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Once Upon a Time
2011 · TV series · 43 min episodes · 7 seasons
Created by Edward Kitsis, Adam Horowitz
There is a town in Maine where every story book character you've ever known is trapped between two worlds, victims of a powerful curse. Only one knows the truth and only one can break the spell.
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14 comments on Hacker News
I avoid anything by Abrams or Lindelof at this point because they are emblematic of this writing formula. You can see it in Lindelof's The Leftovers, Abrams' Star Wars, and of course LOST. It's also present in any pilot they help create, for example Once Upon A Time.
I agree with your deconstruction: these shows are optimized for selling an engaging pilot episode with only a back of the napkin roadmap for the rest of the show. The finale comes only when there's no more money to be made.
I'm very excited by writers like Baran bo Odar and Jantje Friese who are able to write interwoven plots comparable to LOST, but with cohesive endings. Check out Dark for an example.
"Once Upon a Time" (2011-2018, with Robert Carlyle as Rumplestiltskin!) was shot on virtual chroma-keyed sets with real time integrated pipeline tools to preview how it would look.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Once_Upon_a_Time_(TV_series)
The tech behind Once Upon a Time’s Frozen adventures
https://www.fxguide.com/fxfeatured/the-tech-behind-once-upon-a-times-frozen-adventures/
Once Upon a Time” TV Series VFX Breakdown
https://web.archive.org/web/20180623020817/http://www.animationboss.net:80/once-upon-a-time-tv-series-vfx-breakdown/
A huge portion of the American TV-watching demographic doesn't pay very much attention to shows while they are watching it. So they prefer shows that have predictable rehashing of the same plot each season. Think Supernatural, Grey's Anatomy, Once Upon a Time. You don't really need to put effort into remembering previous episodes because you've seen them enough to get the gist without any background.
Shows like NCIS, Law & Order, and Criminal Minds will literally run the same plot each episode. These are some of the most popular TV shows in history.
Studio executives don't want to accept that they have a hit show that doesn't cater to this demographic. Once the main story wraps up, usually after 4-5 seasons, the original creator will get fed up or fired because they are unwilling to drag the story out any longer. Then the studio brings in a generic writing team to transform the show into one of those a predictable rehash shows.
It never works because the people who are into those shows won't get past the first four seasons, and the original fans of the show get tired and stop watching.
It's only 7 recent shows [0]. Also, consider Netflix and Hulu aren't competitors. They offer different content, mostly. Hulu has more recent and a far larger back catalog of popular television shows. Netflix has more older movies, original content, and a sprinkling of older television shows.
I'm not defending Hulu, I don't have a subscription. Consider that it's a fraction of the price of cable which has commercials, even with the limited commercials for $11.99, it's quite the bargain. It's on demand too and supported by just about every recent smart TV or streaming device.
> While the list of shows may change, they are currently: Grey’s Anatomy, Once Upon a Time, Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., Scandal, Grimm, New Girl, and How To Get Away With Murder.
[0] https://help.hulu.com/en-us/included-in-no-commercials-plan
Even with the upcharge there are simply less commercials on hulu, not zero. So says their FAQ - https://help.hulu.com/s/article/included-in-no-commercials-plan?language=en_US
A small number of shows are not included in our No Commercials Add-on. You can still watch these shows, however, they will play with a short commercial before and after each episode.
While the list of shows may change, they are currently: Grey’s Anatomy, Once Upon a Time, Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., Scandal, Grimm, New Girl, and How To Get Away With Murder.
And then on top of that it's a wasteland content-wise as you stated.
In case anyone was wondering, from https://help.hulu.com/articles/52427902#list
"In response to feedback from our viewers, we started offering a commercial free experience on Hulu. For a small number of shows, however, we have not obtained the rights to stream commercial free and they are not included in our No Commercials plan. You can still easily access these shows with a short commercial before and after each episode with no interruptions during the episode. Specific shows that still have commercials accessible through the No Commercials plan will be noted throughout the signup, switching and playback experience. While the list of shows may change, they are currently: Grey’s Anatomy, Once Upon a Time, Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., Scandal, Grimm, New Girl, and How To Get Away With Murder."
It's seven shows, and even on those the ads are only at the beginning and end they don't interrupt the show. I say we cut them some slack.
> Piracy is almost always a service problem and not a pricing problem
agreed;
I have Netflix and HBO, and still regularly download videos and tv shows. It saddens me to see how little content is available legally. Some TV shows become available 1 or 2 years after being released in the US, for example at the moment i can't see Once Upon a Time season 5 (the previous seasons are on Netflix). So what are our options, wait 2 years even though you know it's already out there right now?
Not even the TV show Friends is available on Netflix where i live (in Europe). Sucks ass.
Well, you could say "this service has no ads" and then include ads. Hulu did. People just may not like it or respect you for it.
Hulu 'No Commercials' Plan: "A small number of shows are not included in our No Commercials plan due to streaming rights. But we’ve still made them available to you uninterrupted. They will just play with a short commercial before and after each episode. These shows are: Grey’s Anatomy, Once Upon A Time, Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., Scandal, Grimm, New Girl, and How To Get Away With Murder. "
- they reserve the right to add to this list over time
It seems that not all shows will be commercial free, however. I understand that they must have special arrangements with those producers, but it feels very odd.
Will all shows and movies be commercial free?
In response to feedback from our viewers, we started offering a commercial-free experience on Hulu. For a small number of shows, however, we have not obtained the rights to stream commercial free and they are not included in our No Commercials plan. You can still easily access these shows with short commercial before and after each episode with no interruptions during the episode. Specific shows that still have commercials accessible through the No Commercials plan will be noted throughout the signup, switching, and playback experience. While the list of shows may change, these shows are currently: Grey’s Anatomy, Once Upon A Time, Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., Scandal, Grimm, New Girl, and How To Get Away With Murder.
> Patents, unlike copyrights, are additive. If you write a book based on the Harry Potter characters, JK Rowling owns the copyright to your derivative work.
No, they're both the same. One of the exclusive rights under the Copyright Act is the right to make derivative works, so you can't make a book based on Harry Potter characters without JK Rowling's permission. If you do anyway, JK Rowling can sue to stop you but she can't start selling your version herself and taking all the money without your permission. Nobody can sell the derivative work without permission from both authors, which is as it is with patents.
> This is why there is a "race to patent every single miniscule discovery" in the first place -- Lab A getting Patent 1 doesn't remove the incentive to discover refinements.
Of course it does. It requires the discoverer of the refinement to obtain the permission of Lab A before they can make any money, and the refined version competes with Lab A's version. So Lab A is better off to exclude the refined version from the market unless they can claim nearly the entire margin from it as they can with the original version, and the patent allows them to do that. Which leaves little or no incentive for anyone other than Lab A to make refinements.
The same thing happens with copyright. Disney makes movies based on ancient fairy tales because they're in the public domain. ABC's Once Upon A Time uses characters from Disney's Frozen because they're the same company. Universal Studios pretty much never makes movies with Disney characters, even though they theoretically could with Disney's permission, because Universal would be doing all the new work even though Disney could claim as much of the revenue as they like.
> It is not obvious that the search for refinements would happen faster without this incentive.
That's the fundamental trade off with patents. You grant a monopoly to one entity on the theory that the incentive of the monopoly will get that entity to invest in the research. The benefit of that incentive then has to be weighed against the cost of excluding all other potential innovators from the market for the term of the patent.
This is why patents work best in markets where innovation is slow. If patentable innovations happen only infrequently and/or there are only a small number of major players then the cost of the monopoly is smaller because fewer incremental innovations are being excluded by the patent.
This is one of the big reasons that software patents are so abominable -- the more innovation that would be happening without patents, the higher the cost of issuing patents grows.
Do you actually think somebody at Github/Google is individually watching you?
As individual data points, I doubt we're that interesting.
It's like NetFlix knowing what movies I watch.
I doubt any single NetFlix employee could give two cents that Victor in Australia likes watching Once Upon A Time. (Awesome show, btw).
However, if I watch Once Upon A Time, and I also watch XYZ, and then other people do the same, maybe they get to improve their algorithm. Woot to them.
Maybe Github want to know what features get used. Or what performance issues people are experiencing.
Maybe it's definitions, but I don't consider this watching - they want to know what we do as an aggregate, but it's not like there's a little imp beside me watching me as I type.
(Although I get how some people might feel that way, if it's just a black box to them).
> They are not successful though, are they? There is a low-budget snow-white based TV series that run a year ago (Once Upon A Time)
Once Upon a Time is a (still active) series produced by ABC Studios, which is a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Disney-ABC Television Group, which is in turn a wholly-owned subsidiary of Disney. The show incorporates dozens of Disney franchises (or, rather, the Disney versions of classic stories) entirely because of its ownership.
They are not successful though, are they? There is a low-budget snow-white based TV series that run a year ago (Once Upon A Time).
Also, it is ridiculous considering that character is way older than Disney itself and provably comes from outside US jurisdiction.
Yeah. "Crazy wisdom" :-D
The writer who introduced me to that idea had this story. He was able to rest upon stillness even while standing or moving. He's a martial artist, so that means that he doesn't telegraph his intentions.
He once taught a workshop. Some dude, a police officer I think, came up to him later to tell him something. The officer said, "You know, I noticed that you are completely still. Then when you move, there is movement. I don't see any telegraphing. Then you stop. It is really freaky."
The teacher commented, he thought everyone else looks freaky.
I'm not there yet, where I can stay in that state of stillness when standing, much less moving. I've had a taste of it though. Enough that when I'm there, I see people moving. Their body language! So much twitching, and jerking, whether they are martial artists or not. It's like these weird influences in them that they don't know about, animating them. They look like they are possessed.
I'm actually going to adapt a paper-and-pencil RPG system based on this observation. That the way people normally are, is insane. That is, modern adults are insane in socially-acceptable ways. So starting characters would start with a wisdom of 1, maybe 2 if they are lucky. And any actions they take that they do not fully experience (modelled by rolling the wisdom dice pool), they gain a derangement. It's just that characters also start with derangements. Derangements are awesome sources of drama -- like, say, the TV show, Once Upon A Time.
I think this is where the Buddhist teaching of compassion comes in. You know, "how do people live like this?" They can't, you can see the suffering. It's not even their fault, though it is also their choice.
I'm glad that gnosis occasionally pops into Y(HN) to post stuff like this. It has always generated a lot of interest and discussion, and a great chance for people to thrash out what they think meditation is. And who knows? Maybe a few people will give it a try and find that they are more sane.