Happily Ever After

I hadn’t planned on watching Season 6 of Once Upon A Time, after the incoherent mess that was Season 5. But I spotted the DVD set while browsing in my local branch library, and decided to try a few episodes. One of my former students had mentioned a year ago that Season 6 was looking better than Season 5 (thanks to the return of the Evil Queen). I was a bit confused in the first few episodes, not remembering most of the mess of the previous season, but it looked promising from the storytelling point of view.

But then things start to fall apart.

Spoiler alert!

More new characters are introduced, and some of them were potentially interesting. But old characters are also revived, and this is simply TOO MANY characters! The main cast have settled into one-dimensional caricatures. The Evil Queen and Gold/Rumpelstiltskin continue to be interesting, but the rest of the characters seem ‘wooden’. They’re mainly foils responding to each other to drive the narrative forward – except that the narrative itself is a mess. Resolution of the storylines fall into two main categories: (1) artificially forced with high speed, or (2) incoherently dragged out and messy.

I happen to be re-reading Mind of the Maker by Dorothy Sayers, and her description of the ideal interplay between the writer and the character of the stories is short-circuited in many of the later season episodes in Once Upon A Time. The story just feels shallow; as if someone took the Shears (Scissors) of Destiny and cut off the appropriate story resolutions. It’s too bad because the Shears of Destiny make their appearance in several episodes, and had the potential to be a very interesting magical object. This is coupled with the early theme of characters crashing into Storybrooke from the Land of Untold Stories – folks trying to escape their fate and find a new destiny. I had glimpses of what might have been interesting story arcs, only to be bewildered as threads were dropped or cut off prematurely. If this was meant to be an underlying philosophical current to the story, it failed spectacularly.

Each subsequent season requires an even badder baddie. The Black Fairy however is a rather one-dimensional villain – uninteresting for the most part. Even her back story felt forced, although perhaps it makes a good case for why you shouldn’t ask too many questions about your future destiny. Prediction is such a messy science. There is a further exploration of the blurring of lines between Heroes and Villains, and Season 6 does a reasonably good job here with several sets of characters. The part where the town comes together to share an evil curse so as to dilute its effects was well done. The seemingly obligatory musical episode was overall amusing, and while a bit clumsy, it adequately fit into the overall narrative arc. The setting of the Final Battle being about What To Believe, mirroring the opening of Season 1, was overall good, although the final resolution still felt forced.

One thing I liked about Season 6 was that in some instances the characters, now seasoned in the unforeseen effects of magic, try to think a bit more carefully around the dictum “all magic comes with a price”. This leads to a clever use of making wishes of the Genie of the Lamp, and leads to a wish-dream world that overall seemed to hang together quite well. Yes, Aladdin, Jafar and Princess Jasmine make their appearance. In particular, Aladdin’s ‘savior’ character and the Shears of Destiny, allow for the exploration of some interesting ideas. Except for the Genie’s Lamp, there wasn’t much of an exploration of magic in an interesting way, except maybe for the clumsy approaches to stopping the magic of another. Apparently dexterity and an appropriate wristband work well and often.

I am pleased that the season came to an end with a version of “And They Lived Happily Ever After”. While there were allusions to the-next-generation, I have no plans on watching it. The current cast gets to the end of their fairy tale in a fitting ending even though the journey was convoluted.

P.S. Here are my previous musings of Seasons 1-3 and Season 4. I didn't bother writing about Season 5.

P.P.S. The card game Once Upon A Time, unrelated to the TV series, is actually quite good.