Entry tags:
Tasty, Tasty Television
I never wanted to like 'Once Upon A Time.' I figured it would be the weakest of this season's crop of urban fantasy tv shows - that it would be derivative, sugary, shallow, and bland. I didn't like the fact that, while it claims to be generally about fairy tales, that it's heavily and blatantly Disney. I didn't like the woman playing the evil queen. I didn't like the fact that, in the first episode, it felt like a poorly-veiled 'Fables' knockoff.
But the arc plot sounded... not bad, at least, and![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
umbran wanted to give it a fair chance, and so I decided to keep watching. And I wound up vaguely interested, at least enough to give it one more episode. And then one more. And then I finally had to admit to myself that I liked it. And, for better or for worse, there's precisely one reason that I do like it.
Rumpelstiltskin.
I am deeply, wrongly, madly in love with this character, with the actor who plays him, with his story, with his plot, with the delicious, dark, syrupy angst that pours from his every facet. I adore well-written villains, and there is something about his simultaneous glee in villainy, his two-faced nature, his sheer joy in mercenarily hosing both the good and the evil alike, and his dark, bitter self-hatred that just makes me want to do the television equivalent of drinking up every last drop of his story and licking the bowl. I was afraid when the show started giving him backstory that they would spoil the purity of his villainy, but they're managing to handle it in such a way that only makes him better.
The rest of the story is pretty good, I guess. I still wish they'd make it a little less heavily Disney, and I'm beginning to realize that my hope of them pulling in some of the more obscure fairy tales is likely to be in vain. (Donkeyskin? Please?) But I will watch as long as it's on the air, if they continue to give me my weekly spoonful of black antihero angst....
(Spoiler safety request - I'm still two episodes behind, so please no in-depth details of what happens after "Skin Deep.")
But the arc plot sounded... not bad, at least, and
umbran wanted to give it a fair chance, and so I decided to keep watching. And I wound up vaguely interested, at least enough to give it one more episode. And then one more. And then I finally had to admit to myself that I liked it. And, for better or for worse, there's precisely one reason that I do like it.Rumpelstiltskin.
I am deeply, wrongly, madly in love with this character, with the actor who plays him, with his story, with his plot, with the delicious, dark, syrupy angst that pours from his every facet. I adore well-written villains, and there is something about his simultaneous glee in villainy, his two-faced nature, his sheer joy in mercenarily hosing both the good and the evil alike, and his dark, bitter self-hatred that just makes me want to do the television equivalent of drinking up every last drop of his story and licking the bowl. I was afraid when the show started giving him backstory that they would spoil the purity of his villainy, but they're managing to handle it in such a way that only makes him better.
The rest of the story is pretty good, I guess. I still wish they'd make it a little less heavily Disney, and I'm beginning to realize that my hope of them pulling in some of the more obscure fairy tales is likely to be in vain. (Donkeyskin? Please?) But I will watch as long as it's on the air, if they continue to give me my weekly spoonful of black antihero angst....
(Spoiler safety request - I'm still two episodes behind, so please no in-depth details of what happens after "Skin Deep.")