ABC’s Once Upon a Time has been a fun fantasy this season’s Sunday nights. It’s based on a premise that fairy tales are real but because of a curse, fairy tale characters have been banished to the real life town of Storybrooke. It first interested me because Jennifer Morrison from House and Gennifer Goodwin from Big Love were on it.
I didn’t expect to like it so much! The hour unfolds with stories from both fairy tale land and then in Storybrooke spotlighting the same characters. The Storybrooke characters don’t know they ever lived in fairy tale land.
We all hear fairy tales growing up. We may have books with imagery that we associate with Cinderella or Little Mermaid. Then there’s the whole Disney imagery that has been repeated ad nausea for these characters. (ABC is owned by Disney, hmmmm.) I like that OUaT puts all fairy tale characters in the same land at the same time. So Pinocchio lives in the same realm as Red Riding Hood.
What I particularly like is that everyone gets a back story. We all know the story of Snow White, but OUaT gives us a story about Grumpy whose name started out Dreamy. We know about Beauty and the Beast, but OUaT spins it that Rumplestiltskin is the beast.
I asked a friend (business owner, mother of 2 school aged children) why she liked OUaT. She says
“I’m not really into fairy tales, but I do usually like darker shows. I find the darker characters like Mr. Gold most interesting. I really liked Lost, and some of the Lost writers went to OUaT. I liked the complexity and interconnectedness of Lost, and this isn’t really at that level.”
This genre is so basic it could be boring. By tapping into mythological/archetypal aspects and fleshing out the characters in unexpected ways, OUaT tells these stories with a fresh eye. I never watched Lost but I enjoy what the writers are creating for these fairy tale characters.
When the curse is broken in Storybrooke, then the characters can have their Happily Ever After. I will continue to watch for this mythical event.