Selfie: A T.V. Show That Should've Been a Movie

I am admittedly a little confused about this.  I didn’t even realize that Karen Gillan was starring in a new T.V. show until I stumbled upon this, quite by accident, via BBC America.  Well, really, it was via the Doctor Who fan page on Facebook.

Either way, I was excited to watch the trailer because I’m pretty much excited to see anything Karen Gillan’s pretty face is in.  I was, however, undeniably confused and little underwhelmed.  First of all, this entire thing looks like it should be a movie, not a T.V. show.  It has the flow and plot of a fun, throwaway movie like When in Rome or Confessions of a Shopoholic, both of which are movies that I adore, but neither of which Kristin Bell nor Isla Fischer are really known for.  Well, I guess maybe Isla Fischer, a little bit, but you see my point.

The modern day My Fair Lady thing is cute and I see you trying to make this relatable by using social media to replace Eliza’s cockney accent, ABC.  I’m just not sure what the target audience is meant to be, here.  Were this a movie, I would definitely sit down and devote 1.5 hours or so of my life to watching it.  It looks cute, I get to stare at Karen Gillan, and it’s always fun to see Harold in something different.

As a T.V. show?  You’ve lost my interest almost immediately.  I have no desire to drag out what could and should be crammed into an hour and a half as a television series.  It’d be like taking Confessions of a Teenage Drama Queen and making it into a T.V. show.  Literally, no one would care.  No one.  Actually, I think more people would care about that, than this.

And I don’t care about this.  Plus, I don’t think it would hurt to dial Karen’s vernacular back a bit.  Do real people actually speak in hashtags, unironically?  I sincerely hope not.  I will say, though, that Karen’s American accent is pretty spot on.  If you didn’t already know she’s Scottish, you’d have no idea.  Not that the American accent is particularly hard to master, but I’ve seen plenty of English/Irish/Scottish/Australian/etc. actors and actresses whose American accents are terrible because their native accents are so strong (I’m looking at you, Gerard Butler).

And what happens once Eliza is sufficiently “My Fair Lady’d”?  How many seasons will that take and, once she is, then what?  The whole point of the show is that she’s a vapid social media-ite.  Once she’s transformed into a non-vapid social media-ite, what is the point of the show?

Maybe people will buy into this and maybe they’ll like it, but I would be surprised if it makes it a full season.  Or past the pilot.  Sorry, Karen.  I love you dearly, but this looks ridiculous.  Thank god you’re in Guardians of the Galaxy so I can watch you in something fun and interesting, other than Doctor Who.

Once Upon a Time: Season 3 Finale

So, the finale.  There were things I loved about the finale, things I was indifferent to and things I hated.  We’ll start with the things I loved.  First and foremost, and probably most obvious, Emma and Hook!  Finally!  I’ll admit, I was initially skeptical of this ship.  I liked Neal, back when he was alive, and the idea of a rekindled romance with Emma was sort of sweet, especially since he was Henry’s dad.  However, as time wore on (particularly after Season Three in which Hook and Emma make out for second on Peter Pan’s Death Island) I became more and more supportive of the Emma/Hook pairing.  And then Neal died and all our wishes came true!

Hooray!

Let's just revel in that for a moment, shall we?  Yes, let's.

Ah, that's better.  OTPs coming to fruition are a beautiful thing.  Of course, everyone seems to have sort of forgotten about Neal relatively quickly, but whatever.  I can live with that.  He sold his ship to find her.  Neal never sold a fucking ship.  Fuck Neal.  Moving on.

The whole Back to the Future vibe throughout the episode was a lot of fun.  Also, I think it as cool for Emma to be able to see all of these people she knows in their natural environments.  She got to see her parents fall in love, got to see Rumpelstiltskin in all his weird, glittery glory, got to see Belle in the early stages of her affection for Rumpel, etc.  And she got to kick around with Hook the entire time!  Ten points to Gryffindor the writers!

I was relatively indifferent to the marriage of Rumpel and Belle, speaking of.  I felt like I should have been more d'awwww, but I just wasn't.  I mean, I guess it was a long time in the making and it was sort of sweet and all, but you know Belle’s going to find out that the dagger he gave her is a fake and she’s going to want a fairy divorce, or something.  I know they had to get rid of Zelena (who I was very sad to see go, I might add) but did it have to be Rumpel again?  Can’t this guy just catch a break and be decent for a good, long while?  I was vaguely annoyed by his rambling on at the wedding about how he couldn't understand what Belle saw in him and why she loved him, yadda yadda, after having done the exact opposite of what he’d promised Belle he’d do, and lying to her about the dagger, to boot.

Yeah, none of us can understand why she loves your lying ass either, Rumpel.

Also, I enjoyed Hook punching himself in the face because he was making out with Emma.  That was the weirdest, cutest bit of jealousy I’ve seen in a while.

I hated, absolutely hated the fact that the chick in Regina’s dungeon turned out to be Marian.  Did not see that one coming, like at all.  And I am pissed off, man.  Finally, FINALLY Regina has learned to love again and has her heart, etc.  She’s not a bad guy anymore and actually saved the town by breaking the curse with Henry and so forth.  She and Emma are getting along as well as can be expected, given the circumstances, she’s been helping the Charmings and then BOOM.  Boyfriend’s dead wife shows up and he is overwhelmed with happiness.  Way to go, Emma.  Life ruiner.

And now the flux capacitor is busted and I’m all out of plutonium, so we’ll never be able to get up to 1.21 gigawatts of power to send that bitch back to hell from whence she came.  Nice going.

I guess with the elation of a well deserved ship being made canon, they had to throw us a curve ball that sort of ripped out hearts out.  Shocker that Regina gets to be the punching bag for that.  So, now we find ourselves sort of back to the beginning.  It seems inevitable that Regina is going to struggle all next season with good vs. evil.  We know she's capable of good - she defeated Zelena with it.  But, this is twice, now, that she's suffered in love and you have to wonder - can Regina ever just be happy?  It's like she The Doctor, or something.

But, I was still riding pretty high on Hook and Emma, and waiting excitedly for next season's villain to be introduced.  Oh, look!  There's that vase thingy.  I figured that might be important.  Okay, blue stuff is spilling out into Zelena's witch portal floor carvings.  Okay, a figure is taking shape.  She's wearing a blu-... wait a second, is that a braid?  Did she just hand flare ice curly q's?  Is that...?

What the fuck.  

I love Frozen to distraction, really.  I know all of the songs, I love Olaf and Elsa.  I love it.  But, this seemed like such blatant pandering that is seriously irritated me.  I mean, they could have done Maleficent.  Why aren't they doing Maleficent?!  I know the movie is about to come out and everything, but Maleficent is an established Disney villain.  She's been around since 1959, kids.  She's old school and she's fucking awesome.  Plus, Maleficent is a villain.  Elsa isn't really a villain, she's just a poor, dumb kid who can't control her ice powers.

I realize they're trying to ride out the popularity of Frozen, but what the hell are you going to do with Elsa to make her a villain?  I know they change the stories a lot (Peter Pan, for example) but... I mean, don't kids watch Once Upon a Time?  My daughter likes to watch it with me sometimes, because it's pretty family oriented and usually not particularly scary.  If they turn Elsa into a bad guy, though, I won't be able to let her watch, because Frozen is one of her favorite movies, right now, and she won't get it.

That entirely aside, though, it just struck me as exceptionally pandering and silly.  Disney has tons of established villains that we would all have been happy with (did I mention Maleficent?)  and, instead, OUaT decided to ride the coattails of Frozen's success and just beat a dead horse with it.

I watch enough Frozen around my house as it is.  I don't want it bleeding over into my other T.V. shows, man.