rose_griffes | instead of catching up on TV, let's throw some other shows into the mix?

I keep being tempted by Once Upon a Time, even though I gave up in vague disinterest and frustration midway through season one. But there are fairy tales being retold, and I love that stuff! And apparently there's a v. cute Lancelot, and Mu-lan was there at some point, right? (My main frustration: no characters had any real agency other than Emma, Regina and Mr. Gold. And I wasn't very fond of Rumpelstiltskin. So I gave up in the middle of the episode about the magic mirror. I tried the werewolf episode later on and it wasn't enough to tempt me back.)

sabaceanbabe says the special that aired before season two would probably be enough to catch up, but if you had a favorite episode from the second half of season one, maybe you could let me know? And then I could decide if cute Lancelot would be enough to try season two...

Here's a list of the second half of season one:
12 Skin Deep
13 What Happened to Frederick
14 Dreamy
15 Red-Handed (already watched)
16 Heart of Darkness
17 Hat Trick
18 The Stable Boy
19 The Return
20 The Stranger
21 An Apple Red as Blood
22 A Land Without Magic

In entirely unrelated news, the Oklahoma Sooners beat the Texas Longhorns (American football) this weekend. And I was quite content.

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I really enjoyed Hat Trick and A Land Without Magic. And I just finished watching the first 3 eps of the new season literally 2 minutes ago. I think next week's episode may have a new TV boyfriend in it. I'm just sayin'...

I figure I'll give at least two episodes from the second half of season one a try--with one of the the finale--and then we'll see. The spoiler I know (about everyone knowing who they are? yeah?) makes me more hopeful that I'll find something that keeps my interest.

In all honesty, if first half of the season plus "Red-Handed" left you feeling whatever about the show, then you're pretty much never going to love the show and continuing to try is going leave you ever more frustrated that you're not liking something you think you're supposed to like.

I'm going to try two more episodes from season one, including the finale. We'll see if I still have enough interest/motivation to keep watching after that.

(And yes, it is funny and kinda irritating that OUaT is just the kind of show I would normally love. And Person of Interest is the kind of show that I would watch while grading papers. Yet here I am, forty thousand words into my first multi-chapter fic for PoI, and not watching OUaT at all. Weird and unexpected.)

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hah, funny, my character preferences were rather the opposite of yours. I liked Emma a lot and found Regina to be a bit irritating. But ditto losing interest partway through.

I'm giving season one two more chances, by watching two more episodes. We'll see.

I've also been wondering whether I should try to pick it up again. I stopped watching at almost exactly the same point, though it was more a matter of forgetting to watch and then not quite caring enough to catch up than it was a matter of actively choosing to stop. There was a lot I quite liked about the first half of season 1, and I've heard that it got much better in the second half, at least in terms of the plot arc. I guess to the extent that I was a bit bored, it was because the episodic format really didn't work that well for me--I always wanted more plottiness and less character-of-the-week, and I was also kind of worried that there wasn't an overall plan for where the plot was going. Also, I really wanted the Snow White/Prince Charming (the modern versions of themselves, anyway) plot to die, or at least to take a different turn that didn't involve them just pining over each other but not taking any action one way or the other about it.

But, well, who knows. I'm too busy to watch much at all right now, but maybe at some point I'll overcome inertia and see whether it can capture me again. I was really excited about it when it started, so hopefully that will come back?

The first three episodes of OUaT still hold up really well for me. And I've heard the same about the second half of season one: that it got stronger.

I totally agree, the episodic part was my least favorite aspect of the show, and I wanted more of the arc. And ditto the modern-day Snow/Charming plotline, ugh.

Current plan: try two more episodes from the latter half of season one, and then we'll see if I have any momentum after that to try season two.

I like Hat Trick and The Stranger. Eric can't decide so far when I asked him about it. So far I am enjoying season 2 a lot! It is better than season 1. The middle part is season 1 got boring, especially the story of Mary Margaret and David. So far season 2 better.

Thanks for the input! I'll keep it in mind while I try to decide which episodes to sample from late season one.

instead of catching up on TV, let's throw some other shows into the mix?

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