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“Once Upon A Time” doesn’t serve as a modern adaptation of a classic fairytale. It reinvents it. The new ABC show, which airs Sundays at 8 pm EST, makes the notion that there are no more fairytale endings.
The story focuses on 28 year-old Emma Swan (Jennifer Morrison), a bail bondsperson from Boston who answers a knock on her door from Henry (Jared Gilmore), the son she gave up for adoption 10 years prior. To show some compassion, Emma drives Henry back to his home in Storybrooke, Maine, where he believes that “time is frozen.” All the townspeople, he claims, are characters in his fairytale book. They are only in Storybrooke because of a curse by the evil Queen (Lana Parrilla), who also happens to be the town’s Mayor and Henry’s adopted mother.
Henry believes Emma is the daughter of Snow White and Prince Charming and the only person who can end the curse on the town of Storybrooke and return the citizens to their fairytale of happily ever after.
See the episodes available on demand on ABC and Hulu.
Our Two Cents
Dori: What I love about Once Upon a Time is that the writers, Edward Kitsis and Adam Horowitz (Lost, Tron:Legacy), have a history of taking someone else’s story and making it their own. As a child, I questioned what “happily ever after” looked like. With this show, we see it’s not always about the “happily ever after,” but rather, if they characters can regain it.
Joey: Its always risky when you try to re-interrupt something as classical as childhood fairytales, but from what I’ve seen so far I’m interested. It isn’t too hard to take fairytale characters and assign them to townspeople. I’m eager to see how each well known character’s backstory will be woven into the plot.
Dori: While the characters at times seem to be a little off point and the back and forth of the current and fairytale lands were hard to grasp at first, I’m interested to see if this show can hook me in for the remainder of the season. Really, I just want to know how long a show about an understood happy ending can go.
Joey: I’m giving the acting and the visuals a pass until midseason, just because I want to see how the story develops. But if I feel the writers are dragging it along for more episodes then I’m liable to just drop the show altogether.
Dori’s rating: 80 Joey’s rating: 72
