Once Upon a Time in Wonderland
Well, I watched it! I thought it had a lot of potential in the beginning, even though it was flawed from the start. At its best, though, it was fun and bright and crazy in an endearingly crackficcy way. Plus I loved many of the characters, and even some of the ones that didn't initially interest me grew on me.
The Knave was the show's strongest character, IMO, and pretty much its one big redeeming grace. Alice had her moments, but unfortunately she was too involved in the boring relationship with Cyrus for long stretches of time... not to mention she had that one jarring moment of wtf where she evidently ceased to care for her friends' well-being once she had her lover back. But fortunately that was only one moment, so I tried to forget it had ever happened afterwards.
The friendship between Alice and Will was the most interesting relationship in the show, IMO. I was also pleasantly surprised that it truly was a friendship, and not a one-sided love of some kind. That almost never happens on TV.
Jafar was one of the characters who grew on me, as was the Red Queen. Both started out as pretty flat and unoriginal characters, but did gain interest and depth over time. I think in the case of Jafar, this was pretty much solely down to the actor... the writing certainly wasn't subtle or nuanced, but somehow, the actor managed to make it work for long stretches of time. (Not so much in the last ep, but I really can't blame the actor for that.)
As for the Red Queen, it's hard to say what I thought of the actress because I was so often distracted by her trouty lips. Holy collagen injections, Batman. Doesn't that hurt?
Now for my main problem with the show... the writing.
The Big Love
I felt the show got off on the wrong foot by not establishing the relationship between Alice and Cyrus properly. Merely having the heroine say "my one true love has been kidnapped, I must save him because I lurve him sooo!!!" doesn't go very far in terms of getting the audience emotionally invested. The extended hunt for Cyrus left me cold... in fact, since Cyrus remained such a pale and uninteresting character throughout, the Alice-and-Cyrus bits bored me right to the end. The show kept insisting their love was epic, but it was all tell and no show, and just so bland.
Victorian England
Another pretty ridiculous plot element was the entire Victorian England sequence. A young girl disappears for years and turns up again babbling about a magical wonderland, and nobody appears to wonder overmuch what happened to her? It could actually have been an interesting (and chillingly realistic) plot point to have the Victorian need to uphold appearances crush every impulse but the desire to make Alice act like a proper young lady. But even so, the default assumption of Alice's father and the other people around her should still have been that she's been abducted, and probably abused, and so that there is a perpetrator still at large somewhere. Their inaction in this matter should not have been as unremarkable as the narrative made it out to be - because it is remarkable, and actually quite horrifying.
For another absurd highlight, Alice's father is blamed not only by Alice, but by the narrative for not believing his daughter's talk of the magical wonderland she spent several years in. Naturally, he should have believed her because he loved her. Evidently, love = trust = belief in whatever the loved person says, no matter how absurd.
WTF? This dude is indeed a lousy father, but not because he failed to believe in a magical wonderland. His failure was that he evidently never alerted the authorities to his daughter's disappearance, that he failed to attempt to find the person(s) behind her disappearance after she reappeared, and that he never truly attempted to help her work through the trauma, but instead tried to make it go away by ignoring it ever happened.
Also, while I know that I am now descending into the realms of historical realism that nobody who was involved in the making of this show cared about in the least, I have to say this: Alice's father would so not have been happy to marry his daughter to Cyrus. Not even considering she was a crazy spinster.
Ahem, anyway!
The End
The last eps did not work for me at all; I thought they were weak and uninteresting. For me, everything started to unravel at about the point the so-called "Jabberwocky"* entered the scene. The entire life-giving well backstory and all that unnecessary grandstanding and rushing around was, well. Uninteresting und unengaging, I felt.
Oh, and that entire showdown sequence in the last ep, where Jafar raised zombies and there was more boring grandstanding, speechifying and rushing around? So ridiculously unnecessary. Jafar could simply have made Will and/or Alice cooperate with him by making them love him. Nothing could have been simpler or more obvious.
In fact, for a glorious moment I thought Jafar was going just there, when he stared in Will's direction and his eyes went all glowy. Imagine what a story that would have been - Jafar, the Red Queen and Will in a lovey-dovey threesome! In fact, I want the fic!! Seriously, I will write anyone who writes me this fic a story. :-)
But nooooo. Instead Jafar went and raised a zombie army. *sigh* Boring and ineffective, Jafar! Really, evil sorcerers these days need to step up their game!
And then, of course, the entire series devolved into a horrible, badly executed mess of that tired old trope "true love conquers all / is stronger than time, bullets, iron and magic / is all that matters". I am so allergic to that trope at this point. Gah.
* WTF was up with the "Jabberwocky", anyway? The poem is called Jabberwocky - the creature is the Jabberwock.
TL;DR
Despite its flaws, I did enjoy the show, particularly in the beginning. I thought the plot twist where Will becomes the genie was brilliant. I loved the Knave, and quite liked Alice, Jafar and the Red Queen. I thought there was real potential there... but unfortunately it never developed into anything truly wonderful.
On the whole, I can see why the show got cancelled. I would have made the same decision, truth be told.
So, have you seen it? What did you think?
The Knave was the show's strongest character, IMO, and pretty much its one big redeeming grace. Alice had her moments, but unfortunately she was too involved in the boring relationship with Cyrus for long stretches of time... not to mention she had that one jarring moment of wtf where she evidently ceased to care for her friends' well-being once she had her lover back. But fortunately that was only one moment, so I tried to forget it had ever happened afterwards.
The friendship between Alice and Will was the most interesting relationship in the show, IMO. I was also pleasantly surprised that it truly was a friendship, and not a one-sided love of some kind. That almost never happens on TV.
Jafar was one of the characters who grew on me, as was the Red Queen. Both started out as pretty flat and unoriginal characters, but did gain interest and depth over time. I think in the case of Jafar, this was pretty much solely down to the actor... the writing certainly wasn't subtle or nuanced, but somehow, the actor managed to make it work for long stretches of time. (Not so much in the last ep, but I really can't blame the actor for that.)
As for the Red Queen, it's hard to say what I thought of the actress because I was so often distracted by her trouty lips. Holy collagen injections, Batman. Doesn't that hurt?
Now for my main problem with the show... the writing.
The Big Love
I felt the show got off on the wrong foot by not establishing the relationship between Alice and Cyrus properly. Merely having the heroine say "my one true love has been kidnapped, I must save him because I lurve him sooo!!!" doesn't go very far in terms of getting the audience emotionally invested. The extended hunt for Cyrus left me cold... in fact, since Cyrus remained such a pale and uninteresting character throughout, the Alice-and-Cyrus bits bored me right to the end. The show kept insisting their love was epic, but it was all tell and no show, and just so bland.
Victorian England
Another pretty ridiculous plot element was the entire Victorian England sequence. A young girl disappears for years and turns up again babbling about a magical wonderland, and nobody appears to wonder overmuch what happened to her? It could actually have been an interesting (and chillingly realistic) plot point to have the Victorian need to uphold appearances crush every impulse but the desire to make Alice act like a proper young lady. But even so, the default assumption of Alice's father and the other people around her should still have been that she's been abducted, and probably abused, and so that there is a perpetrator still at large somewhere. Their inaction in this matter should not have been as unremarkable as the narrative made it out to be - because it is remarkable, and actually quite horrifying.
For another absurd highlight, Alice's father is blamed not only by Alice, but by the narrative for not believing his daughter's talk of the magical wonderland she spent several years in. Naturally, he should have believed her because he loved her. Evidently, love = trust = belief in whatever the loved person says, no matter how absurd.
WTF? This dude is indeed a lousy father, but not because he failed to believe in a magical wonderland. His failure was that he evidently never alerted the authorities to his daughter's disappearance, that he failed to attempt to find the person(s) behind her disappearance after she reappeared, and that he never truly attempted to help her work through the trauma, but instead tried to make it go away by ignoring it ever happened.
Also, while I know that I am now descending into the realms of historical realism that nobody who was involved in the making of this show cared about in the least, I have to say this: Alice's father would so not have been happy to marry his daughter to Cyrus. Not even considering she was a crazy spinster.
Ahem, anyway!
The End
The last eps did not work for me at all; I thought they were weak and uninteresting. For me, everything started to unravel at about the point the so-called "Jabberwocky"* entered the scene. The entire life-giving well backstory and all that unnecessary grandstanding and rushing around was, well. Uninteresting und unengaging, I felt.
Oh, and that entire showdown sequence in the last ep, where Jafar raised zombies and there was more boring grandstanding, speechifying and rushing around? So ridiculously unnecessary. Jafar could simply have made Will and/or Alice cooperate with him by making them love him. Nothing could have been simpler or more obvious.
In fact, for a glorious moment I thought Jafar was going just there, when he stared in Will's direction and his eyes went all glowy. Imagine what a story that would have been - Jafar, the Red Queen and Will in a lovey-dovey threesome! In fact, I want the fic!! Seriously, I will write anyone who writes me this fic a story. :-)
But nooooo. Instead Jafar went and raised a zombie army. *sigh* Boring and ineffective, Jafar! Really, evil sorcerers these days need to step up their game!
And then, of course, the entire series devolved into a horrible, badly executed mess of that tired old trope "true love conquers all / is stronger than time, bullets, iron and magic / is all that matters". I am so allergic to that trope at this point. Gah.
* WTF was up with the "Jabberwocky", anyway? The poem is called Jabberwocky - the creature is the Jabberwock.
TL;DR
Despite its flaws, I did enjoy the show, particularly in the beginning. I thought the plot twist where Will becomes the genie was brilliant. I loved the Knave, and quite liked Alice, Jafar and the Red Queen. I thought there was real potential there... but unfortunately it never developed into anything truly wonderful.
On the whole, I can see why the show got cancelled. I would have made the same decision, truth be told.
So, have you seen it? What did you think?