There's a Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow...

 ...just a dream away. 

It's been a long time since I talked about Disney, even though I had started a few posts to recap some past trips to both Disney World and Disneyland. I don't know if I'll ever complete those because most of them were to discuss certain rides when they were still relatively new and now they really aren't. So I'll probably scrap them. 

For now, I want to write about a recent change coming to Walt Disney World. While I haven't talked about some of the other changes (The Muppets 3D ending, Dinosaur closing to be turned into an Indiana Jones ride, the Rock-N-Roller Coaster's retheming), I do have some things to discuss about this one. 

The Carousel of Progress.

The classic ride closed July 6th, and will undergo a complete transformation. So I would like to talk about the Carousel of Progress that was and the Carousel of Progress that will be. 

OUAT: No Good Deed Goes Unpunished

Another episode featuring Zelena and Oz and since neither new song added to Wicked For Good seem to fit this episode, I’m using lyrics instead of song titles.

My Once Upon a Time recaps return, resuming with Season 6 since I never finished those recaps! Here we go!

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Last time on “Once”: Hook encountered Tiger Lily, who helped him stay away from angry and vengeful Lost Boys. They managed to evade them as he tried to get his way back to Storybrooke.

In Storybrooke, Regina tried to find a way to break the curse on Snow and Charming. She got an idea as they drifted off into a presumably permanent sleep and had everyone in Storybrooke share the curse. This weakened it and allowed Charming and Snow to finally wake up.

Flashbacks revealed that Charming and Snow woke up during the first curse and were briefly reunited. They found a way to get to little Emma but Rumple convinced them not to go to her, to let fate play out so they could stop Regina – who was still in full Evil Queen mode. So they left Emma in foster care and allowed themselves to be cursed again.

Parents of the Year.

Anyway, Fiona and Gideon are still threats and Rumple and Belle are still determined to stop her and save him.

No wonder my “Last time” recaps were almost as long as the regular recaps! Because that was me trying to condense it into one paragraph and failing!

We open in the merry old land of Oz as young Zelena walks down the yellow brick road. She encounters a boy about her age with an axe who is cutting wood. She warns him to be careful before they find a nest that’s fallen with a broken egg. He reveals someone knocked it out of the tree and Zelena uses her magic to fix it.

The yellow brick road needs a new paint job. 

Other kids come out of the woods to mock Zelena and warn the other boy to stay away from her. But they were the kids who knocked the nest out of the tree before the tree fell. So the boy threatens them with his axe and they run off. He introduces himself as Stanum and it seems Zelena has herself a friend!

We flash out of Oz and to Zelena’s farmhouse as Baby Robin cries. Zelena quickly makes a bottle for her and when she races into the next room, she stops short. The Black Fairy stands there with Peanut in her arms, taunting Zelena. She pretty much demands that Zelena help her or she would hurt Peanut.

Poor Peanut.

And now Zelena is pissed off, which can never end well for anybody.

Cue the credits!

Tony Awards 2026 - The Winners (and My Thoughts)

It's been two weeks since the 79th Tony Awards! And so I thought I would share some of my thoughts as well as reveal how well I did in my predictions. 

I thought P!nk did a great job hosting the Tony Awards. The main requirement in my mind is love and respect for theater and she definitely had it in spades. She was also game for anything and willing to embrace the camp, another thing a good host (no matter the award show) needs to do. Bravo to her and while there were a few hiccups here or there, I think she'll only get better as a host. 

The performances were great, in my opinion. I enjoyed them all but the real standouts to me were Cats: The Jellicle Ball, Richard O'Brien's The Rocky Horror Show, and The Lost Boys. I had expected Titanique to really blow the roof off Radio City but it seems like some technical difficulties prevented that. 

(The sound was weird throughout the show. For whatever reason, there was an echo whenever the presenters were talking into the microphones. It just wasn't as good as it was in the past and hopefully the producers will fix that for the future). 

Tony Nominations 2026

The Tony Awards are upon us! 

I am so excited for this year's show. I can't wait to see P!nk host. I think she's going to be amazing and I can't believe I never thought about her hosting before. 

Anyway, before we get to the show, I would like to make some predictions. Have I seen the shows nominated? No. Have I seen reviews and videos about them? Yes. Does that qualify me to make predictions? 

Well, since it's my blog, I say yes. 

You can check out my predictions under the cut. I will only be focusing on musicals and not straight plays. 

Suffs the Musical: Finish the Fight

Suffs the Musical will be airing on PBS' Great Performances today, May 8th, at 9 PM EDT. Please check your local listings to confirm the time it airs in your part of the country. 

Suffs the Musical follows the fight to get the 19th Amendment ratified, paving the way for women to vote. However, it comes with many struggles - some external, some internal - and the Suffs have to find the strength to Keep Marching on. 

If you want to read my review of the musical, you can find it here. 

I hope you all tune in and enjoy this amazing musical! 

Hallmark Christmas Movie Round Up: 2025 Edition

Another Christmas has come and gone – which means a whole new batch of Hallmark Christmas/Holiday movies have joined the channel’s ever-growing catalogue. I didn’t watch them all but I did watch a handful of them, so I’m going to quickly recap/review them as we hit the nine month mark to Christmas 2026.

As a warning, there may be SPOILERS under the cut.

“& Juliet”: An Upbeat Retelling of a Tragedy

I got introduced to & Juliet back during the pandemic when Spotify placed some songs from the Original London recording on my Weekly Discover list. Intrigued by this jukebox musical, I looked into it and thought it was an interesting concept.

When the pandemic began to ease and theater returned, & Juliet stormed into North America, starting in Toronto. It then came to Broadway and still runs today.

Knowing how much I love Broadway, my aunt offered to get me tickets to a show for my birthday. Her only request was that it not be something sad. Since & Juliet was on my list of shows to see and I knew it wasn’t sad, I asked to see that one.

So we went to a matinee on the second Saturday of May and now I’m going to tell you what I thought!

I’ve the got the eye of the SPOILERS!

OUAT Recaps: A Decision!

And I would like to thank all five people who voted in my tumblr poll for helping me make it.

Last month, I wrote about how I never finished my recaps for Once Upon a Time and how I wanted to do that. But I had faced a dilemma when I realized that in addition to never finishing the recaps for season 7, I also had never finished recapping season 6. With a planned rewatch already in the works, I debated whether to start by finishing season 6 first, finishing season 7 first or just continue with season 1 and wait until I caught up to 6 and 7.

So I decided to post the aforementioned poll and see if anyone on tumblr had an opinion.

And it was a unanimous one:

Finish recapping season 6, then finish 7 and go back to recapping seasons 1, 2 and 3A.

Which is exactly what I’m planning to do.

I already went back to see the last recap I did for season 6. It was for Episode 17 (“Awake”), meaning I would need to pick up with Episode 18 (“Where Bluebirds Fly”) and go from there, including the musical episode.

I’ll get on that right away.

See you soon with a new recap! 

Once Upon a Time: Return of the Recaps

I know, I know. The show ended almost seven years ago. But I never finished my recaps for Season 7. I got behind when it was airing live and then I struggled watching it on Hulu in the days before I got my Roku. So I never really got back to my recaps.

And I really do want to finish them.

I also have been meaning to do a rewatch for some time now, especially since I’m writing a fanfiction series that plays with how different things could’ve been if Robin Hood had been present in the series from the beginning. So I need to remind myself of what really happened so I can then figure out my next plot points.

But I wanted to finish the show first, get the recaps finished before I went back and recapped the seasons I hadn’t done.

However, I was looking for something that happened in an episode in Season 6 for another reason. So I figured I would just check out my recap of the episode…and realized I didn’t have one.

I never finished my recaps for Season 6.

Hallmark Holiday Movies 2024: A Round Up

And like that, another holiday season is over.

Happy New Year, everyone!

I’m sure like you, I’ve seen many Hallmark movies this year. I didn’t leave the channel on all the time but I definitely caught a lot of the new ones. So instead of reviewing them individually, I thought I would just do a round-up of them instead.

I hope you enjoy it!

I’ll try to keep them spoiler-free but I’m not going to make any promises, so just be warned.

Suffs: Show Them Who You Are

 Good news! 

Suffs the Musical will be filmed for posterity! 

According to Playbill, Suffs was filmed right before Christmas for PBS' Great Performances series, capturing the original Broadway cast before the show closed on January 5th. 

There is no date for when the performance will air. 

I am so excited about this. I think more shows should be filmed for people to enjoy and I'm glad PBS is filming this one. I will look forward to watching it and hopefully being able to buy it so I can watch it whenever I want, especially as it's very unlikely I'll be able to see the show one last time before it closes. 

I had secretly hoped this would somehow get filmed. There were some powerful names behind the show and I thought maybe someone would have a connection to preserve this amazing show. Maybe it would then get some more love if more people could see it. 

Looks like at least one wish came true. 

Suffs the Musical: Keep Marching

This review likely would’ve taken a different tone prior to the election but my opinion hasn’t changed.

So let’s do this.

Back in April, my mom, aunt and I went to go see Six the Musical for my birthday. (I also highly recommend that show). While we were eating lunch, I saw two women walking through the restaurant and they had sashes reading “Votes for Women” on them. I made a comment that they must be seeing Suffs and my mom asked what it was about. I told her it was about the fight for women’s right to vote and we all agreed we wanted to see it.

Fast forward six months and we made it a reality. We trekked into the city yet again, enjoyed a nice lunch and caught a Saturday matinee of this Tony-winning musical.

Even though this deals with historical events, I’m still going to warn for SPOILERS anyway.

Smash: Will It Be Your (Broadway) Star?

Smash lives!

You might remember the short-lived NBC show from over a decade ago that was about the creation of a Broadway show. I recapped every episode on this blog, if you want to read them.

After it ended its run on TV, there was talk of turning the fictional Marilyn Monroe musical the characters worked on (Bombshell) into a real life musical. There even was a benefit concert version featuring many actors from the show, including Megan Hilty (Ivy) and Katharine McPhee (Karen).

Then the pandemic hit and a lot of projects had to wait.

Well, it seems that while they were waiting, it was decided that instead of mounting Bombshell, they would turn Smash itself into a musical and mount that instead.

Once Upon a Time: Redux?

I know I’m a few weeks late in discussing this but better late than never, right?

Inside the Magic, a site dedicated to all things Disney, posted a story about a possible Once Upon a Time revival on Disney+. It was based on comments Colin O’Donoghue (Captain Hook/Killian Jones) made in an article on Collider released ahead of a new project he is working on.

Namely that there had been conversations about reviving Once Upon a Time.

This certainly generated some buzz on social media. Honestly, it was the most I’ve seen my timeline active in a while and my notifications were almost the same as when the show used to air.

I’m not surprised that there have been conversations about possibly reviving the show. Revivals have been happening all over TV and streaming services. Suits is getting a revival despite ending in 2019, one year after Once Upon a Time. So it doesn’t seem like it might be too soon to revive the show.

It also isn’t surprising that it might be on Disney+. The hope may be that it will lure more people to watch Disney+. I also recall reading that ABC wasn’t really looking for new shows after this shortened season. That could change and once again, this is just conjecture based on Colin’s comments. We’ve had no corroboration from either Disney, ABC or Adam and Eddy.

So what do I think? Let me lay out my thoughts for you.

The Wedding Veil Journey–My Big Fat Greek Honeymoon

And we’re at the third movie in this new trilogy!

Honestly, based on the summary offered by Hallmark, I thought this movie was going to go in a different direction. I’ll tell you what it was when we get to the end.

So do Tracy and Nick finally take their honeymoon? Let’s find out!

If we took a holiday/Took some time to celebrate/Just one day out of life/It would be, it would be so SPOILERS!

The Wedding Veil Inspiration: Work/Life Balance

 Avery and Peter are settling into parenthood and so it’s time to move onto our second couple – Emma and Paolo! They are also my favorite couple and so I was so excited to see this movie.

Was it a good follow up to the original movie (The Wedding Veil Unveiled)? Does it do our international lovers justice?

Let’s find out!

I will be there to share forever/Love will keep us together/I’ll be thinking of you/Look in my heart and let love SPOILERS!

The Wedding Veil Expectations: All Great Plans...

 After the success of the original Wedding Veil trilogy, Hallmark ordered another trilogy to make it a series. Once again, we’ll follow our original heroines – Avery (Lacey Chabert), Emma (Autumn Reeser) and Tracy (Alison Sweeney) as they navigate married life. And the veil comes along as well to continue working its magic on some brand new couples.

Once again, we start with Avery and the next chapter of her life.

When the world outside’s too much to take/that all ends when I’m SPOILERS!

“Where Are You Christmas?”: Christmas Makes the World Brighter

Hallmark’s Countdown to Christmas is in full swing and has been since October 20th. As they do every year, they introduce many new movies to add to their collection and I like to try to review at least one before the New Year.

And here it is!

We start with the classic trope of hardworking city woman returns to her small town and learns the true meaning of Christmas while falling in love. But there is a twist in how she learns her lesson.

My world is changing/I’m rearranging/Does that mean Christmas SPOILERS

Summer Movie Round Up

Hard to believe it’s already September! It feels like it was just Memorial Day and here we are, getting ready for spooky season and then the holidays.

But before we speed toward 2024, let’s pause and reflect on this past summer.

Namely, the movies.

It was a good summer for movies. I started at least three reviews but never had the time to finish them. So I’ve decided to just do a round up of my thoughts about each movie.

Here we go!

(Beware possible spoilers under the cut).

The Wedding Veil Legacy: Food, History and True Love

We’ve seen a beautiful Italian lace veil originally made for the wife of an Italian nobleman bring love to a museum curator and an art history professor. Now it is in the possession of their friend, who works at an auction house. She is firmly a skeptic in the veil’s alleged power to bring the owner true lover Will she change her mind?

Of course she will. It’s a Hallmark movie.

How does it happen? Find out in The Wedding Veil Legacy!

I’m so glad you found me in time/And I’m so glad that you’ve rectified my mind/This will be an everlasting SPOILER!