Once Upon a Time premiered on ABC on Sunday night. I saw many trailers for the show leading up to Sunday night as well as a behind the scenes look during previews in the movie theatre. All of these glimpses didn't impress me, but I wanted to give it a fair try. Which is why I recorded the show and finally watched it this morning.
The show's premise is nice and fantastical. Snow White and Prince Charming are getting married when the Evil Queen shows up and declares that an awful curse is going to befall them and all the fairy tale characters of the Kingdom. No one wants to believe her, but fast forward to a few months later and Snow White is still pondering the Evil Queen's threat. She's now pregnant, which naturally makes her anxious for the fate of her child, so she and Prince Charming head down to the dungeons to question the only man who can see the future - Rumpelstiltskin. Played with manic glee by Robert Carlyle, Rumpelstiltskin warns the couple that the curse is indeed on its way, but they have once chance at salvation - Snow White's as yet unborn daughter, Emma. If she is protected, she will return in 28 years and commence the final battle against the Evil Queen to finally free everyone.
The story gets more intricate, but here are the bare essentials: Snow White gives birth to Emma on the day that the curse arrives. Prince Charming manages to fight his way through the Evil Queen's soldiers, and although he is mortally wounded, he manages to place Emma in a wardrobe made from an enchanted tree which spirits her away from the Kingdom and helps her escape the curse. And what is the curse? All the fairy tale characters are transported to the modern world, ensconced in the aptly-named town of Storybrooke in Maine, where they no longer remember who they are and where time stands still so that they never age and will never find their happy endings. Snow White is now Mary Margaret Blanchard, a sweet, bluebird-loving elementary school teacher, who no longer remembers her eternal love for Prince Charming. One of her students is a precocious ten-year old, Henry Mills, who reads the book of fairy tales that Blanchard gives him and realizes that all of the townspeople are actually characters from these stories. His mother turns out to be the Evil Queen (now known as the town's mayor, Regina Mills), but she adopted him so Henry heads off to Boston to find Emma Swan, his birth mother. Of course, this is the same Emma who was born to Snow White and Prince Charming. With a great deal of persuasive wheeling and dealing Henry brings Emma back to Storybrooke and presumably sets into motion the "final battle" as prophesied by Rumpelstiltskin.
This is an elaborate story, and I haven't even covered every nuance of the one-hour pilot. While the idea of fairy tales in modern settings is not new (and done to perfection in the 2007 movie Enchanted), the execution of Once Upon A Time is quite imaginative and enjoyable. The plot is well-constructed and multi-faceted, and at the end of the first episode I was convinced that I wanted to see more. The acting is solid and I have already started developing attachments to some characters. And the locations, set design, and costumes are spot-on, giving the fairy tale Kingdom a lush realism and lending an air of mystery and magic to the modern world of Storybrooke. The special effects occasionally do leave something to be desired and the Blue Fairy was woefully laughable. Subsequent episodes will alternate between the Kingdom and Storybrooke, advancing the plot while giving us flashbacks to help us discover the characters' backstories. For the show to succeed in making the Kingdom more believable, they will hopefully rely more on constructed sets or actual locations, instead of cheap-looking CGI effects. Unfortunately, this is often the problem with shows on network TV. When you have to produce about 20 episodes a year, the budget is stretched out and special effects don't get the attention they deserve. You definitely get the impression that if this show was on cable, it would have a better aesthetic and benefit from shorter seasons. And therein lie my reservations about Once Upon A Time. This is a story that seems more suited to be one season long, because we all know what the ending has to be. The Evil Queen will be overthrown, characters will remember who they are, and the final screen will say "and they all lived happily ever after." The problem is how we are going to get to that ending.
This problem is the same that plagued Lost. Once Upon A Time was developed by two Lost writers, who have received input from Damon Lindelof (Lost's co-creator). If anyone knows how to construct a vast story arc complete with flashbacks, character development, and mysteries all heading for an ultimate endgame, it's these guys. The pilot has some deliberate allusions to Lost as well, which is like a fun Easter Egg hunt for any Lost fans who are still mourning the end of that show. Lost was a TV masterpiece, but middle seasons did drag a bit when it became clear that the show was being hampered by the need to endlessly create filler for each season so that the network could reap the benefits. However, once the writers had a a definitive ending in sight, the series kicked into high gear and every episode from the final two seasons was a surprise and delight.
I can only hope that the writers of Once Upon a Time have taken that Lost experience to heart and have a well-established plan in mind for the direction this series is going to take. It debuted as the #1 drama and is critically favored, so it's not going away anytime soon. Now it remains to be seen whether upcoming episodes can deliver on the hype and give these characters enough depth and story to keep the momentum going. Ultimately when I see the words "and they lived happily ever after," I want to think that the end came too soon, instead of wishing it had come a few seasons earlier.
The show's premise is nice and fantastical. Snow White and Prince Charming are getting married when the Evil Queen shows up and declares that an awful curse is going to befall them and all the fairy tale characters of the Kingdom. No one wants to believe her, but fast forward to a few months later and Snow White is still pondering the Evil Queen's threat. She's now pregnant, which naturally makes her anxious for the fate of her child, so she and Prince Charming head down to the dungeons to question the only man who can see the future - Rumpelstiltskin. Played with manic glee by Robert Carlyle, Rumpelstiltskin warns the couple that the curse is indeed on its way, but they have once chance at salvation - Snow White's as yet unborn daughter, Emma. If she is protected, she will return in 28 years and commence the final battle against the Evil Queen to finally free everyone.
The story gets more intricate, but here are the bare essentials: Snow White gives birth to Emma on the day that the curse arrives. Prince Charming manages to fight his way through the Evil Queen's soldiers, and although he is mortally wounded, he manages to place Emma in a wardrobe made from an enchanted tree which spirits her away from the Kingdom and helps her escape the curse. And what is the curse? All the fairy tale characters are transported to the modern world, ensconced in the aptly-named town of Storybrooke in Maine, where they no longer remember who they are and where time stands still so that they never age and will never find their happy endings. Snow White is now Mary Margaret Blanchard, a sweet, bluebird-loving elementary school teacher, who no longer remembers her eternal love for Prince Charming. One of her students is a precocious ten-year old, Henry Mills, who reads the book of fairy tales that Blanchard gives him and realizes that all of the townspeople are actually characters from these stories. His mother turns out to be the Evil Queen (now known as the town's mayor, Regina Mills), but she adopted him so Henry heads off to Boston to find Emma Swan, his birth mother. Of course, this is the same Emma who was born to Snow White and Prince Charming. With a great deal of persuasive wheeling and dealing Henry brings Emma back to Storybrooke and presumably sets into motion the "final battle" as prophesied by Rumpelstiltskin.
This is an elaborate story, and I haven't even covered every nuance of the one-hour pilot. While the idea of fairy tales in modern settings is not new (and done to perfection in the 2007 movie Enchanted), the execution of Once Upon A Time is quite imaginative and enjoyable. The plot is well-constructed and multi-faceted, and at the end of the first episode I was convinced that I wanted to see more. The acting is solid and I have already started developing attachments to some characters. And the locations, set design, and costumes are spot-on, giving the fairy tale Kingdom a lush realism and lending an air of mystery and magic to the modern world of Storybrooke. The special effects occasionally do leave something to be desired and the Blue Fairy was woefully laughable. Subsequent episodes will alternate between the Kingdom and Storybrooke, advancing the plot while giving us flashbacks to help us discover the characters' backstories. For the show to succeed in making the Kingdom more believable, they will hopefully rely more on constructed sets or actual locations, instead of cheap-looking CGI effects. Unfortunately, this is often the problem with shows on network TV. When you have to produce about 20 episodes a year, the budget is stretched out and special effects don't get the attention they deserve. You definitely get the impression that if this show was on cable, it would have a better aesthetic and benefit from shorter seasons. And therein lie my reservations about Once Upon A Time. This is a story that seems more suited to be one season long, because we all know what the ending has to be. The Evil Queen will be overthrown, characters will remember who they are, and the final screen will say "and they all lived happily ever after." The problem is how we are going to get to that ending.
This problem is the same that plagued Lost. Once Upon A Time was developed by two Lost writers, who have received input from Damon Lindelof (Lost's co-creator). If anyone knows how to construct a vast story arc complete with flashbacks, character development, and mysteries all heading for an ultimate endgame, it's these guys. The pilot has some deliberate allusions to Lost as well, which is like a fun Easter Egg hunt for any Lost fans who are still mourning the end of that show. Lost was a TV masterpiece, but middle seasons did drag a bit when it became clear that the show was being hampered by the need to endlessly create filler for each season so that the network could reap the benefits. However, once the writers had a a definitive ending in sight, the series kicked into high gear and every episode from the final two seasons was a surprise and delight.
I can only hope that the writers of Once Upon a Time have taken that Lost experience to heart and have a well-established plan in mind for the direction this series is going to take. It debuted as the #1 drama and is critically favored, so it's not going away anytime soon. Now it remains to be seen whether upcoming episodes can deliver on the hype and give these characters enough depth and story to keep the momentum going. Ultimately when I see the words "and they lived happily ever after," I want to think that the end came too soon, instead of wishing it had come a few seasons earlier.
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