Miscellaneous Thoughts on Once Upon a Time

- So Archie's dalmatian is "Pongo," the magic mirror is actually the genie from Aladdin - I believe they've opened up a crazy world of possibility here. Is it not just fairy tales, but any property under the Disney umbrella that's open to reworking on this show? (Note: I'd kind of legitimately be interested to see them incorporate some aspect of their princesses and beaus from The Princess and the Frog and Tangled, since I feel like those haven't received enough love.) (Note: I would probably have an aneurism if they ever brought in Pocahontas.) Is that tea set in Mr. Gold's shop, say, going to one day show up accompanying yet another take on the Mad Hatter and the March Hare? Are we going to run through the studio's back catalog until we find ourselves in some fourth-season episode where we flash back to a Storybrooke resident's unknown past as one of the dancing hippos from Fantasia? The mind boggles.

- So here's what I don't quite get about this whole set-up: in the pilot, Regina states that the various denizens of the fairy tale world are going someplace where there are no happy endings - cut to our world, laughs abound. But...it doesn't really seem like anyone was getting a happy ending in fairy tale land to begin with? All the fairy tale stories actually seem pretty grim (no pun intended) upon each episode's conclusion.

- There's something that's starting to trip me up about this show - besides the overwhelming general cheesiness, that is - halfway into the season, there are no stakes. Sure, everyone involved is under the influence of a curse, but there's no clear path to how that curse gets weakened or dismantled and the person allegedly charged with breaking the curse still doesn't believe that it's actually her task to undertake. The more time passes, the more I think "The Heart is a Lonely Hunter" did more narrative harm than good. At the time, it seemed good to see the writers show that they were willing to kill off a seemingly major character, but it made it seem like the path to breaking the curse might actually not be that difficult and also raised the possibility of having someone in the know working with Emma and Henry, then dashed it away,. As it is now, the scenes in Storybrooke aren't interesting enough to hold the show together without forward motion on the overall arc.

A Bit of (Out of Context) Levity

Insane Dialogue + Hilarious Line Reading SMACKDOWN! (Fall 2011 New TV Edition)

Week in TV: October 23-29

Boardwalk Empire, 2.5: "Gimcrack and Bunkum"

- In a media landscape that's often lacking in diversity, I feel like BE deserves props for making the cabal of Atlantic City elders backing the Commodore feel like the oldest, whitest group of old white men anywhere on television. Truly an accomplishment among stiff competition.

- Great interview with Jack Huston from The Daily Beast; the work he's been doing this season is mesmerizing, and really showcases BE at its best.

Revenge, 1.6: "Intrigue"

There are many things to enjoy about this show, but I'm currently really digging Ashton Holmes, Tyler's weird creepiness, and the fact that they've kept his motives fairly oblique; does he want to bang Daniel, replace him in the Grayson family, or murder him and wear his skin? (Maybe all three, not necessarily in that order?) Love it. I was kind of convinced that the shooting that opened the pilot is actually connected to the mentioned-infrequently-but-just-frequently-enough-to-clearly-be-relevant waitress relationship gone bad rather than Emily's revenge plot, but I'm willing to give a percentage of that theorizing over to "Tyler finally snaps." Good stuff.

American Horror Story, 1.4: "Halloween, Part 1"

I think this week really highlighted a central flaw in the show, particularly if the plot heads where it appears to be heading: the most interesting people in any given episode tend to be the former residents/current ghosts. If the seemingly inevitable horrific murder (murder-suicide?) of the Harmons comes to pass, they aren't currently compelling enough for their potential future haunting to seem like an interesting prospect. At the end of the episode, I wasn't concerned about the ostensible protagonists. I was thinking, "Damn, I hope we get some sort of cross-era ghost interaction so there are at least a few scenes of Zachary Quinto and Lily Rabe going crazy on each other, over-the-top Tennessee Williams-style."

Once Upon a Time, "Pilot"

Grimm, "Pilot"

Two takes on fairy tales, neither of which grabbed me right out of the gate. I preferred Grimm's darker take on the material, just because it seemed to owe more to the gorier original stories as opposed to the more clearly Disney-influenced versions in Once Upon a Time (and, honestly, when you're introducing a show like this in 2011, I think you need at least a dash of that kind of self-awareness and to contend with your source material in as nuanced a manner as possible), but I don't think I'm up for what looks to be a more procedural structure in the less whimsical show. I'm more curious to see where Once Upon a Time goes for a while, particularly whether the flashback structure holds up, and whether a long-term strategy for sustaining compelling storytelling emerges. The stated goal of Emma ultimately defeating the Queen and breaking the curse seems like a decent endpoint, but only if there's as little wheel-spinning as possible in the journey to get there.