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What happened after the happy ending?
On Sunday night fairy tales and the real world collided. Or at least they did on television channel ABC, which debuted its newest show “Once Upon A Time.” The Disney-owned network showed its membership in the House of Mouse for the first time in its original programming, creating a new series that stars the likes of Snow White, the Evil Queen, and Jiminy Cricket.
I don’t usually cover shows on ABC, despite its ownership by Disney, because most of them don’t really relate to the Mouse Company at all. But “Once Upon A Time” brings characters made famous by Disney Animation into a dark modern world, and given Disney’s recent idea to do just that, the show is indicative of one of the directions in which the company’s products might be headed.
Snow White and her Prince Charming stand before the Seven Dwarfs and all the other denizens of the Enchanted Forest, about to be united in matrimony, when the Evil Queen bursts into the room. She tells them to enjoy what time they have left, because she’s soon about to bring a curse down upon the heads of all of her enemies, which will erase every happy ending – that is, except for hers.
Months later a pregnant Snow White consults the cunning Rumpelstilskin, the one person who can see the future. He reveals that the Evil Queen’s curse will trap all living in the Enchanted Forest within a curse that will take away their happy endings. Their one hope is to spirit away Snow’s daughter, who will in 28 years return to free her family.
Said daughter, Emma Snow, lives a lonely life working in bail bonds in Boston. On the cusp of her 28th birthday she meets the child she gave up for adoption 10 years before and follows him home to Storybrooke, Maine.
There Emma unwittingly encounters the population of the Enchanted Forest. The Evil Queen is the town’s mayor. Snow White teaches elementary school. Prince Charming is a John Doe coma patient. None of them except the Evil Queen know who they really are.
Emma senses something off about the town mayor, Henry’s adoptive mother, and relents to Henry’s request to stay for the week. The pilot ends as the clock in the town’s center – broken and stuck at one time for as long as anyone can remember, in keeping with the secret curse that freezes in time the amnesiac residents of the Enchanted Forest – moves forward one minute, heralding the return of Snow and Prince’s daughter.
“Once Upon A Time” is a flawed but enjoyable program. I didn’t feel like I was getting into it, but by the end I wanted to keep watching and see what happens next. I worry that it’s too cinematic and plot-driven for network television, and that especially due to the high budget it must have for its many special effects, will soon find itself cancelled like ABC’s other ambitious fantasy show, “Pushing Daisies.”
If you like fantasy and fairy tales, watch “Once Upon A Time.” We don’t have enough of the genre on television and it needs all of the support it can get. It might never be as strong as the superior “Fables,” a graphic novel that puts a much defter spin on the same concept, but then it needs to stay more accessible for wider audiences than “Fables,” which features Cinderella as a spy and Little Boy Blue as a war hero.
In just one episode of “Once Upon A Time” it’s hard to tell if we’ll learn anything from the program of what Disney might have planned for its properties. Or perhaps “Once Upon A Time” is that plan. It shows enough potential that it’s definitely worth the watch. I’ll return to the show hopeful for a happy ending, just like its characters.
“Once Upon A Time” airs on ABC on Sundays at 8 p.m./Eastern time, or episodes can be found the day after they air on ABC’s website or Hulu.
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*(This image by JupiterSSJ4 is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.5 License.)
