Once Upon a Time

I’m sure many of you have experienced the awe and frustration caused by TV series Lost. When Lost premiered, it was ground-breaking. Its non-linear storytelling and its ability to keep fans waiting for seasons on end to get answers answers to their constantly burning questions made it hugely popular with both viewers and critics. Lost ended its run in 2010 after six seasons of keeping its viewers guessing, and TV has never been the same.

You can see the impact of Lost every time you turn on your TV. Lots of shows have tried to recreate the unique storytelling and long-term payoffs that Lost offered, and many have succeeded. One of the best things that came out of Lost was a show created by two of its writer/producers, Edward Kitsis and Adam Horowitz. The show is called Once Upon a Time, and it’s my subject for Stuff Devon Likes this week.

Once Upon a Time (shortened by fans to simply “Once”) actually has a premise that is similar to Lost’s. Instead of a bunch of people stranded on an island because of a plane crash, Once tells the story of fairy tale characters who have been trapped in our world, a world without magic. Each episode usually tells two separate stories, one from the present and one in flashbacks or in another realm, that intermingle and somehow relate to one another. Like Lost, Once takes advantage of long-term mysteries and big payoffs that keeps fans invested and on their toes at all times.

I’m not going to lie. When I first heard what this show was about, I was skeptical. Fairy tale characters? Aren’t those just for children? No, actually, they’re not. Once takes the same fairy tale characters you loved as a child and turns them into dynamic, live-action characters who are quirky, fun, and relatable. You’ll have to suspend your disbelief for a little bit at first, but once you do, you’ll realize that a show about fairy tale characters can actually be really cool.

I really love the story on Once and the way its told. They give you enough that you can be interested and understand what’s going on, but they don’t give you the whole story until they absolutely have to. The flashbacks really help to develop the characters and offer some surprising revelations about their backstories and identities. We see most of the characters both in our world and in the Enchanted Forest of the past, and it’s cool to see both versions of the characters and get to know them each way.

Possibly the most interesting character is Emma, the outsider who finds herself in Storybrooke (the town all the fairy tale characters are trapped in). She has to come to terms with her past while learning more about her family and eventually taking on her role as the savior. All of the characters grow and change throughout the show, but Emma is probably the one who changes the most, and it’s really fun to see her transformation.

It’s also fun to see where these characters’ adventures take them. They start off stuck in Storybrooke, but they eventually explore other lands including the Enchanted Forest, Neverland, and even Oz. They meet many classic characters along the way, and Once always puts a special twist on each one. There is a ton of material for them to use (ABC is owned by Disney, after all), and it’s fun to see how they make each character and each story their own.

Once Upon a Time has been successful enough to warrant a spin-off, called Once Upon a Time in Wonderland. It focuses on Alice as she teams up with the Knave of Hearts to rescue her one true love from the evil Jafar. It’s a really good story told in 13 episodes and expands the Once universe. They’re actually incorporating one of the characters, the Knave, back into the main show next year, which I think is pretty cool. They’ve created this universe that can be expanded and focused in on at various times as the story requires, and I love it.

Once Upon a Time just finished their third season this month, and they’re scheduled to start their fourth season in the fall. I won’t spoil who the main villain is this season (and you better not Google it), but it’s really cool. Now is a good time to catch up on Once so you’ll be ready for what is shaping up to be an epic fourth season. Check the show out on Netflix or on ABC’s website and let me know what you think of it. Thanks for reading this week’s Stuff Devon Likes. Have a great weekend, and check back next Saturday for my review of X-Men: Days of Future Past!

The First Day of the Rest of My Life

I don’t think it really hit me until I looked at my diploma with my own eyes. There it was. My name. Written on the diploma that I’ve been working toward for four years. And it was right there, in my hands. That’s when it became real to me. That’s when I realized that my days at Hendrix College were over. My undergraduate career had come to an end.

It was a surreal feeling, and it all just hit me at once. I realized that I had really enjoyed my time at Hendrix. That I had learned a lot and met some amazing people. That I’m going to miss that place and those people so much now that I’m gone. I realized that things will never be the same. They can’t be. Looking at that diploma was a wake-up call that my life was moving forward and leaving college behind.

In times like these, it’s easy to focus on the endings. The end of my undergraduate studies. The last night I spent with my friends as a college student. Endings can be sad, but they’re also always new beginnings, and those are never something to be sad about. College was great, and I’ll cherish those experiences forever, but I’m not going to let the fact that college is over stop me from enjoying what’s to come. Because as great as college has been, what’s to come is even better.

That last statement may sound harsh. It may sound like I’m trying to downplay how good my college years were. That’s not the case at all. I’ve loved college, and I love the friends that I made in college. I will cherish those memories and maintain those friendships forever. It’s going to take a lot to top the last four years. But I truly believe that my best years are ahead of me, and I don’t want to miss them by always looking backwards.

And as much as I’ve enjoyed college, some bad stuff has happened the last four years. I’m certainly not sad about saying goodbye to those things. Now I get a new start in a new place. As much as I hate to say goodbye to all the good things in the previous phase of my life, I’m happy to be free of the bad things, and to be a better person because of them. I’ll take what I’ve learned and try to make the next phase of my life even better than the last.

The day of my graduation, my dad told me, “Well, tomorrow’s the first day of the rest of your life.” Funny enough, I’ve had May 18 marked as “The First Day of the Rest of My Life” for months. I guess he and I just think alike. But it’s so true. I just started the rest of my life. I’m just a few days into this new phase, and it feels great. I’m happy with the way things are, I’m proud of how far I’ve come, and I’m excited about where I’m going. The rest of my life may be a mystery, but it’s going to be a good one.

I want to say thank you to everyone who has supported me thus far. And I want to give a special thank you to every person who played a role in my college years. I’ve had some of the best friends, professors, and mentors anyone could ask for, and I am so thankful. Bear with me as I transition from college into summer and (very soon) into the seminary phase of my life. I can’t wait to learn, to grow, and to share my experiences with you. God bless.

The Lord of the Rings (Book Series)

For the first time ever on Stuff Devon Likes, I’m reviewing a book! Back in January, I watched The Lord of the Rings film trilogy and really enjoyed it. In my review of the films, I said that I hoped to read the books soon and write a review of them. Well, I’ve spent the past four months reading the books, and I finally finished this week! So here’s my review of The Lord of the Rings, the book series, not the film series.

First of all, I really enjoyed these books. They were fun to read. I was afraid they may not be as enjoyable after watching the movies because I knew what was going to happen, but that wasn’t the case at all. I still felt the suspense and shock while reading that I would have felt if I hadn’t see the movies before. The story is told so well, and it’s so compelling that I didn’t mind experiencing it again.

But the books tell a slightly different story than the movies do. People always say that a movie is never as good as the book that it’s based on, but I’m not sure that it’s really fair to compare The Lord of the Rings books to the movies. While they follow a similar plot line, there are some pretty major differences that make both work really well for the medium they’re in.

Tolkien didn’t approach The Lord of the Rings as fiction that he was writing. He approached it as a history of what our world was like a very long time ago, and he based his history on a book that he claimed to be written by Bilbo Baggins, Frodo Baggins, and Sam Gangee, the main characters of The Lord of the Rings and its prequel, The Hobbit. I think this approach is really cool because it allowed Tolkien to not only tell a story, but to create a whole world. It allowed him to write appendices about Elvish language and how the hobbits have different calendars than the rest of the world and so on, and I think that’s pretty cool.

I really liked the way the LOTR books are structured. Each of the three books (The Fellowship of the Ring, The Two Towers, and The Return of the King) is split into two halves. The first book tells the story chronologically, but in the second book, the main characters split into two groups. The story of one group is told in the first half of the book, and then the second half of the book goes back and tells the story of the other group, making occasional references to where the other group would be at that time. I think it says a lot about Tolkien’s writing that he can spend half a book telling us about what are thought to be side characters, but we still care enough to keep reading.

The books also contains some interesting stories that had to be cut from the movies. The two stories that really stuck out to me were the hobbit’s run-in with Tom Bombadil in The Fellowship of the Ring and The Scouring of the Shire chapter at the end of The Return of the King. These were both cool stories that added to overall narrative but weren’t considered necessary enough to be included in the (already lengthy) films. If anything, the books are worth reading just to experience those extra stories.

My one complaint about the books is that they can be flowery sometimes. Just as Tolkien was invested in developing the characters and the history of Middle Earth, he was also interested in the way it looked. He goes into great detail about the terrain of the land that the characters travel, and these are the parts of the story that I struggled to get through. My mind just doesn’t work like that. I’m sure a lot of people enjoy imaging this world that Tolkien has created, but I prefer to just stick to the plot. Maybe I’ll invest in an abridged version for my next LOTR reading experience.

But that one complaint aside, I really loved reading these books. I got completely sucked into the story and invested in the characters. Even though I knew how the story ended, I still enjoyed re-experiencing it in a different way. I would suggest The Lord of the Rings books to anyone interested in the movies or just in fantasy stories in general. Thank you for reading my review, and check back next week for another installment of Stuff Devon Likes!

Transition Times

This week is weird for me. All of my finals are over, and all my schoolwork has been submitted, but graduation isn’t until Saturday. And so I find myself in an odd place where I’m still at school, but I’m done with all my work, and I don’t really have anything to do. It feels funny because I’m constantly checking my to-do list thinking I should be working on something, but nothing’s there. I’m finished with school, but I’m not quite able to move on the next thing.

I’ve found myself in an in-between place. I’m somewhere between a student and a graduate, but I’m really neither. For this week, I’m in a transition phase. Really, I’ll be in a transition phase for the next few months. I’m going from the undergraduate phase of my life to the seminary phase of my life. These transition times can feel weird. Mine certainly does. But they can also be really good experiences. Here are a few things I’m trying to do during this transition time in my life.

1. Rest

I’m sure I don’t have to tell you this, but life can be exhausting. Between getting everything done that I’m supposed to get done, spending time with the people I care about, and trying to find some recreation time in the midst of it all, rest and recuperation have fallen pretty low on my priorities list. But now, there are some open slots on that list, and I’m putting rest back up near the top. I’ve just come out of a very challenging and draining time in my life, and I’m about to enter another challenging and potentially draining time in my life. So right now, while I’m in between them, I’m trying to ensure that I take the time to recover from the previous phase so that I’m well-rested for the next one. And here’s to hoping I do a better job at staying well-rested in seminary than I did in college.

2. Catch Up

When I’ve got a lot going on, I have to put some things off. Eventually, those things build up until I have a list of things I’d like to do but haven’t quite gotten around to yet. It’s sort of like a mini-bucket list of things I haven’t been able to do this school year. This lull during my transition time is the perfect opportunity to catch up on all the things I’ve been putting off. Whether it be a movie I’ve been meaning to re-watch, some much-needed cleaning, or updating my wardrobe, I can use my transition time to do some things that aren’t necessarily of great importance but I’ve been wanting to do for some time.

3. Reflect

Transitions times are also good times to look back on one’s experiences and gain some insight from them. I’m about to finish college. That’s a lot of information and memories to process in a relatively short period of time. But now that it’s pretty much over, I can look back on everything I’ve done and learned, and I can hopefully pick out at least a few major things that I can take away from it. I’ve already starting thinking about a few, but I’m going to take this time off to do some serious reflection about what college has taught me and how I can use that in the future.

4. Prepare

And while I’m reflecting on the past, I also want to be preparing for the future. Seminary is going to be awesome, but there’s a lot that needs to be done in order to get ready for it. I’ve got the school part covered thanks to a scholarship from the Baptist General Convention of Texas, but I still have to find a place to live and work while I’m in Waco. And I still need to emotionally prepare for moving far away from my home and family. Seminary is going to be different, and it’s going to take some time to get ready for it. Now is the perfect time to do that, and that’s what I hope to do during this transition phase.

5. Cherish

Finally, I want to enjoy this transition time in my life. I’ve still got a few more days at the school where I’ve spent the last four years. I’ve still got a few more days to make memories with the friends I’ve made in college, who I will miss very much. I’ve still got time to enjoy this place and this time with these people for just a little bit longer. I’m so thankful for this transition time in my life, and I hope to make the most of it. Thank you guys for reading, and I’ll see you again next week.

How I Met Your Mother

This year, How I Met Your Mother ended its nine-year run with a polarizing finale that left fans completely stunned. I had to watch it twice before I could even process it well enough to form an opinion. The seemingly simple story of a man telling his children how he met their mother took many twists and turns over the years, and it gained a pretty large and dedicated following.

Though its original run may be over, How I Met Your Mother will live on. This is a show with a lot of replay value, and I’m sure fans will be eager to experience the series again in light of how it ends. And for fans disappointed by the ending, an alternate version of the finale is set to release with the complete series box set later this year. With its non-linear timeline, compelling story, and the ability to satisfy its viewers without ever giving them exactly what they want, this series is here to stay.

How I Met Your Mother centers on five friends living in New York City in the early 2000’s. The series begins when Ted (Josh Radnor), the main character and narrator, decides he is going to start looking for “the one” after his roommate/best friend Marshall (Jason Segel) becomes engaged to his long-time girlfriend Lily (Alyson Hannigan). Despite objections from his playboy friend Barney (Neil Patrick Harris), Ted searches for his soulmate and thinks that he’s found her in Robin (Cobie Smulders). This is the start of Ted’s long journey to meeting his actual soulmate, who would go on to be the mother of his children. In 2030, Future Ted (voice by Bob Saget) tells his kids all the exciting stories that led to their fateful encounter in excruciating detail.

I could spend all day telling you all the things I love about this show, but I’ll just hit the highlights. First of all, my favorite thing about this show is the storytelling element. The entire show is a series of stories that Future Ted is telling to his kids. But storytelling is integrated even further into the show than that. Most of the episodes involve the characters (who are already within a story) telling stories to each other. At one point, the main plot is actually a story within a story within a story within the greater story that Ted is telling his kids. Storytelling is a central element of How I Met Your Mother.

And the fact that storytelling is so embedded in the show opens it up to a lot of cool possibilities. Future Ted mixes things up sometimes when he’s telling the stories to his kids, just like we do when we’re telling stories. He skips around to give us cool glimpses into these characters’ futures. Sometimes, Ted is just plain wrong about something, and it’s fun to figure these things out. The creators also use this fact to mess with the audience a bit. There are a couple of times within the series where the show just plain dupes you, and it’s a really great feeling when you finally figure it out.

Another great thing about this show is Ted. Poor Ted. He’s so relatable. He represents a lot of us who are looking for something but just can’t seem to find it. He’s quirky, he’s often annoying, and he sometimes makes morally questionable decisions. But everyone loves Ted because ultimately, he’s just a good guy looking for someone to share his life with. People relate to Ted and root for him because we want him to win, and we know that ultimately, he does.

I know I already told you my favorite thing about this show, but it’s such a good show that I’m allowed to have two favorite things about it. So my other favorite thing about How I Met Your Mother is that it never, ever, ever gives you exactly what you want. You might be thinking, “Why would someone like a show that doesn’t give them what they want?” It’s because there is something really satisfying and compelling about an unexpected twist. The show’s creators do a really good job of finding a balance between surprise and satisfaction. You never feel like you’re being cheated, but you also never really know what’s going to happen next.

The best example of this comes in the very first episode. The episode is about Ted’s decision to start looking for “the one.” That night, from across the room, he sees her. The perfect girl for him. He falls for he instantly. They talk and go on a romantic date. He makes this big speech about love and how he’s ready to settle down with the perfect girl. And then the episode ends with Future Ted saying, “And that, kids, is the story of how I met… your Aunt Robin.”

“Aunt Robin?!” The kids are as shocked as the viewers. Isn’t this supposed to be the story of how Ted me their mother? Well, yes, but it’s a long story. And throughout the entire series, Robin’s always there. And the viewer always wants Ted to end up with Robin. But Ted tell us from the very first episode that she is not the Mother. So you spend the entire series conflicted. You want Ted to find the Mother, but you also kind of want him to be with Robin. So they kind of set up a situation where you can’t really get what you want. But that’s a part of the fun.

How I Met Your Mother is a heartwarming story of a man looking for love and failing every step of the way. But as we know from the premise of the series, Ted does eventually find what he’s looking for. It’s not exactly what he expected, and it doesn’t go exactly the way he wanted it to, but if How I Met Your Mother teaches us anything, it’s that not getting exactly what you want is OK. It can actually turn out better than you ever dreamed it would. Check out How I Met Your Mother on CBS or Netflix, and be ready for some great stories.