Once Upon a Time: I really wish you were better.

Man, I wish I could fangirl over this show.  It has SO. MUCH. POTENTIAL.

But every time I watch it, I wish I was watching a slightly different, better show.  I still watch it, but it's like when I watched the first season of Private Practice, and every time I saw Audra McDonald or Taye Diggs (both of whom are Broadway POWERHOUSES) and instead of paying attention I just kept thinking, "Why aren't you singing?  Why aren't you singing?  WHY AREN'T YOU SINGING?"  It's just like that, only instead of wondering why they aren't singing, I'm mentally rewriting it.




Still, I keep watching, because it could be good.  And here's how I think it could get there:


1) Emma.    Emma is so goddamn illogical.  SHE IS THE SAME AGE AS HER PARENTS.  Guys, this was a WEIRD choice on the part of the writers.  I think it would have made way more sense if they did away with "Emma needs to be 28 to break the curse so her son finds her" bit and just made Emma a kid.  This also solves the "Snow White and Prince Charming are grandparents despite being 32" conundrum.  (Also, it gets rid of that stupid kid, who sucks.)  This would also make Emma's weird resentment of them for "giving her up" make a little more sense, which is especially strange given that she's a grown up and knows the whole story.  Think about what this could be: a teenaged Emma, adopted by a nice man who later married Regina and then died, leaving her to be raised by her wicked stepmother-- who ALSO raised her mother.  When she turns 16, she can break the curse.  This has everything: echoed themes! Recurring motifs!  An explanation for Emma's brattiness!   Plus...what does she bring to the story right now?  NOT A GODDAMN THING.  She's boring.  Since they can't go back and rewrite history, maybe they can kill her off in a heroic manner.


2) THAT KID.  Henry?  I think that's his name?  I've kind of repressed it, because he's terrible.  He's a bad actor, and I really, REALLY hate how this show represents adoption.  Emma hates that she was placed for adoption, and kind of won't shut up about it, and Henry keeps going on and on about how EVIL his adoptive mother is (she is, but she clearly loves him, so Henry should shut it).  Apparently, the spawn of Snow White and Prince Charming have very bitter and outdated feelings about adoption.  (Note: I'm not saying people can't or shouldn't have mixed or negative feelings about their own adoptions, it's just that this show portrays it as the WORST THING EVER and I think that's unfair).  Anyway, just write Henry out.  Send him to boarding school.  Kill him off.  Whatever.  Just get rid of him.


3) The camp factor.  This is one of the absolute biggest problems with this show.  It COULD be hilariously campy and awesome, because it's Disney characters in the modern world.  It would be SO EASY to just go super over the top, and sometimes they do.  The problem is, they don't go all the way.  With camp, you can't half-ass it.  It can either be a 1 (Mad Men) or a 10 (True Blood, Vampire Diaries, Teen Wolf).  When you hover around a 5 or 6, like this show, it's just a goddamn mess.   It's like they want to be campy AND be serious, which is nearly impossible to do, and clearly above their abilities.  My recommendation is to crank that shit all the way to 11.  Just go completely batshit.  Have an episode where everyone switches personalities and backstories, so you have Grumpy thinking he's Mulan and stalking around Storybrooke with swords, and Red Riding Hood thinking she's Jimminy Cricket and giving cryptic advice to little kids.  Hell, do an episode where Regina turns everyone into dogs and cats, and the whole thing is just kitties and Shiba Inu puppies running around with the actors doing voiceovers.*  Just do something that fully embraces the craziness, and stop pretending like there's internal logic-- because there isn't, and that's fine.  This show doesn't have to make any sense, but it should stop PRETENDING like it makes sense.

*Okay, that would be dumb.  Dumb, but ADORABLE.


4) Speaking of Mulan (sort of), I appreciate that they took a different tack with some of the stories, because all of the DO YOU GET IT?  THEY ARE DISNEY CHARACTERS nudging and winking gets annoying.  But where is Shang?  He is a pretty awesome character, and network TV is sorely lacking in Asian men as romantic leads.  I know Daniel Dae Kim is busy with Hawaii 5-0 (and too old) but I find it hard to believe there aren't any handsome, beefy 20-something Asian actors who could play a dashing Shang.  So, powers that be: Shang, please? Pretty please?  He could be a Navy SEAL, trapped in the modern world but looking for Mulan.  THAT WOULD BE AWESOME.


5) Belle.  WHAT THEY HAVE DONE TO BELLE IS A TRAVESTY.  Belle is my favorite Disney princess, bar none. She's smart, especially when compared to Ariel, who is kind of an idiot (really, Ariel?  You didn't know the word "burn?"  You apparently speak English, and it's not like you were trying to remember "conflagration").  Also, the Beast GIVES HER A LIBRARY.  (That scene= 10 million nerd girls falling in love).  Sure, the Beast is borderline abusive, but he's also gentle and sweet in unexpected ways.  Instead of this, we get Belle in love with RUMPELSTILTSKIN for no freaking reason.  He's at least 20 years older than her, and instead of the sweet, wounded Beast, we get...a bitter divorcee with a high pitched giggle who sometimes is covered in sparkles like an off-brand Edward Cullen.  Belle has flaws, but she does not have daddy issues.  Plus, one of the most important things about the Beast is that he's young too.  He made a mistake as a kid, and now-- still not legally old enough to drink-- he's facing spending the rest of his life as a monster.**  His youth is important, and with Rumpel they completely ignore that.  When Rumpel gave her the key to the library, I found myself hoping that Captain Hook had given it to her in an attempt to win Belle away from Rumpel. I repeat: I AM ROOTING FOR CAPTAIN HOOK TO END UP WITH BELLE, BECAUSE LITERALLY ANYONE IS BETTER THAN RUMPEL.  That is messed up, y'all, and a sign that something is seriously awry in Storybrooke.  To fix this, bring in someone-- ANYONE-- as a rival for Belle's affections, and have him win.  Then Rumpel can be all gloomy and angry and bitter, and I don't have to watch Belle have an awkward romance with RUMPELSTILTSKIN. UGH.
        Subcategory to Belle: The love stories.  First of all, STOP KILLING OFF THE PRETTY GUYS.  The huntsman, Pinocchio, and Prince Phillip were all good looking dudes who bit it WAY too early.***  Stop killing them off, and maybe kill off someone no one likes, like Emma or Henry.  Look, the main market for this show is not "discerning straight men in their 40s," it's ladies and gentlemen who think it's silly fun and appreciate good looking men.  So please, stop killing off the eye candy.  It's starting to hurt. Also, while I fully support doing a wide variety of love stories, you need more than just "long term couples finding their way back to one another," (something Lost did very well) which is sort of all they are doing right now.  (And Prince Charming and Snow White are no Penny and Desmond.  Hell, they aren't even Rose and Bernard).  Let's have some new, exciting romances, okay?  Particularly one where the handsome guy DOESN'T DIE.

** I'd like to take a moment and point out just how messed up the witch in Beauty and the Beast is for putting the entire castle under that spell.  "Your 11 year old orphaned master was sort of a brat, so if he doesn't straighten up in the next ten years-- because everyone knows that teenagers are GREAT at thinking about other people-- you will spend the rest of your life as FURNITURE."

***Wow, that is not a sentence I thought I'd ever write.  ALSO, did anyone else think Pinocchio was played by Paul Rudd for an embarrassingly long time?  Apparently, I have a hard time telling white guys apart.


6) DIVERSITY.  For all the (earned) shit Disney gets about the all-white princesses, Tangled featured the first white female lead in a Disney movie since THE LITTLE MERMAID, and I was young enough to be scared shitless through that whole damn movie.  (I am now old enough to have a kid who could be scared shitless by that movie, but: 1) I don't have a kid and 2) Much like Bambi was banned in my house growing up, I will probably ban The Little Mermaid on account of Ursula being a scary fucking villain.)  But weirdly enough, only Mulan has shown up-- the rest of the characters they've featured have been white.  Can we please have Tiana show up as a successful chef and Pocahontas as like, I dunno, a forest ranger or something?  And speaking of Tangled, can we PLEASE have a special episode where Zachary Levi and Mandy Moore show up as their characters?  Both are solid actors and ADORBS, and Tangled is very underrated, in my opinion.



At this point, you're probably wondering if there's *anything* I like about this show.  And there is-- I like a lot of it.  Parts like Captain Hook, who is ridiculously good looking, even if the eyeliner suggests he spends a lot of time online downloading the new My Chemical Romance**** album and whining about his mom.  I like Ruby/Red Riding Hood too, and I think making HER the wolf (and her red cloak is a way to protect other people from her) is a pretty brilliant inversion of the story.  I like that women in Storybrooke are friends with one another, and talk about stuff other than men.  I like Regina, and kind of want her and Dr. Whale to form a sexy-evil alliance, because that would be AMAZING.  I love that Regina's house is decorated in black and white and splashes of red so that it pretty much has a neon sign that says EVIL LAIR.  I like that Snow White is also a secret badass Robin Hood, and that Prince Charming treats her like one of his generals.  I like the sword fighting, and I really like that when Lancelot threw together a shotgun wedding for Charming and Snow, he took the time to make an arch of flowers-- because ambience is IMPORTANT, people.  I especially like that the special effects appear to have been done by a bored 11th grader during his free period.  I like that they're taking familiar characters into unfamiliar stories.  I just wish those unfamiliar stories were BETTER.

****Do kids still listen to My Chemical Romance these days?  I have no idea.  Whatever.  He's emo, that's my point.



Verdict: Could be good, but currently isn't.