It saddens me to do this, but Disney is forcing me. Honest.
I’ve watched Once Upon a Time since its inception. It was one of my favorite shows. I like retellings of fairy tales, especially when they’re brought into modern times. I thought this one was quite clever. I liked the characters, even the villains. I liked the back-and-forth between the worlds as we learned who each character had been before the curse. I liked the various twists on the characters, such as an adult Snow White living as an independent bandit in the forest before meeting the dwarves, and Little Red Riding Hood being the wolf. These back stories provided great depth to old tales.
But now I must stop watching it. I just can’t take any more insults to my intelligence, or disdain for my viewing time.
Have you been watching it? Has your number of cringes per episode skyrocketed lately, like mine has? Please, Disney, stop. Have mercy.
Disney owns ABC. I get that. But no other show gets this treatment. Disney has a big stake in fairy tales. I get that, too. But they are using this TV show as free promotion for every fairy tale movie they’ve done. I was okay through all the changes for a few seasons, with some trepidation about Peter Pan, although I was all onboard by the end of that storyline.
It was after that things got downright idiotic. Seriously – the Wizard of Oz? With a HUGE stretch to my belief synapses to accept that the Wicked Witch of the West was an illegitimate daughter of Cora’s years before she married and had Regina.
It’s gone downhill from there. Now we have Frozen. Huh? The movie my 8 year old granddaughter knows by heart? Worse than that, Micky Mouse’s broom, which was a delight in Fantasia, has started showing up, jerking me right out of the story every time. WTF, Disney? The broom?
I’ve stuck with it. I’ve invested four years in this show and I still like many of the characters. But no. When the cute little Dalmatian puppy appeared, I felt a true pang of alarm. And sure enough, a few minutes later, we have Cruella DeVille sashaying into a scene. She’s not even a fairy tale character! Come on Disney!
Putting her in company with Maleficent and Ursula the Sea Witch is just stupid. And I’m supposed to accept these characters as nemeses of, and eventual partners with, the Dark Lord? Seriously??
Disney is insulting all of us with this nonsense. Worse, they are insulting their own actors, who’ve put hard, honest work and talent into their characters. Disney has turned them into spoofs. I get the feeling we’re going to hit every Disney movie ever made.
Yet there are still plot lines I want to see resolved. I’m really pissed about either giving up entirely or having to wade through this junk while waiting to see how it goes.
Marlene Dotterer 
I gave up on it after season two. I got tired of the back and forth from good to evil. I needed a happily ever after and it finally dawned on me that that would never come.
I also only watched the first 2 seasons. Quite frankly season 3 looked stupid so I decided I had enough.
I have been a faithful watcher from the beginning. I too think Disney needs to stop using it as a promo show. There are so many other much more interesting fairy tales in the world. I really thought they would go to other cultures, particularly with the wink at Mulan. The show could use some diversity in cultures, storylines and characters to keep it fresh. Instead, they’ve clearly abandoned this kernel of an idea to do Disney tie-in week.
I too hated most of the Peter Pan season until the end, but at least that was a book. Wizard of Oz was a poor job of retconning. In fact, they’ve recently done some very poor retconning overall–still not buying the Charming and Anna were friends, and she had aunts she knew nothing about bit. Still, I think they did a decent job working Frozen in this year. But now, it’s just overkill. Maleficent doesn’t even belong in the evil category given the new movie. I would love to return to the days of exploring fairy tales and the rich social commentary they offer, but I guess that ship has sailed. Still in love with Regina and Gold though, so I’ll probably stick around and hope they manage to find a way to make Emma interesting. Maybe by hiring another actress who isn’t quite so one note.
Glad to know I’m not the only one noticing the nonsense though.