Spin-Requel-Off
I really wanted to like - want to like - the new the season of Once Upon A Time that started last night.
I've been watching, and have loved, Once since I started watching the August before last, or was it two Augusts ago. I started watching before the sixth season began because I heard that Oded Fehr was going to be playing Jafar. I became emotionally invested in the show because of the relationship between Belle and Rumplestiltskin... compelled by Robert Carlyle's portrayal of the Dark One in both the fairytale and the 'real' worlds. I loved the show right through the first four and a half seasons, but seasons five and six were some of the hardest to watch because of the direction the stories - and that 'all important' - to me at least - relationship took. Rumbelle had always been troubled, but during the back half of season five, and most all of season six, it just went from bad, through worse, to impossibly hideous.
It was mostly redeemed by the end of seaon six, and that was when the bombshell dropped. Season 7 would be made without the full cast of characters that we'd come to know and love. It's been variously reported that the show 'lost' six of it's established characters ahead of the start of this season, but let's be honest and accurate. The show lost three of its established characters when the actors decided it was time for them to move on to other things. The other three it chose not to include, or at least not to include as regulars. Only three of the established characters graduated to regulars in the new season - beloved characters, true, but still only three of them, and in those, two of the show's established 'ships' have been divided.
So we start the season, or the 'requel,' or whatever it is that it's being called with all new characters, and all new curse, and all new stories to tell, and as I've said, I want to like it. I want to be excited for those new stories, characters, and the hope of a resolution for the new curse, but I have reservations, and those have their basis in the shape of the writers and showrunners, who while they've assued us that the happy endings that our favorite characters achieved at the end of season six will not in any way be compromised, spoiled or negated... well... they've lied to us before, repeatedly, and it's hard to trust that promise when those of us emotionally invested in the Rumbelle story just went through a season and a half of hell and mistreatment.
So... the show last night. I didn't hate it. It made me suspicious, and I found it hard, possibly because of my pre-conceptions and that lack of trust, to engage with the new characters to which we were introduced. I will keep watching, mostly because of Robert Carlyle, but also because it's just about the only one of 'my' shows that has survived the years, and I do, want to see what they do with the show from this point forward, but it'll probably take a while for my trust to be earned, and my fears to be dispelled. I do hope I'm wrong.
The ratings reflect that perhaps many other people are having similar reservations. They're a match for last year's lows at 0.7, though the switch to Friday nights might have something to do with that, not to mention the lack of publicity/exposure in anything other than internet entertainment media settings, and social media. Where were the TV spots, ABC? Too few and far between.