This series succesfully shows the exact opposite of blockbuster movies: Create a great story with mediocre special effects and lesser known actors.

The writers behind this show do an amazing job creating one wonderfull Fairy tale adaptation after another. I did not like their previous work, but I think the writing is getting more mature (but they still make some errors that are frustrating.) But mostly they are not afraid to change major aspects of the fairy tales if necessary.
The creaters of this show also worked on 'Lost' and the 'TRON: Legacy' movie.

I really love how Rumpelstiltskin plays the evil maniac, especially during the first season. But there are more noteworthy roles in there, like the evil queen, her mother, Belle, Hook or Peter Pan. Emma Swan is pretty well played, but compared to the extreme characteristics of the fictional characters she is a bit bland.

The things I dislike most are probably some repeated main themes (family feuds/bad parent-child relations) and that they copy the characters of fairy tales a bit too literal from the Disney franchise from time to time.

Overall I think it is on of the best non-comedy shows of the past few years.
PS. I am glad Lady Gaga never replied on the invite to play the Blue Fairy.

This SHOULD have been Fables shouldn't it? Or at least it should have been more like Fables, it should have at least ripped the plot off that Bill Willingham gem a little more than it did.

But I think this was Disney related and Warner Brothers own the rights to all things DC. So legally I think they were forced to make something vastly different.

The thing is that it looked like they were going for a Fables story, and because of that some obvious plot threads kind of dropped off in the 1st season when it looked like they were getting too close to the comic for litigious safety

And then it kind of tapered off tangentially before catching it's footing halfway through and falling apart at the end because it ran too long

A superb series finale but...

It is not! Truly this would have been the end the show deserved had this been the final episode.

Apparently it was written as such until the show was renewed BUT with most of the cast moving on contractually already! Yes, a wrap around\ tag on scene\tale opens the show up to an all new reset of the beginning, only with a now adult Henry being approached by his unknown to him daughter (about the same age Henry was when he found Emma in ep 1 season 1)! She says he must go with her cause "his family needs him". Sound familiar? It would seem Henry, like Emma in that ep, is clueless and so another forgetting spell was cast. Or whatever!

For those who do not know, the next season will no longer have the following characters\actors: Emma Swan, Snow White, Prince Charming, Belle, young Henry, and I am sure I am forgetting one other. The core will be the now adult Henry, Hook, Gold, and the evil queen\not evil anymore.

How the show intends to carry on or explain where everyone missing has gone (yes there was a time jump in the tag on scene of several years) will be interesting to see, but I frankly have little hope for the continued success of the show. It was all about Emma, Snow, Charming, and how everything revolved around them. Without those characters I think it will be a rebooted show trying to be it's old self but simply unable to.

I mean everyone is together, happy, sitting down to a thanksgiving like meal in this ep's natural end! Somehow along the way all that is torn apart? Is the ultimate lesson learned to be that there are no happy endings or happy beginnings because even in a fantasy world life sucks? Crap happens to the best of people regardless of what they have overcome to get to a place of stability?

This should have been the end; a fitting finale.