Can Once Upon a Time and Revenge recover from sophomore slumps?
CRAIG: Once, maybe. Revenge… I don’t know. It really depends on what the new showrunner does, and if it gets the audience’s attention. Sometimes when an audience drops off from a show like that, they don’t always come back. I don’t know what a new producer can do to make the show “more accessible” so that people who aren’t already into Revenge suddenly will be.
For Once Upon A Time, I feel that Edward Kitsis and Adam Horowitz really want to focus again on the characters that audiences fell in love with rather than the random “fairy tale character of the week.” I have confidence in those two, and as long as Wonderland isn’t distracting them too much, it should work out.
SHILO: It all depends on word-of-mouth and the quality of the seasons themselves, I think. With ABC deciding to schedule their serialized dramas in two rerun-free/rerun-light chunks rather than the off-on pattern that has plagued them for years, both shows are in position for either a smaller than normal drop or a marginal gain, should they galvanize their fan base. Once is in a better position than Revenge due to its sophomore slump being less publicized/severe and the competition in its hour being less than what Revenge has to deal with; it might take Revenge quite a while into its season for positive buzz to build following the crash it suffered during season two and with the likes of The Walking Dead, Homeland, and Game of Thrones to deal with in the coming months, it might take until a (currently hypothetical) fourth season for any positive impact of an improved season three to take place.
