Okay, I admit I sniffled at the end. But something about the… style of this series always got a little under my craw. Too chaotic too much of the time. Still, it had its moments. And it had a good ending, which seems rare nowadays.
Rygel? Still gross. Seriously, why did the show require *that* much puking? (and farting… and belching….)
But they win points for spoiler
How/Why the Evil Queen became evil (no real spoilers, just the teasy promise that the question will be answered soon):
http://www.tvguide.com/News/Once-Upon-Time-Lana-Parrilla-1041311.aspx
One thing is clear, the Mayor isn’t going to be brought down anytime soon. The long-term arc of the show is about her defeat. But hopefully the background reveals will make her a bit more gray than black and white.
How the TV show Lost influenced OUAT’s fairytale world:
http://www.tvguide.com/News/Once-Upon-Time-Horowitz-Kitsis-1040425.aspx
“We never thought about Lost or Once really as mythology shows, even though mythology obviously is a part of [both]. They are character shows to us. “
Sounds like they’re developing a mythology for the show through both the actual text of fairy tales and their own development of the characters as both fairy tale characters and modern people. Storybrooke is the Island where they are trapped, and the people in it are gradually revealed through non-linear flashbacks.
So far, I trust what they’re doing, and where they might go. If it’s anything like Lost, it should be a twisty, turny ride.
I’m not a big fan of “breaking the fourth wall” in fiction. Sometimes it can be used effectively, when it’s subtle, but most of the time it is done tongue-in-cheek, as a joke by the writers to say, “Hey, it’s only a TV show, hee hee!”, which totally throws the viewer out of the suspension of disbelief that gives fiction its magic.
I think there is a difference between breaking the fourth wall and a show (or other extended work of fiction) satirizing/parodying itself. “The Zeppo” is an effective example of a show satirizing itself without breaking the fourth wall. It’s a subtler form of what most cases of actually breaking the fourth wall are trying to achieve and end up failing at.
So what I’d like to know is what the legal definition of “an original series” is. Syfy Network in the U.S. has the audacity to call shows like Merlin and Lost Girl “original series”, and we all know Syfy didn’t commission these shows to be produced in the first place.
Not to mention they don’t air on Syfy until long after the rest of the world has seen them. Reminds me of Cordelia to Harmony back in the day: “You do what everyone else does just so you can say you did it first!”
In other news: All Things Philosophical has gone black today in protest of SOPA.
Among the things I want to accomplish in 2012 is finally, FINALLY, getting my old novel, Dis/inhibition, out the door and into the world. I decided to go the self-publishing route, which is a lot of work (for me). In addition to formatting the manuscript/book itself and getting to to places that can sell it, I need to do all the promotional/marketing work as well, or at least arrange for it to be done.
One of the things I hope to do is a website. I hired an illustrator last year to do some images of my characters. The plan is to put these on the site, along with some quotes from the story, either by the character in question, or about the character in question by another character, along with information about me and about how to buy the book.
What sort of people do you imagine these are?
Hey! I’m writing essays again! (or meta if you prefer)
Once Upon a Time is proving better than the pilot would have suggested. I like the non-linear way it is telling the back story of the characters, and how it is embellishing the fairy tales to make them more complex and interesting. I think of this show as Lost in reverse—characters from a fantasy place all trapped in the contemporary U.S. together.
And I am hoping, like Lost, it is able to successfully reinvent itself each season without losing its charm or forgetting its roots. Lost was brilliant in that respect.
In other news, the show Merlin has become a bit of a new TV obsession for me.
One thing I don’t like about it is the poor Morgana character development. If you want an effective villain, you have to give some glimmer of her having the sorts of character weaknesses that lead to such villainy, and show a more gradual evolution of the character as she falls prey to those weaknesses, and that’s something they just didn’t do very well.
Also, the politics of the show are a bit dodgy. Maybe I’ve watched way too much Deep Space Nine (in fact, I’m sure of it), but showing nearly every Freedom Fighter character as corrupt and evil and having the heroes essentially being collaborators who are playing a very long game and allowing innocents to die in the interim…. Well, it makes me uncomfortable.
But the show hits so many of my story kinks I can grumpily overlook these flaws. It has gorgeous scenery, myth, swords and sorcery, secrets and secret identities, a charming, powerful, overlooked hero, interesting complex family relationships, long lost parents, faeries, trolls, dragons, and griffins.
And ironically, I seem to have developed a Merlin/Morgana thing after Servant of Two Masters. More in a Epic Destined!Enemies kind of way, although I would not object to a few brief moments of hate lust.
I had a long Thanksgiving break and little or nothing on the DVR to watch due to Thanksgiving week hiatuses, so I decided to start in on a new show (new for me) that I had read about on my flist.
One thing I think about now when I watch a show is, “Is this just something to pass the time (Dexter, True Blood), or is this a show I want to share with the Sculptor (Lost, Being Human)? Merlin, so far, has definitely fallen into the latter category.
Finished Season 1 of Merlin. This will probably be one I eventually purchase on DVD.
It has lots of things that hit my story kinks: destiny, myth, inborn traits that must be kept as a dangerous secret (wonder where I got that one from), an ugly duckling/Cinderella protagonist, magic, legendary creatures, strong women characters, fabulous medieval décor (I want to redo my living room to look like that castle), and bonus Anthony Head!
New words: 1,556
Total words: 40,286
Goal: 50,000
Oh my God. I think I’m writing science fiction.
Author Nancy E. Shaffer 