them from the equation in this fashion might effectively kill what is left of the viewership of the show. The other program model to follow would be from shows like NCIS, Law & Order, and Star Trek, where they spin off a new series from the main, each with a little bit of a different twist, but keeping the same general flavor of the original (with potential to have the different shows interact in some fashion). And that is how I would see any future for Once after the current series ends (whenever that occurs). Wonderland was conceptually correct, I think the time placement (Thursday at 7, rather than Sunday) is the primary reason that it didn't do as well as it was hoped. I think you have a point. A spinoff show, but at the same time as Once, could work, after Once has ended or is on hiatus (so like a show for the summer). Also, I think (besides the timeslot problem) the problem with Wonderland was also that it didn't have a connection to the main show, besides guest appearances from Robin, Cora, and a few others. Let me use another ABC show as an example: Grey's Anatomy. Grey's Anatomy had a sucessful spinoff that ran for quite a few seasons called Private Practice. However, Private Practice had a backdoor pilot on Grey's, and used one of the main cast members of Grey's as the main cast member on Private Practice. That way, people were already invested in the character. And Once has enough characters to do this. A great example would be to do an Oz spinoff. We already have characters like Zelena, Red, Dorothy, and Mulan that could all be main cast members for a show like that. They kind of already presented the idea of that last season. You simply need to add a new villain the heroes (and maybe even Zelena if she becomes semi-good) would need to face from one of the Oz books (like the Nome King), or even from a different story (how crazy would Dracula invades Oz be), and boom you have a spinoff with characters people are already invested in.