I’m Staying Pessimistic to Blunt the Inevitable Heartbreak to Come

My guess is I’m not the only one watching Once Upon a Time. I mean, it’s not like I’m looking at the ratings or anything…OK, I do check on them from time to time…but Once Upon a Time seems to be doing fairly decent 9 episodes in, so I’m hopeful it will at least finish out the season and get renewed.  Of course, I’m always skeptical about fantasy-style shows and renewals.

Anyone remember Pushing Daisies…or, more importantly, do you remember how…oh, that’s rignt ABC, the same network that Once Upon a Time is On, but I digress…so you remember how Pushing Daisies ended? Well, do you?! It ended with Ned being saved from falling off a cliff by his father, though he didn’t know who it was that had done the saving. Basically, it was the moment BEFORE he got some resolution on his decades of depression from being abandoned by his father. There wasn’t a more terrible way to end that show, especially for the fans. I’ve previously ranted (in short form) about it, so I won’t rehash old anger…well, maybe for a minute. I mean, seriously! The show won 7 emmys in two fucking years…and it had Jim Dale as a narrator! What else did it need to do?

Anyway, I’m getting distracted here. The point I’m trying to make is that fantastikal television shows just don’t tend toward longevity.

I know, I know, what about Lost? Well, there’s always exceptions. But for every Lost that was able to actually end a large story arc…you know, something that is generally important to fantasy stories…how many Roars and Brimstones are cut down before their times?

Even good shows that continue to stay on the air get screwed. Consider Fringe (granted, it’s a sci-fi show, not fantasy, but still), which has been on Friday night for two years. How the hell it has survived is beyond me.  All I can think is that it gets a lot of DVR hits…I mean, they do track that sort of thing now.

And, yeah Game of Thrones has a second season coming. Let’s be honest, I may or may not be in love with Sean Bean and all that he does for us, his humble followers. So, obviously, I love that show. Season 2 will, of course, be without Sean Bean. And don’t bother saying, hey where’s the spoiler alert. The story isn’t new people. But even without Bean, the show should still be very good. So what’s the problem? There are currently 5 books in The Song of Ice and Fire. And at 10 episodes per season, they could realistically get six or seven seasons out of those five books. But even with that much filming to be done, I don’t have a lot of hope that George RR Martin will have the series finished by the time the TV show catches up. I’d say its even money whether or not he even finishes the next book before the show catches him. So, from where I sit, Game of Thrones is like to end up as Pushing Daisies did, in the middle of a story arc with no resolution.

So getting back to Once Upon a Time. As far as how good of a show it is, it doesn’t rival, in terms of writing or acting, Game of Thrones. But it has been pretty decent so far. I mean, I did have to get over the fact that, as much as I wanted this show to be Fables, it isn’t. That took me a few episodes, in fact. After the first episode I told my wife I wish they would have just made a Fables series. I said it so many time through the first three episodes that my wife finally told me to shut my hole.

So against my better judgement, I’ve gotten sucked into this show. I’m not sure I had much choice, in the end. Hell, I’m such a sucker for anything involving princess, dragons, knights, werewolves, etc. that I’m even watching Grimm, which appears to have even worse prospects for continuing much longer. The fact of the matter is, fantastikal like stories just don’t usually last very long on TV. Even this list of 10 best fantasy tv series that showed up on sfweekly last year was mostly mini-series, or prematurely cancelled shows, many of which were merely set in medieval time periods but didn’t include much in the way of like, you know, magic, or mythical creatures, or scantily clad barbarians.

I know, I know, you’re going to point out that Buffy had a long run (and spin-off) and True Blood is still going. And we all know about my unholy love for Vampire Diaries. But I never got into Buffy. I’m like the only geek in the world who doesn’t love what’s his name, and True Blood isn’t good. I tried watching the first season, and I gave it like eight episodes to hook me and it didn’t. Most importantly, a guy needs a little variety in his fantasy. Vampires in everything just gets boring…and there’s never enough werewolves in any event.