Once Upon a Time in Wonderland
Jan. 8th, 2021 09:19 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ivyficIn search of some fluff, I decided to rewatch Once Upon a Time in Wonderland. In the first episode, about half of it is exposition dump, so I was like, oh, right--Will was on Once Upon a Time as well, so maybe it makes sense to start with those episodes. *looks up actor's imdb page* *looks up credits* Michael Socha was in season 4 of OUaT. Okay.
Wait--that was after OUaTiW.
Wasn't he in OUaT before that? Wasn't there a backdoor pilot? *looks up OUaT wikia* *looks up episodes mentioning Wonderland*
Nope, Will was introduced in OUaTiW. The exposition dump was apparently meant to build mystery, not to catch the audience up on stuff they missed? ??
So then I watched the previous OUaT episodes that featured Wonderland--the Mad Hatter episode in season 1 (Sebastian Stan and ALL the eye shadow), and "Queen of Hearts" in season 2. And man. I had forgotten just how much of OUaT was endless Macguffin fetch quests and magical technobabble. Seriously, watching two episodes out of sequence made it incredibly obvious just how much of the dialogue is things like, "But I let Cora get the ashes of the wardrobe and compass! Now I can't even find the squid ink!" or "I have this petrified magic bean from the beanstalk, if we through it in the portal with ashes it should regenerate"--
It's just all. Stuff. New stuff and callbacks to things from seasons ago. And I also remembered that what got me through all this technobabble was Regina's costumes. I will put up with a lot of exposition for the costumes.
I watched OUaT up through season 5 and had a vague thought of revisiting the last two seasons, but it is such a dense web of mythology and plot complication that I have forgotten that I don't think I could pick it up without a rewatch, and seriously--I felt like I'd watched a two hour movie after one of the episodes there was so much stuff in it. I do not think I will do a rewatch.
Except of OUaTiW. That rewatch is going forward--it's only 13 episodes, and it's relatively self contained. Then we'll see if I want to follow Will back to the main show.
(Also, can we talk about the accents on OUaTiW? All the actors are British--I checked--but the accents are all OVER the place. They are like Dick van Dyke level. I was shocked the actors weren't American.)
Wait--that was after OUaTiW.
Wasn't he in OUaT before that? Wasn't there a backdoor pilot? *looks up OUaT wikia* *looks up episodes mentioning Wonderland*
Nope, Will was introduced in OUaTiW. The exposition dump was apparently meant to build mystery, not to catch the audience up on stuff they missed? ??
So then I watched the previous OUaT episodes that featured Wonderland--the Mad Hatter episode in season 1 (Sebastian Stan and ALL the eye shadow), and "Queen of Hearts" in season 2. And man. I had forgotten just how much of OUaT was endless Macguffin fetch quests and magical technobabble. Seriously, watching two episodes out of sequence made it incredibly obvious just how much of the dialogue is things like, "But I let Cora get the ashes of the wardrobe and compass! Now I can't even find the squid ink!" or "I have this petrified magic bean from the beanstalk, if we through it in the portal with ashes it should regenerate"--
It's just all. Stuff. New stuff and callbacks to things from seasons ago. And I also remembered that what got me through all this technobabble was Regina's costumes. I will put up with a lot of exposition for the costumes.
I watched OUaT up through season 5 and had a vague thought of revisiting the last two seasons, but it is such a dense web of mythology and plot complication that I have forgotten that I don't think I could pick it up without a rewatch, and seriously--I felt like I'd watched a two hour movie after one of the episodes there was so much stuff in it. I do not think I will do a rewatch.
Except of OUaTiW. That rewatch is going forward--it's only 13 episodes, and it's relatively self contained. Then we'll see if I want to follow Will back to the main show.
(Also, can we talk about the accents on OUaTiW? All the actors are British--I checked--but the accents are all OVER the place. They are like Dick van Dyke level. I was shocked the actors weren't American.)