Iâm grateful to Adam & Eddy for blowing up the myth of the Auteur with 50 tons of ACME TNT.
Previously, I thought there were Artists-with-a-capital-A who Arted, Artily. And then the Big Bad Studio *MINOR CHORD KEYBOARD SMASH* comes in with their Notes and Interference and Focus Group Suggestions and tries to ruin everything because capitalism, or something.
âArt!â yells the Artist, frantically trying to Art Under Duress.
âCommerce,â hisses the Studio, slipping $100 bills into the Artistsâ pockets while they smash up the workshop with a baseball bat.
But thatâs not what led to OUATâs fall from grace, is it? I bet ABC put pressure on certain storylinesâ for instance, Iâm pretty sure the original plans for Dark Swan in 5A did not involve talking about, and to, a plastic mushroom for five episodesâ but overall it seems like what the showrunners wanted, they got. The problem was they couldnât handle what they had.
The problem is one of STRUCTURE. The writers set up things that they were unwilling or unable to follow-through on starting in S5: Dark Hook, Meridaâs revenge, Guinevere/Lancelot, Merlinâs prophecy, Hero!Rumple vs. Dark Swan, Dark Swan vs. her family incl. Regina, Hadesâ motivation, Zelenaâs beef with Regina, Land of Untold Stories, EQ vs. Belle, Rumple x/vs. EQ, Hero!Hook, Charming vs. his fatherâs killer, Gideon and the Dark Realm kids, Belle vs. Black Fairy, Black Fairyâs motivation, Zelenaâs magic, Emma and Hookâs 2 day break-up, Black Fairyâs curse, What are the stakes for the Final Battle, Author!Henryâs seizures, Emmaâs Jazz Hands of Doom, Tiger Lily vs. Black Fairy, etc.
Stuff that was set up had no payoff (see: the entire Camelot arc, Rumple x EQ, Hero!Hook, Charming vs. his fatherâs killer, Dark Realm kids); stuff that was supposed to be payoff had no setup (Dark Hook, Resurrected!Hook, you can clone yourself with no magical price, pixie flowers open portals to non-magical realms, a five minute nap can break the Sleeping Curse, the Wish!Realm and everyone in it was fake until it was real). Characters were added, dropped, sidelined, and killed off seemingly at random (Belleâs favorite book had more screentime and agency than Belle did in 6B).
This is oddly inspiring, because no-one is saying Adam & Eddy donât have good ideasâ what Iâm saying is they canât seem to stick the landing. So before, if you had asked me: âScrewball, are you an Artist?â I would have immediately said: âNo.â But now if you ask me: âScrewball, can you write a redemption episode where a character does something that shows they may have actually changed?â I will probably say: âWell âŚyes.â Maybe you donât need to be an Artist to create Art; maybe you just need to hit your narrative targets.
Ideas are great. Characters are amazing. Art-with-a-capital-A in the Platonic sense is still real. But even more important than inspiration is FOLLOW-THROUGH. Fucking ex-e-cute. A simple idea well executed is more important to me now than a great idea that slips on a banana peel half-way through. And that is the great OUAT takeaway for me.