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Super busy day with a crazy schedule at work because of testing. Actually lost it today... at least a little bit, like a pot boiling over. Long story, which sounds pretty petty, but a woman at work has taken it on herself to be 'organizing' all the tribute stuff, which would be lovely, except that when he was still around she never listened to what we were constantly telling her were his needs, so... the hypocrisy of that winds me up. Still, it's probably only herway of dealing with the loss so, shouldn't I be tolerant? After work was better. Glad that the dog's paw is healing well, and took them for a good run in the pen, the only worry there was the muddiness of paws coming in. When the rain finally dries up I'm going to have to get a carpet cleaner (bigger than the spot cleaner I have) and just give the whole thing a good clean. Then I got to read an amazing Once fic, but that's not all! I also got a preview of an awesome SGA fic - an AU where Michael gets to stay... I want more so badly I can almost taste it! It was just the uplift that I needed.
Before I start here are four disclaimers:
1 - This post contains spoilers for Season's six and seven of Once Upon A Time.
2 - I am as Rumbelle as they come.
3 - This is a kneejerk reaction.
4 - Knowing how the showrunners like to operate, I am aware that it's entirely possible that they want us to have this reaction.
That said...
I don't like being played with... It's a cheap and dirty trick that the people that run the show have pulled with all and sundry time and time again, but because of my 'investment' in ABC/Disney's Once Upon A Time, I can't help but fall for it no matter how hard I try to do otherwise. I know how they operate. They post sufficient spoilers, sneak peeks and scripteases to lead fans down the garden path; to think one thing when in fact something else entirely is going to happen, and they think they are clever to do so.
Sure it stirs things up. Sure it kicks the 'free publicity' of social media into high gear with one group of fans or another Tweeting and Facebooking up a storm - and maybe that works. Maybe we'll see Friday's ratings climb and soar - and gods know they need to, because there's been a decline even in the first three episodes of what has been hailed as a requel that would bring new life to a show that ended a sixth season with falling numbers of viewers. Fan were maybe put off by the very manipulative behavior on the part of the shows execs that they're still engaging in today. That's very cynical, but I did say this was a kneejerk reaction to the publicity materials released today.
We were promised, as we marched fearfully toward the seventh season requel, that no characters would see the Happy Endings (Or Happy Ever Afters, if you prefer) that they achieved at the end of the sixth season destroyed. So we began the new season already crying foul, because three of our main characters included two who were previously living HEA lives with their spouses, who now appeared to be separated from said spouses by the new curse. We don't know much about what's going on, and we are told to give it time, that time would be the key, (presumably to figuring out the 'truth'), and boy does that ever seem to be the case with Rumbelle.
(Here come the spoilers - you were warned!)
So... in episode two we found out that - yay - actually Captain Swan's HEA is safe. The Hook in Hyperion Heights is not the real Killian after all, but is Wish Hook de-aged and de-bloated by means of some magical shenanigans. (And if you detect a certain degree of dry irony in that, well, sorry/not sorry). Maybe they're going to keep their word after all.... and here begins the lulling into a sense of security that may or may not prove false.
Another episode goes by and we're presented with a whole bunch of other questions and intrigue to play with in order to try and figure out what's really going on, who's who and what's what... and all the while we Rumbeller's are patiently (not really) waiting for episode four to come around, to find out how fare our Belle and Rumple, and try to figure out What-The-Fairygodmother the new character Alice/Tilley has to do our Rumbelle.
And then THIS:
Immediate tailspin!
They promised us, "No Happy Endings were harmed in the making of this season." well what the Henry Mills is that? Belle growing old and dying, leaving Rumple all alone and grieving for his One True Love - the one defense he has against being entirely subsumed... no CONsumed by the darkness - for all eternity (idiot)? How in the name of everything holy is that not upsetting someone's Happily Ever After? That's the thing when one half of a couple is immortal and the other half isn't. Isn't that what started this whole mess of 'Dark One,' in the first place - Nimue's desire to become immortal and stay with her beloved Merlin forever and always?
Okay, so then you settle down and start running through all the maybes, and buts and ands - and butts you want to kick if the maybe's turn out to be false hope after all - but you do it to stop yourself from losing hope and faith entirely that for once... for once in the history of the entire run of the show that Rumbelle is not going to be screwed over... again! You create scenarios, have thoughts, put pieces together from what few things you already know, have already seen, and twist and stretch and squeeze out like blood from excalibur's stone from all the things you don't know, to convince yourself that they're not really going to let that happen. They wouldn't - would they? They promised!
The tweets roll in, and suprisingly (because it's only Tuesday after all) once from RC himself - but the cynical side of you asks, "was he told he had to tweet?" but you convince yourself not, because you've heard him say ('say' that is, but not with your own ears), that episode four is lovely, and romantic, and honestly the best Rumbelle episode since Skin Deep, better than that, even. And you trust him. And EdR Tweets with pictures of her wig test, and retweets the article (http://www.tvguide.com/news/once-upon-a-time-first-look-photos-rumbelle-happy-ending/) - but was she told to? She'd wanted to stay after all and they wouldn't let her because they didn't need her - they took the story in a different direction and... and... and...
And then you start to feel like you're being played with... if you didn't already - and then you start to wonder if time travel is an option, and you really don't have to wait for three more days to find out if you're going to have your heart broken, crushed and mangled, like you fear you're really going to after all, but hope like Hades that it's all manipulation and lies to make you think that they're going to do the unthinkable after all.
Is it Friday yet?
1 - This post contains spoilers for Season's six and seven of Once Upon A Time.
2 - I am as Rumbelle as they come.
3 - This is a kneejerk reaction.
4 - Knowing how the showrunners like to operate, I am aware that it's entirely possible that they want us to have this reaction.
That said...
I don't like being played with... It's a cheap and dirty trick that the people that run the show have pulled with all and sundry time and time again, but because of my 'investment' in ABC/Disney's Once Upon A Time, I can't help but fall for it no matter how hard I try to do otherwise. I know how they operate. They post sufficient spoilers, sneak peeks and scripteases to lead fans down the garden path; to think one thing when in fact something else entirely is going to happen, and they think they are clever to do so.
Sure it stirs things up. Sure it kicks the 'free publicity' of social media into high gear with one group of fans or another Tweeting and Facebooking up a storm - and maybe that works. Maybe we'll see Friday's ratings climb and soar - and gods know they need to, because there's been a decline even in the first three episodes of what has been hailed as a requel that would bring new life to a show that ended a sixth season with falling numbers of viewers. Fan were maybe put off by the very manipulative behavior on the part of the shows execs that they're still engaging in today. That's very cynical, but I did say this was a kneejerk reaction to the publicity materials released today.
We were promised, as we marched fearfully toward the seventh season requel, that no characters would see the Happy Endings (Or Happy Ever Afters, if you prefer) that they achieved at the end of the sixth season destroyed. So we began the new season already crying foul, because three of our main characters included two who were previously living HEA lives with their spouses, who now appeared to be separated from said spouses by the new curse. We don't know much about what's going on, and we are told to give it time, that time would be the key, (presumably to figuring out the 'truth'), and boy does that ever seem to be the case with Rumbelle.
(Here come the spoilers - you were warned!)
So... in episode two we found out that - yay - actually Captain Swan's HEA is safe. The Hook in Hyperion Heights is not the real Killian after all, but is Wish Hook de-aged and de-bloated by means of some magical shenanigans. (And if you detect a certain degree of dry irony in that, well, sorry/not sorry). Maybe they're going to keep their word after all.... and here begins the lulling into a sense of security that may or may not prove false.
Another episode goes by and we're presented with a whole bunch of other questions and intrigue to play with in order to try and figure out what's really going on, who's who and what's what... and all the while we Rumbeller's are patiently (not really) waiting for episode four to come around, to find out how fare our Belle and Rumple, and try to figure out What-The-Fairygodmother the new character Alice/Tilley has to do our Rumbelle.
And then THIS:
Immediate tailspin!
They promised us, "No Happy Endings were harmed in the making of this season." well what the Henry Mills is that? Belle growing old and dying, leaving Rumple all alone and grieving for his One True Love - the one defense he has against being entirely subsumed... no CONsumed by the darkness - for all eternity (idiot)? How in the name of everything holy is that not upsetting someone's Happily Ever After? That's the thing when one half of a couple is immortal and the other half isn't. Isn't that what started this whole mess of 'Dark One,' in the first place - Nimue's desire to become immortal and stay with her beloved Merlin forever and always?
Okay, so then you settle down and start running through all the maybes, and buts and ands - and butts you want to kick if the maybe's turn out to be false hope after all - but you do it to stop yourself from losing hope and faith entirely that for once... for once in the history of the entire run of the show that Rumbelle is not going to be screwed over... again! You create scenarios, have thoughts, put pieces together from what few things you already know, have already seen, and twist and stretch and squeeze out like blood from excalibur's stone from all the things you don't know, to convince yourself that they're not really going to let that happen. They wouldn't - would they? They promised!
The tweets roll in, and suprisingly (because it's only Tuesday after all) once from RC himself - but the cynical side of you asks, "was he told he had to tweet?" but you convince yourself not, because you've heard him say ('say' that is, but not with your own ears), that episode four is lovely, and romantic, and honestly the best Rumbelle episode since Skin Deep, better than that, even. And you trust him. And EdR Tweets with pictures of her wig test, and retweets the article (http://www.tvguide.com/news/once-upon-a-time-first-look-photos-rumbelle-happy-ending/) - but was she told to? She'd wanted to stay after all and they wouldn't let her because they didn't need her - they took the story in a different direction and... and... and...
And then you start to feel like you're being played with... if you didn't already - and then you start to wonder if time travel is an option, and you really don't have to wait for three more days to find out if you're going to have your heart broken, crushed and mangled, like you fear you're really going to after all, but hope like Hades that it's all manipulation and lies to make you think that they're going to do the unthinkable after all.
Is it Friday yet?
Spin-Sequel-off
Oct. 7th, 2017 09:27 amI really wanted to like — want to like — the new the season of Once Upon A Time that started last night.
I've been watching, and have loved, Once since I started watching the August before last, or was it two Augusts ago. I started watching before the sixth season began because I heard that Oded Fehr was going to be playing Jafar. I became emotionally invested in the show because of the relationship between Belle and Rumplestiltskin... compelled by Robert Carlyle's portrayal of the Dark One in both the fairytale and the 'real' worlds. I loved the show right through the first four and a half seasons, but seasons five and six were some of the hardest to watch because of the direction the stories - and that 'all important' - to me at least - relationship took. Rumbelle had always been troubled, but during the back half of season five, and most all of season six, it just went from bad, through worse, to impossibly hideous.
It was mostly redeemed by the end of seaon six, and that was when the bombshell dropped. Season 7 would be made without the full cast of characters that we'd come to know and love. It's been variously reported that the show 'lost' six of it's established characters ahead of the start of this season, but let's be honest and accurate. The show lost three of its established characters when the actors decided it was time for them to move on to other things. The other three it chose not to include, or at least not to include as regulars. Only three of the established characters graduated to regulars in the new season - beloved characters, true, but still only three of them, and in those, two of the show's established 'ships' have been divided.
So we start the season, or the 'requel,' or whatever it is that it's being called with all new characters, and all new curse, and all new stories to tell, and as I've said, I want to like it. I want to be excited for those new stories, characters, and the hope of a resolution for the new curse, but I have reservations, and those have their basis in the shape of the writers and showrunners, who while they've assued us that the happy endings that our favorite characters achieved at the end of season six will not in any way be compromised, spoiled or negated... well... they've lied to us before, repeatedly, and it's hard to trust that promise when those of us emotionally invested in the Rumbelle story just went through a season and a half of hell and mistreatment.
So... the show last night. I didn't hate it. It made me suspicious, and I found it hard, possibly because of my pre-conceptions and that lack of trust, to engage with the new characters to which we were introduced. I will keep watching, mostly because of Robert Carlyle, but also because it's just about the only one of 'my' shows that has survived the years, and I do, want to see what they do with the show from this point forward, but it'll probably take a while for my trust to be earned, and my fears to be dispelled. I do hope I'm wrong.
The ratings reflect that perhaps many other people are having similar reservations. They're a match for last year's lows at 0.7, though the switch to Friday nights might have something to do with that, not to mention the lack of publicity/exposure in anything other than internet entertainment media settings, and social media. Where were the TV spots, ABC? Too few and far between.
These are just a few of my current thoughts/observations on Once Upon A Time after yesterday's episode, today's 'revelations' and the upcoming season (possibly series) finale this coming Sunday.
First of all I will grudgingly say that the musical episode wasn't quite as bad as I expected it to be. Then I'll say that the much 'anticipated' (though not by me) wedding of the season did NOT move me all that much, which in my current highly emotional/hormonal state actually speaks volumes. I was given a tissue at the beginning of the episode, and I returned it unused at the end. Contrast this with the day before, my sitting in front of the Kentucky Derby with tears on my face.
Today, I saw the ratings for last night's episode, and even after two weeks of high intensity publicity and hype, the show dropped on it's demographic ratings by 11.11% on the previous episode, which had received scant and sketchy publicity which was thoroughly overshadowed by said hyped musical/wedding episode. This proves - to me at least - just which character carries the show... and here's a hint: much as they might want it to be the case, it is NOT Captain Swan.
Should I feel vindicated? I've been a staunch supporter of Rumbelle right from the off and remain so to the end. Should I feel that way? Maybe... unfortunately, in light of rumors, spoilers and other pieces of information, I feel somewhat pessimistic, going so far as to say up front here and now that if, (some would say when), the finale proves 'fatal' to the possibility of a positive outcome for the Gold family that... THAT will be proof positive that the writers simply have no heart at all.
All season long - in a season that began the year of the 25th anniversary of Beauty and the Beast (and for those that don't know the show, Belle and Rumple are OUAT's version of BatB), in fact beginning before that in the ending of season 4 Belle and Rumple's characters and their relationship to each other has been treated beyond poorly, written in some cases 'out of character' with flimsy justifications for their actions (rather trite and repetitive, unimaginative reasons in many cases too - even when the excuses were closer to 'in character.) It's a crying shame when the most promising of characters on a show begin to be written detrimentally because the writers of the show become bored with them, or can't be bothered any more because they've found a new 'toy' to play with. It happened with Michael from Stargate: Atlantis, and it seems that it has happened on OUAT as well, when the 'norm' within the writers room became to shift focus to the new 'golden' pairing once Hook came along... a character who, in so many respects, is ten times more despicable than Rumple, and yet whose 'reformation' affords him carte blanche and the promise /realisation of 'deserved' happiness. Never mind the fact that even as the 'Dark One' Rumple's actions have saved so many in Storybrooke time and time again. Has that ever been acknowledged? No. It all became... Captain Swan/Hook good, Rumbelle/Rumple-Gold no good. I've even heard (completely unfounded) rumors that someone that tried to advocate for Rumple/Rumbelle during this season was removed. (And I will stress again, this is alleged, and completely unfounded rumor)
With a week before the finale, and with showrunners saying things like, 'some people will be happy, others will be angry and upset' I can't help but offer odds as to whom those 'others' will be.... and I want to know how treating the character that truly does stand out in an ensemble cast to hold the show together like absolute crap is offering something for /every/ fan?
First of all I will grudgingly say that the musical episode wasn't quite as bad as I expected it to be. Then I'll say that the much 'anticipated' (though not by me) wedding of the season did NOT move me all that much, which in my current highly emotional/hormonal state actually speaks volumes. I was given a tissue at the beginning of the episode, and I returned it unused at the end. Contrast this with the day before, my sitting in front of the Kentucky Derby with tears on my face.
Today, I saw the ratings for last night's episode, and even after two weeks of high intensity publicity and hype, the show dropped on it's demographic ratings by 11.11% on the previous episode, which had received scant and sketchy publicity which was thoroughly overshadowed by said hyped musical/wedding episode. This proves - to me at least - just which character carries the show... and here's a hint: much as they might want it to be the case, it is NOT Captain Swan.
Should I feel vindicated? I've been a staunch supporter of Rumbelle right from the off and remain so to the end. Should I feel that way? Maybe... unfortunately, in light of rumors, spoilers and other pieces of information, I feel somewhat pessimistic, going so far as to say up front here and now that if, (some would say when), the finale proves 'fatal' to the possibility of a positive outcome for the Gold family that... THAT will be proof positive that the writers simply have no heart at all.
All season long - in a season that began the year of the 25th anniversary of Beauty and the Beast (and for those that don't know the show, Belle and Rumple are OUAT's version of BatB), in fact beginning before that in the ending of season 4 Belle and Rumple's characters and their relationship to each other has been treated beyond poorly, written in some cases 'out of character' with flimsy justifications for their actions (rather trite and repetitive, unimaginative reasons in many cases too - even when the excuses were closer to 'in character.) It's a crying shame when the most promising of characters on a show begin to be written detrimentally because the writers of the show become bored with them, or can't be bothered any more because they've found a new 'toy' to play with. It happened with Michael from Stargate: Atlantis, and it seems that it has happened on OUAT as well, when the 'norm' within the writers room became to shift focus to the new 'golden' pairing once Hook came along... a character who, in so many respects, is ten times more despicable than Rumple, and yet whose 'reformation' affords him carte blanche and the promise /realisation of 'deserved' happiness. Never mind the fact that even as the 'Dark One' Rumple's actions have saved so many in Storybrooke time and time again. Has that ever been acknowledged? No. It all became... Captain Swan/Hook good, Rumbelle/Rumple-Gold no good. I've even heard (completely unfounded) rumors that someone that tried to advocate for Rumple/Rumbelle during this season was removed. (And I will stress again, this is alleged, and completely unfounded rumor)
With a week before the finale, and with showrunners saying things like, 'some people will be happy, others will be angry and upset' I can't help but offer odds as to whom those 'others' will be.... and I want to know how treating the character that truly does stand out in an ensemble cast to hold the show together like absolute crap is offering something for /every/ fan?
