Once Upon a Time in Wonderland intro 1x01
Jun. 29th, 2020 09:54 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jedi_of_urth posting in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
tori_reviewsSo this one is kind of an odd duck in things I've thought of for 2020 hindsight, but it is the next thing I convinced myself to do, so it's what we're doing.
Once Upon a Time in Wonderland
I'm not even sure this technically qualifies for this project for two reasons:
1) It's a spin-off of a much longer running show
2) It might have only been intended to be a one season show, with an option on other side stories to the main series, but not actually continuing this one.
But it is also the forgotten step-sibling of the main show (somewhat ironic that) since they did eventually bring at least one of the characters from this into the main show but didn't include this backstory. Also, even the main show seems somewhat forgotten except for a few die-hard fans; probably because a lot of people were like me and drifted away from the show long before it ended.
Because, let's acknowledge one thing; part of the reason I remember this show more fondly than the main show is probably because it only lasted the one season and didn't drag on. And because it may or may not have even been intended to go on, it was certainly structured to be a more contained story, and that has benefits. I do often prefer long term storytelling, because we get to continue seeing the characters grow and change and their world evolve, but it does get frustrating when that doesn't happen, either at all or in a way I enjoy or it isn't well written to bring it about.
I don't actually remember a lot of this show; the broad picture, but not a lot of specific left over feelings. I'm pretty sure I liked all the main characters, I shipped the main couple, and mostly enjoyed the story, but I think also found it subject to some of the same problems as the main series in terms of gimmicks and weird ways of writing in fairy tale characters from different worlds. Also, I have a pretty good memory that the CGI is ropey as hell, but for all I know now that might have been part of the charm; I'm a sucker for a show that owns its cheesiness, although I seem to to recall being relieved that the rabbit wasn't in that many episodes.
I do suspect I remember more than I think I do right now, but apparently nothing my mind thinks I should include here. Unlike some other shows, I do know I saw all of the series before so there's no question of if I've seen this or that episode, I just have very little idea what goes where in the sequence of things I kind of remember happening.
So let's get to it and see what I find on this watch,
OUaTiW 1x01: Down the Rabbit Hole
So as stated in the intro portion, this is going to be a bit of an odd one to analyze because there are definitely pieces here where you have to take into account that this is a spin off. Fortunately the first couple seasons are probably the parts of OUaT that I remember best and that's as much as one could take into account when this aired. All the continuity problems that arouse later...well those are later concerns.
But that does bring up a problem of a spin-off show like this one. It can go either way technically, but there does tend to be a dominant aspect of shows existing in the same universe, where one in made to fit with the continuity of the other, but the dominant show is given freedom to reject the canon of the other. Most often the dominant role remains with the original show, and it's why a lot of spin-offs don't long outlast the original show (at least when shows have their own internal world-building to keep straight rather than being set in just the real world). And since this one was so short there was basically no point where the continuities grew together.
(As a side-note, I'll be curious to see what happens to the Arrow-verse now that the original show has ended. I've felt like that show hasn't been in the dominant role for a while, that it was far more often expected to bend to the needs of other shows' continuity than the reverse; and yet I'm also not sure how well the other shows will be able to stand without it as the backbone. Guess we'll see, or I would if I was still planning to watch it.)
And this is a weird duck because you kind of need to have at least bought in to OUaT, but aside from just a scene or two at the beginning, you don't really need to watch OUaT to get what's going on here. If you don't already know the kind of story you're getting into, this isn't going to make sense, but you don't need to know that many facts about what's happened. They could have had Will in his own world rather that Storybrooke and it wouldn't change the story; but if you don't already get that this is the sort of world where Alice in Wonderland borders Aladdin and supposedly real life history (but also the 'present day'), this is not a good way to be introduced to that idea.
I also brought up in the intro that I had concerns over the CGI, and I have some expanded thoughts on that (which are relevant to the ongoing point); it's not so much that the CGI is bad, it's just a cartoon. Everything on the show is a bit heightened and ridiculous, so the cartoony CGI doesn't seem out of place if you've bought in to the feel of the world. It arguably works better here than it did on OUaT since this is primarily in Wonderland where maybe it should look unrealistic, and it consistently looks like there's a lot of green-screen; whereas on the main show it wanted to look grounded and like the real world a lot of the time, but would then overlay magical effects onto it and they don't look realistic against that backdrop.
That said, the acting is also kind of ropey. Lithgow is a pro even just doing voice work and the CG on the rabbit isn't bad (again, if you can just go with it) but everybody else is awkward. I don't know how much to say that's because it's a pilot and I almost always have some issue with the acting in pilots; and how much to say it's because I'm pretty sure this is a very inexperienced cast (or maybe they're all actually American trying to do accents on top of everything). It almost works the same way the CGI does, as a cartoon, but they're all kind of in different live-action cartoons for the moment.
Also, I found it a touch distracting this time around that Alice was running around in her nightgown all episode. And I'm not sure how they got clean after the marshmallow pond, but mainly the nightgown issue. In her confrontation with Cheshire, it kind of works in the show's favor that she looks helpless in her present state, but I do hope she gets a change of clothes soon.
I do kind of want to talk about Alice as protagonist, because she's very much a pre-about-2016 female protagonist. She's good, she's competent, she's capable, but she's not infallible. She walks into what could very easily have been a trap, a few times; she was shown to be able to fight against people, but she's in trouble fighting the Cat on her own and needs help; and there's a whole string of issues inherent in what was going on at Bedlam (that...I'm going to hold off on examining right now, I don't know if it will come up again, but I'll probably find a moment). I seem to recall I end up liking her a lot but we'll see how it looks when I'm analyzing more thoroughly.
And this is the kind of show where you kind of need to like the main characters. On OUaT, there were enough side characters that even if you didn't like the central cast you'd probably find someone you could latch on to; here it's more of a quest narrative where the focus remains on the same set of characters most of the time.
It's off to a decent start (and I finally started something), so let's see how it starts to build on this.
Once Upon a Time in Wonderland
I'm not even sure this technically qualifies for this project for two reasons:
1) It's a spin-off of a much longer running show
2) It might have only been intended to be a one season show, with an option on other side stories to the main series, but not actually continuing this one.
But it is also the forgotten step-sibling of the main show (somewhat ironic that) since they did eventually bring at least one of the characters from this into the main show but didn't include this backstory. Also, even the main show seems somewhat forgotten except for a few die-hard fans; probably because a lot of people were like me and drifted away from the show long before it ended.
Because, let's acknowledge one thing; part of the reason I remember this show more fondly than the main show is probably because it only lasted the one season and didn't drag on. And because it may or may not have even been intended to go on, it was certainly structured to be a more contained story, and that has benefits. I do often prefer long term storytelling, because we get to continue seeing the characters grow and change and their world evolve, but it does get frustrating when that doesn't happen, either at all or in a way I enjoy or it isn't well written to bring it about.
I don't actually remember a lot of this show; the broad picture, but not a lot of specific left over feelings. I'm pretty sure I liked all the main characters, I shipped the main couple, and mostly enjoyed the story, but I think also found it subject to some of the same problems as the main series in terms of gimmicks and weird ways of writing in fairy tale characters from different worlds. Also, I have a pretty good memory that the CGI is ropey as hell, but for all I know now that might have been part of the charm; I'm a sucker for a show that owns its cheesiness, although I seem to to recall being relieved that the rabbit wasn't in that many episodes.
I do suspect I remember more than I think I do right now, but apparently nothing my mind thinks I should include here. Unlike some other shows, I do know I saw all of the series before so there's no question of if I've seen this or that episode, I just have very little idea what goes where in the sequence of things I kind of remember happening.
So let's get to it and see what I find on this watch,
OUaTiW 1x01: Down the Rabbit Hole
So as stated in the intro portion, this is going to be a bit of an odd one to analyze because there are definitely pieces here where you have to take into account that this is a spin off. Fortunately the first couple seasons are probably the parts of OUaT that I remember best and that's as much as one could take into account when this aired. All the continuity problems that arouse later...well those are later concerns.
But that does bring up a problem of a spin-off show like this one. It can go either way technically, but there does tend to be a dominant aspect of shows existing in the same universe, where one in made to fit with the continuity of the other, but the dominant show is given freedom to reject the canon of the other. Most often the dominant role remains with the original show, and it's why a lot of spin-offs don't long outlast the original show (at least when shows have their own internal world-building to keep straight rather than being set in just the real world). And since this one was so short there was basically no point where the continuities grew together.
(As a side-note, I'll be curious to see what happens to the Arrow-verse now that the original show has ended. I've felt like that show hasn't been in the dominant role for a while, that it was far more often expected to bend to the needs of other shows' continuity than the reverse; and yet I'm also not sure how well the other shows will be able to stand without it as the backbone. Guess we'll see, or I would if I was still planning to watch it.)
And this is a weird duck because you kind of need to have at least bought in to OUaT, but aside from just a scene or two at the beginning, you don't really need to watch OUaT to get what's going on here. If you don't already know the kind of story you're getting into, this isn't going to make sense, but you don't need to know that many facts about what's happened. They could have had Will in his own world rather that Storybrooke and it wouldn't change the story; but if you don't already get that this is the sort of world where Alice in Wonderland borders Aladdin and supposedly real life history (but also the 'present day'), this is not a good way to be introduced to that idea.
I also brought up in the intro that I had concerns over the CGI, and I have some expanded thoughts on that (which are relevant to the ongoing point); it's not so much that the CGI is bad, it's just a cartoon. Everything on the show is a bit heightened and ridiculous, so the cartoony CGI doesn't seem out of place if you've bought in to the feel of the world. It arguably works better here than it did on OUaT since this is primarily in Wonderland where maybe it should look unrealistic, and it consistently looks like there's a lot of green-screen; whereas on the main show it wanted to look grounded and like the real world a lot of the time, but would then overlay magical effects onto it and they don't look realistic against that backdrop.
That said, the acting is also kind of ropey. Lithgow is a pro even just doing voice work and the CG on the rabbit isn't bad (again, if you can just go with it) but everybody else is awkward. I don't know how much to say that's because it's a pilot and I almost always have some issue with the acting in pilots; and how much to say it's because I'm pretty sure this is a very inexperienced cast (or maybe they're all actually American trying to do accents on top of everything). It almost works the same way the CGI does, as a cartoon, but they're all kind of in different live-action cartoons for the moment.
Also, I found it a touch distracting this time around that Alice was running around in her nightgown all episode. And I'm not sure how they got clean after the marshmallow pond, but mainly the nightgown issue. In her confrontation with Cheshire, it kind of works in the show's favor that she looks helpless in her present state, but I do hope she gets a change of clothes soon.
I do kind of want to talk about Alice as protagonist, because she's very much a pre-about-2016 female protagonist. She's good, she's competent, she's capable, but she's not infallible. She walks into what could very easily have been a trap, a few times; she was shown to be able to fight against people, but she's in trouble fighting the Cat on her own and needs help; and there's a whole string of issues inherent in what was going on at Bedlam (that...I'm going to hold off on examining right now, I don't know if it will come up again, but I'll probably find a moment). I seem to recall I end up liking her a lot but we'll see how it looks when I'm analyzing more thoroughly.
And this is the kind of show where you kind of need to like the main characters. On OUaT, there were enough side characters that even if you didn't like the central cast you'd probably find someone you could latch on to; here it's more of a quest narrative where the focus remains on the same set of characters most of the time.
It's off to a decent start (and I finally started something), so let's see how it starts to build on this.
