The problem with fairy tales is that they are all too mushy, cheesy and mostly have very happy endings.
The problem with real life is that it is depressing, complicated and happy endings are rare to come by.
What if we could bring these two worlds together? We would get reality vs. optimism, heroes vs. villains vs. ordinary people, reality vs. magic….Things would get very interesting.
And here comes in the premise of Once Upon a Time, the entertaining and imaginative show that has the fairy tale characters imprisoned in our world, with no memory of they were/are fairy tale characters- all because the evil queen, Snow White (Ginnifer Goodwin)’s stepmother (Lana Parrilla) was jealous of her happiness with Prince Charming (Josh Dallas). She seems to be the only one who remembers her past in a town (called Storybrooke) where no one seems to be able to leave and no one new is able to arrive. She is the major of this town, living with her adopted boy Henry, perfectly happy with being in full control.
Snow White is Mary Margaret working as a school teacher.
Prince Charming is John Doe, lying in a coma in the hospital
Red Riding Hood (Meghan Ory) is Ruby, running a motel and a café with her grandmother.
Rumpelstiltskin is Mr. Gold (Robert Carlyle), the owner of the pawnshop and is as powerful as the mayor, to her resentment.
The queen’s powerful curse is working, but has an unforeseen glitch. When Henry’s school teacher, Mary Margaret gave him a story book, Henry figured out what was going on. He realized that his biological mother is Snow White and Charming’s daughter Emma (Jennifer Morrison), who they managed to save right before the queen activated the curse.
But Emma is living in the real world as a bounty hunter, and the last thing she expects is a son-especially one with such a high imagination. Nevertheless, she decides to take him home. Once there, even though she doesn’t buy into Henry’s fairy tale theory, she doesn’t like how manipulative and controlling the mayor is. So she decides to stick around only for a little while…
But then her resentment for the mayor grows and so does her love for Henry. She makes friends with Mary Margaret and starts to work as sheriff (Jamie Dornan) ’s deputy.
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More episodes concentrate on the background of Snow White and/or Prince Charming, and we do get to know about different characters too. Who/how they were in the fairy land, and who they are now. Henry is happy that his mother is around he is sure things will turn out and people will get their memories eventually….which of course the mayor will do everything in her power to prevent.
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Once Upon a Time is the perfect combination of reality and fantasy and romance and drama. It has its funny and action moments too. My favorite bits are the cast, the fairy tale costume design and Emma’s cynicism and rebellion that usually contradict everybody else’s. There is also the added bonus that some characters’ fairy tale characters/backgrounds aren’t revealed from the start. The 15th episode airs this Sunday.
Although I have to say I don’t really care for the episodes involving Cinderella and Archie-and I am not a big fan of Henry.