Should I Watch Once Upon a Time?

[Crime Dramas]

I'm just wondering if I should bother watching the TV show Once Upon a Time. I know that it has actors I love (like Snow White's actress, Emma's actress, and the Mad Hatter's actor) but is it really as good as people make it out to be? Here's my knowledge on the show:

It's in a town called Storybrooke, all the fairytale people are there under a spell, and it's not like the traditional fairytales. Like Rumplestiltskin is also the Beast in Beauty and the Beast.

But I just hate spending all the time finding a place that either I can watch all/the first three-to-four-seasons of a show since I'm too poor to get Hulu or Netflix only for the show to not live up to what I had imagined. So any hardcore fans out there or just someone wanting to roleplay this, let me know! Should I bother really watching this?

Also, I have done my research on select characters like the "Frankenstein" character. I love his storyline and all that, but I know that the actor does leave the show at some point so I'm like 50/50 on whether I want to watch something that has interesting characters either written out or forgotten.

And as for only watching the first three-four seasons, in my experience, those are usually the best seasons when there's a show that goes beyond that. Take Supernatural and The Walking Dead for example--especially Supernatural. They should have just stopped with season 4 but that's a whole other rant in itself.

[Mischievous Minx]

Hello, I am actually a long time fan of the show, I watched it from when it first premiered in 2011. If you're a fan of Disney and fairytales, then you will definitely enjoy the spin that is placed on these classic characters. However, a word of advice, I personally would only watch certain seasons. Seasons one and two, in my opinion, are the best. The story flows well, and continuity remains strong. Season 3 is a little darker than the previous seasons, but it isn't bad. Now, here is where the trouble starts to rear its head. The show starts t decline during season four, a lot of people think it was because the writers rushed to include Frozen and the movie wasn't even that old. The second half is "meh" at best if you like Maleficent, Ursula and Cruella, you might find it enjoyable. Season five, I've always been on the fence with, because both seasons start out strong and then plunge into ridiculousness that reads like someone's God awful fanfiction. You should avoid season six and seven like the plague, they're just really bad. So, advice would be to watch the first three seasons and maybe try out season four and five but skip the rest. 

[𝙹𝚘𝙹𝚘.]

Hello! Die Hard OUAT Fan here!




So, basically the show is really what you make of it. Seasons 1-3 are really the best in my opinion, but 4 is pretty good too. Admittedly,I was kinda lost with the Wizard of Oz plot in season 3 and then Frozen was quickly shoehorned into the show right after since the movie was very popular around that time. Not saying I'm not a fan of Frozen, I really am! It's just that in OUAT it...really dragged on for a little too long admittedly. It's not everyone's cup of tea and it maybe wasn't mine either because they added elements from the Snow Queen which mostly didn't make sense with the Frozen plotline. (Does that make sense? I'm not sure.)




Honestly, I don't think anyone really watches for the plot though. The plot is very very hit and miss, especially in late season 4 through 6. I mainly watched all of OUAT for the characters and the actors. The actors themselves breathe so much life into the characters that it's just so refreshing to see new and different takes on fairy tale characters. The characters as well are just as interesting, being quite "canon divergent" from the Disney movies themselves. For example, Mulan is NOTHING like how she is in the Disney Movie and yet she's maybe in my top three favorite characters from OUAT regardless of that. Same with characters like Snow White and Captain Hook. Again, nothing like the Disney movies, but still some of the best and most interesting characterization you'l ever see.




Also the final season is kind of like a reboot for the series. It "kind of" erases the whole series and starts anew with only a few returning characters. Admittedly, I really liked the final season, but only for Drizella and her actress. (The most iconic character and actual star of the final season if you ask me. There's literally no other reason to watch that season aside from her.) Otherwise, the plot was just a rehash of the first season basically. The ending was at least satisfying.




You'll know very quickly if you're gonna like OUAT or not. Like I said, first three to four seasons are maybe the best and I can barely tell you what happens in the seasons after until season seven. Outside of being attached to a handful of characters during the middle seasons, I could have done with completely different plots, but that's just me.