With Neverland, they re-imagined the origins of Peter Pan: how he discovered Neverland, his history with Hook, and how everything came to be just before Wendy Moira Angela Darling and siblings stopped by.

It…was.

I find I always have a little trouble with workmanlike things; the effects were cheesy but not painful, the performances that succeeded did so despite the dialogue, and the plot was like a resolute game of duck-duck-goose dutifully touching on elements of canon in turn. (And then they made Charles Dance talk very seriously about the magical spheres that harness astral energy to bring you to Neverland, because SyFy is super huge on the tangible portals to its fantasy worlds.)

Having devoted four hours of my life to this miniseries, I feel obliged to review it somehow, but this picture of Peter, frozen by magic, pretty much sums up my feelings:

So, nutshell: Peter is a young thief in England at the turn of the century, working for disgraced gentleman Jimmy Hook doing whatever it is adorable young thieves do. He has a crew of young scalawags who are obviously the Lost Boys. When their attempt to rob a jewelry store accidentally sends them to Neverland, Peter follows them to rescue them, only to find that Hook is already trying to negotiate with the pirates to keep his kiddos together and protected.

But Peter, having fallen in with the People of the Raven (protectors of the Tree Spirits that have the magical flight mineral that the pirates want and there’s plot soup and no one cares, be real), is out to get his boys back home, which quickly puts him at odds with Hook, who likes the idea of never aging and also flying, probably, and wants to be a pirate now. Fighting ensues. Plots twist. At some point, Bonny takes a dip in the mineral hot tub, flies out, and explodes. (Literally that is what happens to her. Even the pirates all stand around for a second as if they can’t quite believe what they’re supposed to be reacting to, but it’s too late, dudes, because that check has been cashed and now you have to make She Exploded face. Deal with it.)

The good news is that despite every opportunity for awful acting, Charlie Rowe is a perfectly decent Peter, and handles all his emotional work the same way he gamely tackles the unbelievable amount of green screen he has to handle. (He had practice in The Golden Compass!)

The real notable casting here is Rhys Ifans as Jimmy Hook, his wig as Never Piss Off the Wig Designer Or You Will See What Happens, and Anna Friel as Elizabeth Bonny. The three of them spend all their scenes counting the moments until they can make out with each other. (Maybe not the wig, but it does seem to have a life of its own, so there’s no telling.) Their dialogue might be terrible, but you honestly don’t notice because they’re staring at one another and checking their watches until it’s time to set sail for Tonsil Bay, and it would all be delightful except that 70% of this miniseries is Peter accusing Hook of falling prey to the Magical Ladyparts and Hook trying to come up with more and more convoluted ways to say Yes. (It’s a shame, because no one on the pirate crew slut-shames her – when she ditches Starkey for Hook, it’s Starkey they make fun of – but Peter really works double-time to point out how women’s sexuality makes you evil.)

Speaking of women! Here, have a lovely picture of Q’orianka Kilcher:

…Whose acting in this was a prime example of how some actors flounder if there’s nothing for them to do. I don’t blame her in the slightest for not knowing how to handle a role that was 90% exposition, and the good news is she still has that amazing face, so she’ll be fine.

The People of the Raven are an attempt to not be as racist as J.M. Barrie was, which is not a particularly high bar to set, and SyFy does not jump particularly high over it. There is an amazing moment when Peter, on first seeing their village, says, “Are you going to eat us?” and Raoul Trujillo gives him the best Bitch Please face this side of Alice Krige in Children of Dune, and it’s lovely. Then he spends the rest of the miniseries in Platitude Village, which is unfortunate. And every baby step forward (you see a lot of fishing and weaving and not so much the racist warmongering) is met by a baby step back (the Lost Boys are issued tee shirts with tribal symbols fabric-painted onto them, because apparently all the budget went into Rhys Ifans’s wig).

The orbs as portals inevitably becomes one of those We Must Stop the Pirates from Bringing Back an Army, even though the pirates are 200 years old and Hook doesn’t even want to bring back an army so much as he wants to use his flying power to convince London society to take him back, which doesn’t even make sense, since flying is such a new-money thing to do, so I am really not sure where any of that goes, and then there’s a big fight in a cave, and it looks as though Peter’s dead, but of course the last time he looked dead he was taken by the tree spirits and Tinkerbell gave him the ability to fly, so this time he comes back in a bitchin’ new suit and is like, I want to stay here and have adventures with you even though previously all I could think about was getting everyone back to London, this is clearly better than London for reasons I’ll explain later! And then one of the Lost Boys asks Peter where his shadow is, and that’s the end, because of course it is.

And yet, for all this, it somehow wasn’t terrible so much as it was just lackluster; everyone did their best, and at least everyone’s acting level meant they were all in the same miniseries, which is half the battle. But the other half of the battle is making your audience care, and except for the brief forays into Heavy Staring Theatre, there just wasn’t much here that compelled you to watch, or added anything to the canon, and when it tried, it tripped over itself.

Example: Ifans and Rowe have a few scenes together where you can see the relationship they had as it falls apart in Neverland, which brings an interesting dynamic to the animosity that we know develops later. Unfortunately, this perfectly good mentor-mentee/selfish-adult-rebellious-child thing is undercut by a pocketwatch (yes, that pocketwatch), with a portrait of Peter’s mother inside, because Hook was in love with Peter’s mother and it’s poignant except he actually killed Peter’s father so now Peter’s super mad, and so he fights Hook…because he doesn’t want Hook to go to London and bring back that pirate army he was talking about, and the whole “you killed my dad” thing doesn’t even really factor into any of the decision making at this crucial moment, and neither does Hook’s feelings for Bonny, because Bonny exploded and I just wanted to remind everyone that happened. The End.

As a fan of fairy tales, and someone who is more than willing to watch Robert Carlyle masticate some scenery one night a week, I went into Once Upon a Time thinking it might be able to overcome its two leads (the sometimes-interesting Gennifer Goodwin and the always-mediocre Jennifer Morrison) and present enough worldbuilding to keep me interested. It was not a particularly uphill battle, until the show actually started.

What the show says it’s about: fairy tales, and families, and an epic mystery between two worlds, and the power of story, and how to live in a world without happy endings (this is stressed a LOT, to the point that villains say things like, “This IS my happy ending!” about their dastardly deeds, as awkwardly-costumed fairy tale denizens sob and wail “Noooo!” and cradle the bodies of their dead husbands who were killed by guards because even though they were in danger there were only two easily-defeatable men-at-arms on duty, which sort of makes you think the Evil Queen is not so much Evil as she is Better-Staffed).

What the show is actually about: mommy issues. And not the delightful, twisted mommy issues that make up the backbone of so many of our classic fairy tales, and which I would absolutely be down for some nice chewing over, but instead the sort of mommy issues that make your eyebrows disappear into your hairline.

Our loner heroine Emma gave a child up for adoption (and is friendless and alone forever, which in some shows would be a coincidence but got the side-eye here). Said youngster finds her in the pilot (literally, she blows the single candle off her lonely birthday cupcake of solitude and suddenly the kid appears in her apartment). He is winsome and talks to her about his weird town full of amnesiac fairy tale characters and her destiny as the child of Snow White. Snow White is seen in flashbacks being a Good Mother who sacrifices everything for her daughter; in her real-world identity, she’s a gormless schoolteacher who talks about the power of story and releases birds into the air. When Emma returns the young lad to his mother, the mayor of Storybrooke (actual town name), we see that his adoptive mother is the Evil Queen, who is ambitious and doesn’t love her child and is mean to Emma about closed adoptions and staying away from her son and twirling her cold, unloving, adoptive moustache.

The doubling of characters between worlds has promise. Robert Carlyle is only painful to watch in half of his scenes, which is maybe all one can hope for, and there is much to enjoy about watching him enjoy every second of it. The awful dialogue was unfortunate. The slipshod production values, in which everyone from Fairyland wears also-rans from Project Runway prom-dress challenges, was unpleasant. But the motherhood-moral equative quagmire in which this show’s entire foundation is mired is just the most awkward ever. (This is not to mention the other sort of gender-specific binaries at play: the dopamine-pleasant young teacher volunteers at a hospital handing out flowers and wordlessly squeezing the hands of bed-ridden extras for reassurance; meanwhile, in their opening cameos, Red Riding Hood’s grandmother yells at her about going out at night to slut it up, because of course.)

I’m willing to give the show one or two more episodes to see how it goes. (I have seen all of The Tenth Kingdom AND Hallmark’s The Snow Queen; I can take a cheeseball fairy tale adaptation when it comes my way.) However, my hopes are not high, and when the pilot ended with the Evil Queen taking away her adopted son’s only book because she’s eeeeevil, and Emma deciding she was going to stay in town and something-something for her son’s sake because Now She’s a Good Mommy, it just gave me the creeps in a way that goes way beyond watching three trolls singing Night Fever as they boat across Central Park.

Something that I think accurately captures the atmosphere and drama of the show was when Emma loses control of her car on her way out of town by seeing a wolf hitting some plot ice and spinning out at three miles an hour, and bumps gently into the Styrofoam sign for Storybrooke, and obligingly lays her head on the steering wheel and pretends she was just knocked out in a car accident, and you watch the TV unfolding in front of you and don’t know how to explain to your mother, who is visiting you and who you have convinced to watch this show with you, what is happening, because you don’t know, and she says, “Can’t you just review the first hour and skip all this?” and you have to tell her it’s only been forty minutes, and there is an awkward silence before you suggest that maybe you forget about it and just hit the town when it’s over. That has definitely been my favorite moment of the show so far.

Sure, there are movies coming up (the mid-90s Beauty and the Phantom homage Rigoletto probably being first on the block, because a movie that disturbing must have been a DOOZY to see as a kid), but before you can blog a movie you have to screencap a mile in its shoes, etc., and somehow I haven’t been able to bring myself to go back and watch the whole movie again. I will! I just…need time. Time in which to test all my pens and throw out the ones that don’t work any more, and then arrange them by color in my pen holder I made from a mug, because I was too lazy to get a real pen holder, and let’s face it, the mug does a perfectly good job. (Before you judge, let me say, if you were sitting through a movie about how a questionable relationship with the close-talker at the top of the hill rockets a preteen to stardom just in time for somebody to be beaten to death only not really because of magical fairy tales about true love that apparently relate to said preteen, you would also be looking for excuses to do something else.)

However, even after all the pens have been tested, there are things left to do, which seems unthinkable, and yet.

First of all, things I am planning on leaving the house for in the near future:

Oct. 14-16: Capclave. I always have fun at this con, with the bonus of getting to see my DC-area family for a little while. (Part of my blog quietness is due to family time, and it’s always nice when the train to DC overlaps family and work.)

Oct. 29.5 – 30: World Fantasy. (This will also be immediately preceded by family time. In fact, as it turns out, I’ll be at the con a little over 36 hours; we’ll see how THAT goes! It will go with vats of coffee, I’m guessing.)

Second of all, things I would LIKE to leave the house for generally include walking the second leg of my trip to and from work, which is usually delightful at this time of year, but because of weather conditions has instead become a self-guided walking tour of a fetid swamp occasionally enhanced with bus fumes. I have continued to make the walk, but it’s so bad that commuters and early-morning joggers all eye each other back and forth as if determining whose fault the humidity is, or who’s more foolish for being out in it. (Joggers.) However, it’s still worth it to get the walk in, especially the morning shift, when there are long lines of judgey pigeons sitting along building ledges, just awake enough to glare at you but not really ready to begin their daily routine of harassing tourists.

Third of all, new fall TV is coming through, but I’m having a little Review Ennui, largely because I have yet to sit through any of the pilots I tried so far and think, “Season Pass!” Or even, in most cases, “I will watch the second half of this episode!” Have I just become a curmudgeon of epic proportions, or is this fall a little watery-gruel in terms of new TV? (This is even excluding obvious comedy gold like Unforgettable, whose tagline is, “She can do anything but forget,” and whose ads all feature her saying, “I can’t forget!” and/or “I remember!”)

I mean, I’m all for avoiding writing by watching TV (I’m all out of pens, I have to do something), but so far all that’s happened is actual writing, which is productive yet mildly disconcerting.

(From left: Elizabeth McGovern in a lovely dress, Joanne Froggatt in one of those dresses that you know makes you feel like a princess right until the photos roll in and you realize your costars are Amazons and you have made a mistake about proportions, and Michelle Dockery, who is wearing a really great dress to which someone has inexplicably added one of those cutouts the vampire queens always have in their armor so the hero can get the stake through it.)

Thank the ladies of Downton Abbey, who are demonstrating several of the red carpet trends this year: lots of red, textured neutrals (and black!), some purple, and one really awkward thing in every picture.

In fact, let’s get right to the incomplete but completely nerdy Red Carpet Rundown, shall we?

This is, for me, a short post. That means only ONE bajillion pictures.

The Crimson Petal Division

So many red dresses this year, and so many in the same silhouette! (True story: I heard magical tales in high school of stores that would take note of your name and your school when you bought a prom dress, so that no one else from your school would show up wearing Your Dress. I do not know how this worked, but I am sure it happened. I like to imagine a huge stylist-spy ring at work before every major awards show, running an op next year, desperate to avoid The Crimson Petal Incident.)

WINNER: Martha Plimpton

The color is rich and has depth, it’s a fantastic amount of sparkle, and makeup that still looks like she’s comfortable. This look is seriously aces.

RUNNER-UP: Alan Cumming, in a truly marvelous look that’s awesomely suited to him, about which I only wish he’d had the jacket shortened a little so we could get a longer line on those pants.

Now, ladies, form a chain!

Nina Dobrev: Mermaid!

Sofia Vergara: Mermaid with one shoulder!

Sarah Hyland: One-shoulder drapey!

Angela Kinsey: One-shoulder over-the-shoulder! (Also, do the people who lend her these dresses not let her hem things?)

Lea Micheel: Over-the-shoulder cowl! (A bold move, since from the front this dress was much less interesting, but I suspect that if anyone is willing to look at people ONLY over her shoulder all night, Lea Michele is that person.)

Not Participating By Virtue of Ladies, Please: Kate Winslet.

…And The White

WINNER: Aubrey Plaza

When you spend your TV career in cardigans and skinny jeans and you’ve just been announced as the live-action Daria and you make a bid to be taken seriously on the red carpet, this is how you do it. Down to the symmetrical manacle-bangles, this look is amazingly precise.

The rest of the neutrals this year, sadly, did not fare so well.

Elisabeth Moss, who, despite having seen many pictures of herself at past awards shows in pale neutrals, continues to choose pale neutrals. I imagine her stylist filling a huge warehouse with gorgeous jewel tones, and Elisabeth bypassing them all and drilling a hole in the wall to get to the boutique next door that sells pale neutrals.

Cat Deeley, who I love on So You Think You Can Dance, even if everyone else in the world seems to dislike her. (You know who also likes her? All the contestants. Just saying.) She has worn some wonderfully weird clothes on that show. This is not wonderfully weird, but it’s a nice idea!

Ellie Kemper thought so, too!

And Maria Bello!

Jennifer Carpenter, who wants to remind you that even if her ex cheated on her with no-talent Julia Stiles, she is still completely bangin’.

Julia Stiles, conceding that round.

Christina Hendricks, who vacillates wildly between fashion-forward and “Jesus Christ, can’t anyone in this town design a dress that fits around a rack?”

Taraji P. Henson, whose dress would look less weird if the scrolly gold detail was not so directly framing her pelvis.

Rashida Jones, going for “unexceptionable,” which I think is a legitimate choice for a supporting cast member to make on the red carpet, certainly far better than a desperate grab for attention.

In related news, here’s Paz de la Huerta.

Let’s pretend that one time I said, “Fit is everything.” Julianna Marguiles decided to glue paperweights to herself just to prove me wrong. Touche, my good wife. Touche.

..And the Black

WINNER:

Kelly Macdonald. This dress is a little strange on its own, but it has enough interest to stand out in the sea of black dresses, it fits her like a dream, and she is loving it.

RUNNER-UP: Lena Headey

It’s not the best dress ever. However, she’s wearing the shit out of this dress, which is worth at least three other people who are uncomfortable in what they have on.

Kristen Wiig. Love it, even though it looks slightly like she just emerged from the Wonka Factory after a close call.

Naya Rivera, with bodice detailing I almost like. Killer makeup, though.

Michelle Forbes, who got my letter about how she ruined TNG AND Homicide: Life on the Streets with her Bizarro-Acting, is very penitent, and decided to one a teeny shroud on her skirt for each time she’s disappointed me.

Maria Menounos, in a dress I’d be in raptures over if it was anyone but Maria Menounous.

Kaley Cuoco, who tends to be a bit of a mess, pulling it together nicely!

Evan Rachel Wood, looking great. Second-best beaded dress of the night.

Christine Baranski. You wish you looked this glam, ever.

Anna Torv and her amazing face, having forgotten Chanel’s old adage about not matching your huge honking earrings to your lipstick before you leave the house.

Gretchen Mol, doing well with the Supporting Cast Principle.

Thanks for the laugh, Gwyneth. I needed that.

…And The Various Other Petal-Related References

And now we roll back around to the other side of the color wheel!

WINNER: Amy Poehler

“Hi, can I get a t-shirt, only make it go to the floor and cover it amazing deep-blue sequins so I look interesting and badass at the same time? Great, thank you!”

RUNNER-UP: Cobie Smoulders

“So now that I’m in The Avengers, I should make a bid for something stunning. Can you even dye my eyes to match my gown? Jolly old town!”

Kelly Osbourne. Love the top half; the bottom of the skirt looks literally pasted on.

Claire Danes, whose acting, like this dress, is a total Monet.

Stealth Jennifer Westfeldt! You wear that canary yellow, my friend.

Dianna Agron, going for Old Hollywoodtown and landing at Cravat Station somehow.

She should take a lesson from MISS BLANKENSHIP, looking amazing.

(Not pictured, because I couldn’t find one I liked: Laura Linney in a mini, trying to be a nursery rhyme and looking good in the process, and Tina Fey, who needs to keep whoever this new stylist is, because she looks slightly less like a hostage now when she’s on the red carpet.)

Not bad, everyone, all things considered! We’ll reconvene at the next major awards ceremony, when the stylist spies have had a chance to do their work again. Alpha Team Go!

That answer came back: Practically anything.

I have tried to look at this and understand what happened. In the past, this category has been spectacularly awesome (Thailand!) or hilariously fun (the national costume of Iceland is dignity!). This year is what I can only term a Hot Mess, with Intermittent Laughter.

This year also seems to be the year that the always-fantastical undercurrent of this whole glittery mess went from subtext to text:

Tanzania, auditioning for a role in the inevitable Metropolis remake, and/or putting mortal fear into her enemy contestants. Either way, SUCCESS.

However, she had some serious competition in the Science Fiction and Fantasy category.

Under this cut, a bajillion pictures.

Puerto Rico, wearing an amazing dragon hat, which is something I don’t get to say often!

Angola IS Finding Nemo!

Venezuela, extrapolating what Danerys is going to look like by the end of the books.

Guam went Full Mermaid and I love it.

Interplanetary ambassador the Czech Republic.

Romania IS slightly embarrassed to be wearing a Dracula cape!

Some contestants tried to keep things grounded with more traditional National Dress, with varying degrees of success.

Singapore, looking lovely.

Indonesia.

Guatemala, who had it all going for her until she put the hat on.

Georgia, not realizing how out of her league she was going to be in the Big Skirt category this year.

Egypt. Love it.

China. Love it.

Japan. Love it.

South Africa. Love it.

USA, understated as usual.

Kazakhstan, working it.

Thailand.

Peru.

Vietnam.

Sri Lanka, looking just as smug as I would be if my outfit was way more comfortable than everyone else’s.

Albania, ditto.

Denmark, in a lovely costume…

That Great Britain maybe should have considered.

France, out of nowhere with an amazing getup!

But the Netherlands is wearing a boat hat. GAME OVER.

Then we start sliding a little downhill.

Canada, which. Huh.

Mexico. “So, is there a LIMIT to what I can wear or carry? Are you sure? Great!”

CHILE. ARE YOU KIDDING ME.

Vaguely Feathery Interpretations:

The Cayman Islands get it right: wild and huge, but well-designed.

See also: Panama, Paraguay.

Meanwhile, someone hates Curacao so, so much.

And a brief craft tutorial: How To Wear Dangle Things From Your Arm Region.

Do: Ecuador, with style, proportion, and attitude.

Don’t: Ireland, peer pressured into stapling some CDs to her gauntlets five minutes before showtime.

You might think Ireland had something to be ashamed of, but let me assure you, this year’s crop of costumes gave her a run for her money. For some reason, there is a large Miss Universe contingent that forgets, every year, that this contest is coming up, and they make their costumes the night before. This year it was elevated to an art form of sucking, to the point that many of them walked the entire stage with an earnest expression of “What the Fuck, Seriously.”

So, let’s examine this, the best of categories.

British Virgin Islands, who can’t even.

Croatia.

Turks and Caicos.

Ukraine. (I laughed out loud.)

The Dominican Republic.

Switzerland.

Spain. What?

Italy. WHAT?

Hungary. You cannot start the night before, this is what happens.

Finland.

Honduras, who is not even pretending to care.

New Zealand, winner of Best Hostage Face.

Russia, who was hoping no one would notice she forgot her dress as long as she really worked the textiles.

Serbia, the last-minute-applique wonder of the world.

Kosovo, in a moment of awkward self-awareness.

U.S. Virgin Islands thinks that exactly 0% of this is funny.

Sweden. You know your costume’s a mess when the weird part of the outfit is the hat.

Australia, having learned literally nothing since last year.

Korea, who must be kidding me.

And El Salvador, the most magnificent bitchface of them all.

For the technical winner, I think you have to watch the pageant on TV tonight. But let’s face it, the real winner tonight?

Iceland, who had so much dignity her costume isn’t even here. WINNAH, AND STILL CHAMPYEN.

For the rest of the costumed carnage, you can check out the full list here, or head straight to the Trump-stamped source at MissUniverse.com.