Once Upon a Time Season 3

Disclaimer: I started this review a very long time ago. Like a very, very, VERY long time ago. This review has been sitting in my draft box that entire time and I had put so much work into it right after I finished the 3rd season that I never wanted to erase it all. 1. Because I actually thought some of the stuff in this review was pretty good, and 2. If I ever wanted to continue watching Once Upon a Time and do more reviews, it would mean that I would have to watch this entire season again. Which is something I really don't want to do. The majority of this review will be my initial thoughts, but at a certain point it might not be as exact as I want it to be. I did a lot of reviewing of the 3rd season so I hit all the important points and I do still have some notes on this season, but I wanted to be transparent that not all the thoughts are fresh from just finishing the season. But I hope that creates a better review.

As difficult as it is, I actually really do love reviewing entire seasons of shows. Its like reviewing a very long movie. There's a lot of material to go over and there's a lot to point out, as well as things that I like. I really think we are in a great era of television where great story telling can make just sitting down and binge watching Netflix a really enjoyable time.

Of course that difficulty is only exemplified in the fact that I finished Once Upon a Time Season 3 a long time ago and haven't been able to release this review until now.

Leave it to Once Upon a Time to make this process even more difficult. Not only am I reviewing a show that I know is bad, that I know has awful writing and acting, but yet continue to watch because... there used to not really be anything else on Netflix and I needed a placeholder until there were new Doctor Who episodes. But they made their third season basically two seasons wrapped into one. Seriously. While the poster I put at the beginning of this post shows the Wicked Witch of the West (and my god we'll get to her) she's really only in the second half of the season and has a mini season of her own.

BTW here's my reviews for Season 1 and Season 2

If you follow my blog, or you read my previous posts on the past seasons of Once Upon a Time, you'll know that I really don't have a lot of good things to say about this show.

I usually watch it when I'm waiting for a new season of Doctor Who or trying to get inspiration for writing and there's nothing in this genre left for me to watch.

And yet I continue to watch it.

Well in my last (surprisingly a little incorherent) review, when last we caught up with our heroes, two mysterious strangers kidnapped the annoying piece of shit Henry and brought him to Neverland. Our bland as hell savior Emma Swan (played by Jennifer Morrison) her milk toast parents, Snow White and Prince Charming, the only two cool characters, Captain Hook and Rumpelstistkin (played by Robert Carlyle and Colin O'Donoghue), and the former Evil Queen Regina (played by Lana Parilla) are off to Neverland to rescue Henry from the clutches of the evil... Peter Pan?

If you remember from the previous review, you'll know that I was kind of interested in that storyline as Tamara and Owen said that they were apart of a secret organization looking to rid the world of magic.

This became interesting to me as I wanted to see the inhabitants of Storybrooke face a threat outside of their world. I wanted to see them bring in secret organizations from the real world, put magic up against our science and technology. Alas, that didn't happen. These two quickly were killed off and that organization was just Peter Pan using people from our world... somehow, to be totally honest I'm not totally sure how that all worked.

So no, they didn't Whedon this show.

Anyways, Emma and her band of good guys go to Neverland and they run around for a while until they figure out how they're going to defeat Pan, save Henry and get back to Storybrooke. All the while, Hook has a thing for Emma, Prince Charming I guess gets poisoned, Neal is alive (because who ever thought he was gonna die) and Mr. Gold has a secret.

Now here's the thing. The show has a little bit more of a purpose that it has had in the past. They're trying to save Henry. Its more than I can say for Season 2 which, again, was just a filler season.

Why they want to save Henry, I have no idea. I guess they all kind of like him for some reason.

But while the show had a little bit more of a purpose I really can't decide whether or not the show got better or if it just got better at hiding the fact that it really is that horrible.

I mean... it still is that horrible. The writing is still atrocious, the acting is still pretty bad, and it continues to retcon everything that it built for the sake of giving both heroes and villains a backstory that makes them watered down "complex" characters instead of interesting ones that are more black and white.

So is it better story telling or just as bad? I don't know. Hopefully I'll figure out by the end of this review.

So they're in Neverland, they're trying to find Henry, defeat Pan, and go back to Storybrooke.

The main thing to talk about when it comes to Pan is that the story behind the character is not actually half bad. The choice to make Peter Pan a bad guy, while it wouldn't had been my choice, wasn't really as bad as I thought it was going to be. I love the story of Peter Pan and I was worried that they were going to ruin it with the type of fan fiction the show actually totally consists of.

My main problem with Pan was Robbie Kay, the kid who played him. Its mainly his eyebrows I think. Whenever he acts he always moves his eyebrows up and down in every sentence he says and it got really annoying. I think utilizing him as Mr. Gold's father was actually kind of interesting and again, ties into the whole, if its connected to Mr. Gold, it probably has at least a little bit of something cool in it.

However, the entire first half of the season felt very rushed and I don't feel like I'll remember it as much as the second half. They didn't exactly explore Neverland as much as I feel they should have and while they kept saying that it was this magical world and the rules were totally different, the only difference that I really saw was that it was a little bit more of a tropical environment... and that's it.

I have mentioned that the show has moved away from filler episodes where they play "Guess Who" with fairy tale characters and I think they have gotten a little bit smoother with their explanation as to why characters are joining the story.

The characters that they introduced (especially Ariel) fit into the environment and the story a lot better. And I also felt like the characters were more true to their actual animated motion picture character, the reason this show is so popular.

I have to give them credit for how Ariel was handled. I don't think I didn't enjoy any episode she was in because her character was actually interesting and she was very much like the character from the cartoon. As opposed to characters like Snow White. Now some of that could be contributed that in general, Ariel is a better character than Snow White in the cartoon movies, but lets just try and move on.

The Lost-style flashbacks in the first half were a little bit disjointed like they were in the second season and still had those moments where they threw off the continuity of the stories shared before in order to either shoe horn in a new character or attempt to make an existing character more relatable... for some reason.

Once Upon a Time has a problem with trying to fix their problems and really just making them worse.

And then there's this little dumbass.

Henry had an interesting role in this season in that, in both halves of it, he was an important part and influence to the other characters, but at the same time I think the showrunners were kind of getting annoyed of him as well and decided to put him a couple corners until they needed to progress that story along. Henry is not in this season as much.

It has to be a little bit difficult for this kid as this is really the only role that he's done worth mentioning and its a role he started when he was quite young. You can tell during this season that the kid is going through puberty and his voice is dropping. Unfortunately, they still are trying to capture that youthful innocence that I guess they think was charming in the first season. While I enjoyed the manner in which they utilized him in this season, with his balls dropping and his horrible acting not going away, Henry continues to be an annoying addition to this show.

So the first half of the season was a little bit muddled with them wandering around Neverland for a while without a plan for the majority of it, and little side tracks along the way. Overall, its not the worst (half) season I've seen. They did utilize the villain well, Henry less, and the story overall was not horrible. It wasn't great, but at least it made sense, wasn't just a filler (half) season, and wasn't just soap opera bullshit throughout. I think they finally figured out this is an action adventure franchise and they should tailor it as such.

The end of the first season ends with a curse sending the fairy tale characters back to the Enchanted Forest, while Emma and annoying shit head kid go off making their own lives, not remembering their time in Storybrooke and thinking they've always been together. An interesting and actually effective choice. However, it really only lasts for less than an episode

Now there probably was a mid-season break here that made it seem more final when you're watching it live. However, when you're binge watching it on Netflix (praying for it be over so you can write this review) it feels very quick and almost pointless that Emma lost her memories if she was just going to get them back the next episode. I don't care if you say a year has past, for me, its been 5 minutes.

Instead of having Emma drink a potion and suddenly remember everything like the cop out that was, she could have had her own development, figuring out who she is, not all over again, but in a way that actually develops Emma as a character. I'll talk more about Emma in a little bit, but yeah, the whole amnesia thing, was an interesting choice, but quickly thrown away so we could get the story moving along.

Turns out, all the fairy tale characters have returned to Storybrooke and have lost a year of their memory. Snow White is pregnant, more unknown people have come to Storybrooke, nobody knows who sent them there or why.

The part that works here is that all the flashbacks that were beginning to get really dull and overlap with all the previously established stories, now only take place within the year in the Enchanted Forest that they lost.

This way, the flashbacks actually contribute to the story again as the fairy tale characters are trying to unravel the same mystery they are in the present. It actually complemented each other very well, something Once Upon a Time has had some trouble with since... well forever.

And for this half of the season, the main adversary is the Wicked Witch of the West.

Now, I'm going to look past the fact that this season came out a year after the Disney movie Oz: The Great and Powerful and pretend like bringing in the stories from Oz isn't just a ploy to increase marketing because the addition of the Wicked Witch of the West actually wasn't all that bad.

Now when I say not that bad, for anything in this review, you have to understand that this show is still bad. Like I said, the writing is still bad, the acting is still horrible, the CGI and set pieces of this show are still horrible (even though you'd think the budget would have gone up by now and they could possibly afford something better than Adobe after effect)

But in comparison with what the show has done before, it actually is better... in comparison.

The Wicked Witch of the West is played by Rebecca Mader. Really the only way that you can really connect this character with the familiar character from the Wizard of Oz is that she has green skin and she comes from Oz, a place with a lot of other familiar characters with no connection to the original movie or story.

There's actually a whole lot you can read on Disney and their relationship with The Wizard of Oz, as well as the fascinating facts about copy right law when it comes to that story. I'm thinking of giving Oz: The Great and Powerful another watch as I never got around to doing a review for that movie (I think it came out right before I started this blog) and I might talk a little bit more about that relationship, but you can see it here in that they try their best to walk this tight rope that is the copy right MGM still has on the movie The Wizard of Oz as opposed to the novel that is actually public domain.

The interesting part about The Wicked Witch of the West (or Zelina as they call her) is that while her story and motivation for being wicked is really kind of awful, her effectiveness as a villain is actually kind of good. Its almost too well done to the point where I'm not sure why she didn't end up winning in the end.

Zelina is the half sister of Regina (the Evil Queen). Given up at birth, Zelina ends up being trained by Mr. Gold but is rejected. She points all her troubles back at Regina and decides that she wants to take everything away from her. I'll talk more Regina later, but this motivation is, in itself, kind of stupid. She literally has a line saying her biggest problem with Regina is that Regina was born. In fact her evil plan is to travel back in time so that she can be the one their mother raises and be the one to fall in Regina's place. How she does this is a long drawn out mission involving getting a brain, a heart, and courage (which wasn't a horrible connection) and planning to steal Snow White and Prince Charming's new baby. So her motivation or plan really isn't that great as a concept.

In practice however, Zelina is actually one of the most effective villains I've seen on this show.

Put aside the fact that Zelina has control of the dagger that controls Mr. Gold, the dark one. She's able to tame the most powerful wizard in the show. But she's also very powerful herself. She's so powerful that I'm not even sure why she has this long drawn out plan, much less fails at bringing it to pass.

There are several points where she could have just set the Dark One out on everyone in the town, turned them ALL into monkeys, and freeze Snow White until she has the baby. She pointlessly just toys with them until they figure out their true power and end up defeating her.

The thing I also liked about Zelina was that while she had a "tragic" backstory that was kind of stupid (especially in how they explain how she turns green with envy... yeah that's a thing), they didn't try and make her a misunderstood bad guy like they did with Regina. Once the story is complete, they still want to defeat her, kill her if they must. There are a couple moments where they feel bad and they sympathize with her, but the characters that do, I don't really care about so I'm just sitting here enjoying the fact that they actually have an interesting, complex bad guy. Yeah her story and motivations might be dumb, but she's effective.

The second half of the season is just trying to find a way to defeat Zelina, and remember what happened in the year they missed. There are a couple other stories I will talk about in a second. But overall, the second half of the season is actually not that bad. There was an actual threat, an actual mission, and, dare I say it, an actual story. Of course all of this is in comparison to past seasons, but probably the better story telling I've seen on Once Upon A Time. Its not Emmy winning TV, but entertaining until something new comes up.

But now I wanna get to the section I've been waiting to talk about. In my past reviews, I went through the story then went one by one down the line of characters that keep coming back and how they evolved. Because this season is basically two in one, this took a little bit longer. But like the other reviews, I'll talk about things in this order: The Charmings, Regina, Emma, Everything Rumplestitskin related, Hook, and other things that were surprisingly good in this season.

The Charmings

Once again, these two return as the most bland couple ever to grace television. And they're not the only ones. Many relationships have formed on Once Upon a Time. Characters keep falling in love, they keep having their happily ever afters. While they're horribly written, they're just that, happily ever afters that "contribute" to the story.

The problem with these two is that they've had their happily ever after already. They've had it for a while. Its everything after that is the boring part and these two are locked into that happily ever after so hard that they can't be interesting. Sure they go on adventures but they're not going to change. They're still going to be in love, they're always going to be with one another, and they're never going to go through any character progression because they've reached their ending already.

Oh sure, they try and throw a wedge between these two. Whether its a poison that maroons Charming to Neverland, or a new baby, or hell they even try death again. But in the end, you know these two are not going to split or be swayed by any challenge. Even death is not the end for these two because Snow White is just able to split her heart in half and have David live again because... magic... love... whatever.

The problem is, these two have cheated death so many times that I'm no longer effected by it.

Say what you will about George R. R. Martin and the writers over at Game of Thrones, but when somebody dies, you know that they are dead and it holds weight. It holds weight because the writing and these characters are so good that when they die, you feel like someone you know very well has died and its tragic.

Now I'm not saying that Once Upon a Time should treat death the same as Game of Thrones. Not all writers are (or should be) serial killers like George R. R. Martin. But if you keep killing Prince Charming and Snow White (or any of the main characters) and then bringing them right back we're not going to take it seriously when they do die.

I'll touch on that more with my segment on Rumplestitkin, but these two just continue to be the most bland and annoying characters to roam this television show. And yet they keep using these characters. I don't know what it is about a married couple going on adventures, but its just not as interesting or believable. They complain so many times about how their choices could leave their now children fatherless or motherless, but yet they keep on going on these dangerous missions.

These two aren't just boring and stupid, they're assholes.

There's really not that much more to say, I don't like these two and I don't get the feeling they're going to get better, but I also don't get the feeling they're going anywhere. So if you decide to continue watching the show, just be warned, these two will continue to be the annoying characters you've come to hate and you have to deal with that.

Regina

Well, it happened... Regina is full good guy now. You heard me right...

The character that is suppose to be the live action embodiment of those two to my left, one of which still gives me nightmares to this day, is now a full fledged good guy.

Sure there's still a little bit of evil left in there and if I get anything from the end of the last episode, she still might not be done being the bad guy quite yet, but still. By the end of the season she has really made the full conversion from evil to one of the good guys. Something Sylar from Heroes could never really do (done well at least)

Now before you ask, no Lana Parilla really hasn't become any better of an actress. She still has really awkward delivery of lines and she's just not good at conveying correct emotions.

But at a certain point, it kind of seemed like the show finally decided to stop playing those stupid evil or good games and just make Regina a good guy.

And surprisingly, despite being a choice I wouldn't have made, it works out.

Now this turn has been a thing since the second season and its been an awkward turn to say the least. Again, Parilla's acting doesn't exactly help.

But I get her motivation for wanting to be good, and while the moments of reconciliation between her and the people that she has hurt in the past are awkward and horribly acted, I get the arch they're going for here.

And to be honest, I like Regina as a good guy more than a bad guy. They're really working to convince me that she has this power and its now focused on something instead of just being the social outcast that can't decide if she's good or not. Again, its an awkward transition, but at least the transition is finally complete.

This next part might be a little bit of a detour from anything I was saying before, but when I first started this review (A long time ago) I had just watched the Season premier of the 9th season of Doctor Who and I thought of something that would have given a better taken on Regina in that episode.

There's a great scene in the first episode of this season where Missy, a known bad guy and all around evil character says that she needs to work with Clara, the Doctor's companion. Clara asks if Missy is now good and Missy just loses it, and goes off and kills a random guy next to them.

Now, a lot of the credit goes to Michelle Gomez who plays Missy. She's fantastic. She's incredibly evil and crazy but at the same time brilliant and cunning. In a way, the closest comparison Once Upon a Time can get to (its hard comparing Doctor Who and this show at all) is Rumplestiskin when he's "evil". I obviously need to get to Mr. Gold's section because I have A LOT to say about him, but my point is that I kind of wish Regina had been a little bit more like Missy. Have an interesting backstory, a sympathetic one even, but still be evil. Evil but working with the good guys. Its a hard tight rope to walk and the way its looking, I don't foresee Missy sticking around in normal Doctor Who episodes for very long, and since Regina is a main cast character, I guess they had to make her good so they could continue her on without somebody trying to kill her every episode.

Overall, I liked that they finally seemed to land somewhere with Regina. Where they're going with her, I'm a little bit worried, but for now, Regina actually falls under the parts of the show I kind of enjoy. They've stopped trying to rewrite her past and started trying to write an interesting future for her.

Emma

I've realized by this point that the writers of this show are actually kind of geniuses. I mean think about it. They write Emma's parents as white bread characters, obviously they can't have a child that is any more interesting.

I'm really kind of amazed that after 3 seasons, this show absolutely refuses to truly develop Emma as any more than the blonde protagonist/vehicle into the world of fairy tale characters.

I said in my last review that, again, it sounds like a really funny comedy to have this protagonist going through the lives of fairy tale characters and trying to sort things out, but Emma is no longer an element from our world, she's very much the daughter of the Charmings. They have their family drama and bullshit, but amazingly, nothing changes.

She's still the boring as hell "savior" but amazingly, she doesn't do any saving in this entire season. She's not even the key to solving all their problems. Honestly, she hasn't been that key since the end of the first season.

In the first half of the season, Emma has this short lived dilemma of feeling useless (kind of the way I feel about her). She doesn't believe in herself. Then there's the convenient magic that she uses throughout the season, the magic that comes and goes as it pleases. And then they go right back to the same bullshit drama that we saw in the second season where she questions whether or not she's going to stay in Storybrooke with her family. Her main issue is that staying with in this fairy tale world is dangerous and her and Henry had a pretty good thing going just living a normal life in New York when their memories are wiped half way through the season.

And frankly, she's right.

As much as you want to say that you like this family that have become our main heroes, you have to realize that all the pain and suffering happening in this town is because of them.

There's a line in the first half of the season where some of the dwarves are sitting around Storybrooke, Emma and her parents have been gone for 5 days and they say, you know, while they've been gone, nobody has gotten murdered and no bad things have happened. Maybe its better they're not here. And I think there lies your problem.

Yeah a lot of bad guys came and went, but the common theme amongst it all is the Charmings. Like I said, not only are they stupid and bland, they're assholes.

They should instead be saying, yeah a lot of bad things happen, but at least Emma will come and save the day. But they never really say that do they? And its because Emma hasn't done shit for this town. Sure she lifted the curse but after that, she really didn't need to stick around. Just because she lifted the curse doesn't mean she has to live with her parents from now on.

Having seen promotional ads for later seasons of Once Upon A Time, it looks as though Emma goes through some changes and eventually maybe turns evil? Not totally sure. Now usually I would wait until I finally watched that season to make any comments on something like that, but since I don't see myself watching any more seasons of Once Upon a Time, I'll comment on the potential there now. If you're a fan of Once Upon a Time, you can comment on this and let me know if I'm right or wrong.

I find the concept of Evil Emma both interesting and incredibly desperate at the same time.

Again this is all based off the uselessness of Emma in Seasons 1 through 3. Apparently this change takes place in Season 5, but I really don't want to go through the Frozen Cash in to get to this episode... at least not now.

In this season, Emma starts to develop her own powers and while that is an interesting concept, she doesn't really use them in a way that is interesting at all. Part of the reason it takes her so long is because she's apparently still dealing with parent issues in an episodes and she's still unsure on whether or not she's the chosen one and like I said before, she's not totally wrong. When the character is getting in the way of a story, then you've got a serious problem.

Now I don't know if Emma goes through a lot of character development in Season 4, I don't know if she becomes a better character by then and the turn to evil is a tough change, but it just feels forced and a way to shake things up for a really boring character.

Here's the best example I can come up with where something like this would work and why this one doesn't seem to work for me.

This is where the fact that I came back to this review kind of pays off because I'm using examples years apart from one another. And this example is The Flash.

At the end of Season 2, (Spoilers). Barry Allen has defeated evil but at a great cost. Despite his great loss, it looks as though Barry finally might have a happy ending, very similar to how this season ends. But at the last minute Barry decides to go back in time and save his mother from dying, ending the season with hints at a totally different timeline.

Now this isn't Barry going evil, but it is a drastic change like turning the main character evil might be. But the reason I liked this ending to Season 2 of the Flash was because it felt in line with the character and what he would do. Barry has faced so much loss that he would make this final choice in his grief and it changes the whole dynamic of the show.

Again, I'm saying this without the foresight of an entire season, but the reason I bring it up is because it really doesn't look like there's anywhere else this season of Once Upon a Time could go with Emma and they needed to shake up the show. And that's not a good sign.

I think the biggest issue with Emma in this show is that she is pulled too far into the fantasy world that she's somewhere in between and just really boring. They give her a sword and she's apparently the Chosen One, when in reality she should have been running around this Fairy Tale land with a gun.

Emma should have been the voice of reason in all of this madness and been more of a modern Alice in Wonderland rather than a modern character that slowly dissolves into another fantasy character, especially with how milk toast she is.

One benefit of writing part of this review well past the time I saw the season is to test myself and pinpoint the parts I really remember from the season and the parts that stick out. And I honestly can't say I remember a lot from Emma besides her whininess and her complete uselessness.

There are a couple of interesting characters in this season and a couple of set ups that make for some interesting story arcs, even for the uninteresting characters. But Emma is a complete mess and I'm not totally sure how you fix that.

But now we get to the parts that are supposed to be the good parts.

Everything Involving Rumplestiltskin

Now like I said before, I actually really liked the fact that Pan was Mr. Gold's father and that there was some actually interesting arcs going on with those two.

The strongest parts involving Mr. Gold come in the first season when he's dealing with his personal demons and Robert Carlyle continues to be one of the only good parts in this entire show.

The problem?

Well it's two fold.

The first problem comes with the end of the first half of this season. Mr. Gold faces his father and at the end he seemingly kills himself as a sacrifice to end Pan's treachery. It's a decent death and it serves a greater purpose. It seems to bring the character of Rumplestiltskin full circle and they could have just left him dead...

But of course this show doesn't believe in true death and they couldn't get rid of their best actor so they bring him back in the second half but as the Wicked Witches slave the entire time.

Now this does provide a new side of Mr. Gold who was always kind of the Deus Ex Machina in a way where he was all powerful and able to help at a moments notice. But now he's the servant to somebody and he has to be subservient to that person.

It's not exactly interesting for him as a character, but it's more interesting for the character. And it does create a great character moment when he revenge kills the Wicked Witch.

And speaking of revenge... let's talk about Neal.

Yay they killed him and he's not coming back! At least he doesn't come back to life in this season and I'm pretty sure he doesn't in later seasons!

Now Michael Raymond-James was never a great actor in this show. But I never had any huge issues with him either. I always saw him as just as bad as everyone else if not a little bit better. But oh my god that death scene was just the worst acting I've seen in a long time. It kind of reminded me of Talia Al Ghul's death in The Dark Knight Rises.

But the good thing is that it actually works more towards Mr. Gold and his development as a character. While the scene is bad acting-wise, it does complete an arc for Mr. Gold and while he's rendered useless for the rest of the season, it does come full circle by the end of it and there is closure for him.

Overall, what do I think of Mr. Gold in this season? He's pretty much the same. He's above average for the quality of average in this show and when he was on screen and the story was focused on him, it actually wasn't too bad.

I still like the relationship he has with Belle and I like how they make it a substitute for the Beauty and the Beast storyline still. Like a lot of the other characters, he does get a bit of a happy ending, minus the whole his son dies, but him and Belle get married and while there are still secrets between them, it seems like there is closure, something that becomes a common theme for a lot of people near the end of the third season.

I wish that I could talk more about him but I don't really want to beleaguer the point, especially if I'm writing this from a more disjointed position after a good time passed since actually watching the season.

Is there more about Mr. Gold that I enjoyed in season 3? Yes. But I think that's a decent summary of the overall points that were good and that's usually what I talk about when it comes to Rumplestiltskin.

Hook

Hook was boring in this season. They're trying to do the whole character turn they did with Regina where he started as a bad character and they're trying to make him a good character and a viable mate for Emma your main character because let's be honest, he's the best looking guy in the show and they want to give Emma some bad boy arm candy.

He's still better than the Charmings and you can tell there's a little bit of a story arc with him that is kind of good.

Now in the second season he was a little bit muddled but he was a lot more intriguing than the rest of the cast. And in Season 3... well they kind of neuter him. I honestly can't remember a lot of what happened with Hook because he was just along for the ride for a lot of it.

Overall, he became boring. That's it. Not much else to say.

Like a lot of the characters in Season 3, Hook and Emma get a bit of a happy ending at the end of this season and it sort of works, but it was all at the sacrifice of a character that really wasn't that great.

Overall, a lot of things kind of balanced out. This season wasn't so dependent on the good story of individual characters and was able to make a better story overall (in comparison with the other 2). The sacrifice was better characters like Hook and Mr. Gold, who, while still good, are not nearly as strong as they used to be because they don't need to carry the rest of the cast anymore.

And one of the reasons the third season's story gets a little bit better is because they utilize a lot more in their arsenal. Now they don't use it all because their budget still seems to be pretty limited, case a point Neverland, but they actually utilize time travel in an interesting way in this season.

Now I watched this show with the sole purpose of it being a place holder for new episodes of Doctor Who. And when a time travel episode came, I actually was a little bit impressed with it. This was the moment where the show actually had some heart to it and actually got good and that's what I mean when I say they utilized a lot more of their arsenal.

There's a lot of story elements that this show has used just kind of willy nilly and just thrown in for the sake of just saying they did it, characters that didn't need to connect to the story but were thrown in there because this is a show made by Disney and every time we meet an old character, the nostalgia people just cream their jeans. I felt like the Time Travel episode was actually done pretty well and it was a fun little tagline to the end of the season despite the main villain dying.

I do want to talk about the ending last because this is kind of the reason I didn't have much of an interest in watching anymore of Once Upon a Time.

First and foremost...

This was a shitty cliffhanger. I know this came out not long after Frozen and people were obsessed with Elsa and were looking forward to seeing her in the show, but for someone who didn't have Frozen fever as bad as other people, this meant absolutely nothing to me. I don't care that Elsa is in Once Upon a Time now and everyone seemed to get a happy ending near the end of this show so I didn't have much of a motivation or interest to keep watching this show.

But there's another reason why I more than likely will not watch Once Upon a Time again.

Put aside the fact that I've always shit on this show and don't think it's very good, I will admit that it did something pretty great for the nostalgic Disney fan. It gave Disney fans a taste of what it would look like if these animated Disney movies we watched as kids came to live action.

Once again, I applaud the Disney business model because it is really brilliant.

Once Upon a Time first aired in 2011. At this time, the only live action remake of Disney's animated films was Alice in Wonderland which I consider a sequel more than a remake.

People went nuts for Once Upon a Time, not because it was good writing or had an interesting story with compelling characters, it was more based on the nostalgia and the desire for these live action remakes that Disney eventually put in motion in 2014 with Malificent and are continuing to do with movies like Cinderella, Jungle Book, and Beauty and the Beast, to name the ones that have either come out or are coming out in a couple of months. And this is going to continue to be a thing in the upcoming years because Disney saw the profitability in bringing these stories back to life in a live action format.

So how does this apply to Once Upon a Time and it's future?

Once Upon a Time gave a low budget version of what that would look like and regardless of the writing, people ate it up. It became more of a marketing tool above anything else to promote films that were coming out or had come out, like Oz: The Great and Powerful and Frozen. But behind it all, it was gearing audiences up for a string of live action films to be coming out in the future with a much better budget and the ability to virtually adapt our childhoods into live action.

But a marketing ploy doesn't make for good story. Once Upon a Time, up until this point has been dictated by the promotions they need to push in the movie world and I think they suffer for it. Why does Elsa show up in a portal after Emma and Hook use that portal to time travel? Who the hell knows.

But the story doesn't need to be good if it's a marketing ploy. However, this does make me ask the question, why do we need Once Upon a Time if the ploy of gauging people's interest for live action versions of the animated stories is already complete? Think about it. The market testing is over, we know that people want these live action movies and a lot of them have been green lit. Why put money into a suffering TV show if it's marketing purpose has been completed?

I mean do you or people you know still watch that show? Is it still popular? I don't hear people talking about it the way I hear people talking about Game of Thrones, or The Walking Dead, or even a prime time show like Designated Survivor.

These are all questions I may never know the answer to because I'm going to be honest, I don't really want to watch this show again.

There are so many options now, so many good shows out there and even shows that aren't good but have more of a buzz about them and would be more fun to watch and review (I'm contemplating doing a full review of Season 1 of Fuller House). Once Upon a Time just doesn't appeal to me anymore and it doesn't really have a purpose as much as it used to. While this season probably didn't have as much of a conclusive ending as I remember it having, I had enough closure at the end of this season to say I will more than likely not do any more reviews of Once Upon a Time. Now I never say never, and if I end up doing another season it will make for a funny joke of "Well, we're here again." But for now, I must depart this show.

Overall, Season 3 was probably my favorite of the three seasons I watched but again this is all in comparison of a show that has overall had horrible acting, horrible story, and is just awkward at times, especially when I know that it's jut being used as a marketing tool for other Disney products.

But those are my thoughts. What about you? I know people are still watching Once Upon a Time so why do you do it? What intrigues you about it? Do you think it's a marketing tool? Comment and Discuss below! You can also send me your thoughts on Twitter @cmhaugen24 as well as send me your requests for other movies and TV shows I should be reviewing. If you follow me on Twitter, you can get updates on future movie news and reviews coming out of this blog.

I'll leave you with this. Did I mention I really liked the second trailer for Beauty and the Beast? That's a movie I'm looking forward to. If I have I apologize but I feel like it's relevant. Enjoy!