Once Upon a Time: Season 4 [Blu-ray]

DVD Wholesale Quick Overview:

When I first started this show, Frozen, believe it or not, was the reason why. At first I said to myself “Wow. A show I don’t watch must be really desperate for ratings if they’re using this”. Granted I ended up becoming obsessed with the show but, yeah, ratings ploy. Maybe it’s just me and probably a huge coincidence I’m reading too much into but it’s interesting to note that the Wicked Witch was the focus of the second half of season three. What came out the previous year? Oz: The Great and Powerful which made a profit at the box office. The focus of season four is Frozen and later Maleficent. What came out just barely six months earlier before the finale of season three and a couple weeks after it wrapped? Yup that’s right, two movies that made a profit at the box office.

Now I do want to make one thing clear. I like Frozen, it’s a good movie. However the characters really serve no purpose in the show. The entire storyline could’ve been done by just adapting the Snow Queen fairy tale and having the connection to Emma when she was younger. Elsa, Anna, Kristoff, and Hans, do nothing to the plot. Elsa spends nine episodes wanting to know where Anna is you could make a drinking game out of it and she conveniently wishes her to town. I know a lot of stuff happens out of convenience in this show but that one takes the cake. The use of these characters, as stated, was a ratings ploy that paid off in the premiere but returned to normal as the first half aired. It’s really frustrating that out of the first eleven episodes, only two flashbacks pertain to a main character, Emma, since she has the connection to Ingrid. The creators/writers decided to part the other characters like the Red Sea, so to speak, just to capitalize on the popularity of a movie. Everything else is built on the guest characters, more so than the previous season with Pan and Zelena (where only two episodes featured Oz). Why is David good with a sword? Anna taught him. Out of all the characters to encounter Rumplestiltskin, who outsmarts him? Anna. Sure Hook stole the magic bean in season two and the time with Cinderella in season one (though we learn he wanted to be caught) but Anna, of all people, gets the dagger and commands him to send her home and not to follow or harm her and Elsa (guess she doesn’t care about Kristoff too much). On top of that, the first flashback to focus on Belle before she met Rumple has absolutely nothing to do with her! Sure there’s the stuff about her mother and the end leads into “Skin Deep” but that takes a backseat to Anna finding out about Ingrid and getting captured. Also an appearance by Oaken just so we hear him say “Oo hoo” (which I swear is dubbed in from the film). I don’t know if they ever planned on using the actress who played Belle’s mother for more than the 45 seconds she got (she dies before her credit appears) but she was wasted. Would’ve been nice to actually see Belle have an actual moment with the person who inspired her love of reading but whatever.

Speaking of wasted potential, Michael Socha reprising his role of Will Scarlet from the Wonderland spin-off. Where do I begin? Take a popular character from that show, make him a main cast member on the parent series, and do nothing with him! In the long run he turned into a glorified guest star and, as the season went on, a glorified extra. There’s hints of something in his first several appearances but after that he’s regulated to the background just to fill a scene. He doesn’t even get a freakin’ line in the season finale! Oh and he’s a rebound for Belle. That’s his character arc for the entire season. I’ve heard from others (again nothing I can back up) that there was story planned for him but once they got the approval to use Frozen, that went out the door. Nothing is done with his relationship with Robin Hood after they have their library adventure. There could’ve have been something when Maleficent was revived since it was he who stole her looking glass but nothing. Granted that’s a small straw to grasp at but the man had nothing to work with! Now my favorite couple out of both shows have been broken up (despite the epilogue in Wonderland that shows he and Anastasia do end up as the White King and Queen but apparently season four happens between Alice’s wedding and that end scene) and now the character is stuck in town for nothing since the actor is no longer with the show (who I’ve read has stated that while doing Wonderland was fun, the main series was soul crushing). Not even the Queens of Darkness, three of Disney’s most popular villains, or even the Author, get much compared to Elsa and Anna. How did Cruella end up in the Enchanted Forest after her encounter with Issac? Why was Ursula written out of the show so quickly to the point where she didn’t even get the chance to be evil?

By all accounts, I should really hate this season but I don’t. I enjoy and, dare I say it, my favorite season because of the villains. The Snow Queen was a great character, a change of pace in terms of villains. Her death scene was the highlight of the first half and highly emotional. The interaction of Cruella, Ursula, and Maleficent was fun and Cruella’s origin was one of the best of the season and darkest (if not the darkest) episode of the series. Victoria Smurfit really nailed the character to the point where the animated version and Glenn Close barely register. They did a much better job at making Maleficent a sympathetic character when compared to the Angelina Jolie film where she was built up to be a “hero” at the expense of making everyone else an idiot. The stuff with Lily, while not fully explored to its potential like most of this season, was good. The episode “Mother” featuring the return of Barbara Hershey was fantastic as they once again show the twisted relationship between Cora, Regina, and Zelena, along with Emma, the Charmings, Maleficent, and Lily. The season finale was fantastic as well as we get to see roles flipped between the main characters in the alternate universe. There was so much material in the second half alone that it should’ve been the focus for the whole year! Why were these half season stories done anyway? They’re too short and not everyone gets the attention they deserve like Will. What has prevented the creators (up until this current season) from doing a single season story like the first two years? Granted I wouldn’t want 22 episodes of Neverland and Frozen but when they crammed in the Queens of Darkness, the search and discovery of the Author, the return of Zelena, Will’s separation from Anastasia, and trying to make Emma dark into 11 episodes is far too much than what they could handle and resulted in not doing much of anything outside of “hey we got to do Frozen because it’s popular”. Sadly next season suffered from juggling too many characters as well and the death of a popular ship didn’t help.

-Adam Reed

DVD Wholesale Main Features:

Genre: Television, Drama
Region: A (US & Canada)
Format: Blu-ray Disc
Audio: English Release
Date: 08/18/2015
Subtitles: English SDH, Spanish, French
Region Code: Blu-ray A
Number of discs: 5
Number of Episodes: 23
Edition: Widescreen
UPC:786936845259