Once upon a time in 2008, ABC optioned the comic book Fables to become a television show. The show went into Development Hell and never found its way out, and the show was eventually declared “probably dead” by series creator Bill Willingham.
Then, out of the blue, a new show was announced from Edward Kitsis and Adam Horowitz (former LOST writers, as well as the duo behind the Tron: Legacy script) on ABC entitled Once Upon A Time, which has a familiar premise of fantasy characters existing in our world. Kitsis and Horowitz both admitted to having read “a couple issues” of Fables, but also fully believe they are telling a different story — so how true is that?
Let’s find out after the cut.
The answer to that initial question is: it’s very true. While Fables and OUAT are certainly comparable on a base level, OUAT is very much it’s own entity and is certainly not going to just be “Fables: The TV Show.” So if you’re only curious about that one element, then there’s your answer.
Onwards and upwards: the OUAT pilot features two stories running parallel to one another. Half of the show runs in the fairy tale world: Snow White and Prince Charming have upset the evil Queen, who has come up with a diabolical curse to ruin happily ever afters for everyone, because that’s what selfish evil queens do. The second half tells us of Emma Swan, a just-turned 28-year-old loner/bail bonds collector who gave up a child for adoption, and that child has just come a-knockin’ all the way from Storybrooke, Maine. Of course, both stories are intertwined with one another as we slowly learn that Storybrooke is actually the triumphant Queen’s final victory: all the fairy tale characters that had previously all existed in one world now exist in ours, except they have no memory of their previous lives — and it’s up to Emma to “solve” this. Somehow.
OUAT pretty much has the unfortunate circumstances of pretty much feeling derivative right out the gate; we’ve seen this kind of idea so many times before (I already mentioned Fables, but there’s also The 10th Kingdom, for example) that it’s a bit hard not to be cynical before even sitting down to watch it. The fact of the matter is that OUAT has an uphill battle before a minute as even aired, because with so many fantastic programs on TV already competing for our Sunday night attention (Dexter, anyone?), there needs to be a damn good reason to watch OUAT.
Fortunately, there is a reason: OUAT is actually quite good. I will admit that I watched it as a skeptic that my attention would be captured, yet for the hour that it aired I found myself quite captivated in ways that other shows can’t always do. OUAT isn’t reinventing the wheel or anything like that, but rather setting up threads for a larger story. Everything here is pure introduction, but if a pilot’s goal is to capture the attention of the audience enough to pull them back next week, then OUAT is a success.
OUAT reminds me rather heavily of the first time I read Fables. Here was a book with familiar characters being introduced in a new way, and part of the excitement of Fables in the beginning was to see what familiar characters would pop up next, and what they’d be doing. With the OUAT premiere, it becomes pretty obvious who is going where, but there are still little Easter Eggs to be found throughout the episode (including several LOST references) that keep the viewer guessing. That is ultimately what you would hope for here; rather than having a character that would be recognizable from a fairy tale showing up and saying, “HEY, GUYS — IT’S ME, RED RIDING HOOD! REMEMBER ME? LOL!”, we have a girl in the background putting on a red veil while arguing with her grandmother. OUAT acknowledges the viewer involvement aspect and doesn’t take that for granted.
On top of that, premise of the show — while still somewhat derivative — does offer up intrigue for what is to come. The show continuously hints at an upcoming fable-related confrontation between various characters, and given what fairy tale characters show up in the episode, it should be interesting to see what the angle Kitsis and Horowitz plan to play with this. While the obvious comparison here would be to the comicbook Fables and the battle against The Adversary, OUAT takes a much more classic approach to the good vs. evil idea without revealing all of its cards. With our heroine Emma Swan choosing at the last second (of course) to stay and investigate further, it does seem like it will be quite fun to follow along with the rest of the season.
Continued belowThe fantasy elements of the show exist in appropriate tandem to the real ones as well. Arguably one of the more important aspects of the show, the balance between the two shorelines is one that could very easily become an aspect to cause the show to drag later. Already within the pilot I find myself wanting more for the storyline of our world, with the fantasy elements just playing a portion to the mythos of the world. Given their history on LOST, you would imagine that Kitsis and Horowitz understand how to effectively balance “what came before” and “what’s happening now,” though the pilot episode does somewhat skew the balance at parts. However, given that this episode’s modus operandi is to make sure that the viewer is caught up on the lore more than it is trying to tell stories in this new universe, it’s fair to assume that it’ll be easier to see if that balance can be effectively reached next episode (fingers crossed).
The general cast of the show also offers up some entertaining performances. Lana Parrilla, who plays the role of the evil Queen, is perhaps the most entertaining to watch, as she is one of the few actresses aside from Jennifer Morrison on the show to really get some time to show off her characters. The duality between the Queen and Regina Mills is wonderful, with several of the camera shots on her in both realities really playing up the two roles. Meanwhile, Ginnifer Goodwin as Snow White/Sister Blanchard offers up the polar opposite performance with her Snow and Blanchard characters being fairly different in execution, yet both intriguing to watch. Joshua Dallas rounds out the main fantasy cast as Prince Charming, and “bad ass” seems to cover him quite well.
This isn’t to say that the episode is perfect. It does hook the viewer well enough, but it has it’s flaws. The acting by Jennifer Morrison, who is otherwise the lynch pin of the show, is rather flat; despite her role on How I Met Your Mother, I’m beginning to second guess if she knows how to actually show emotion of any kind. Meanwhile, Jared Gilmore, who plays the young Henry, is probably one of the worst child actors I’ve ever seen, as he doesn’t act so much as deliver lines that he may or may not be reading from a cue card somewhere. It’s a bit disappointing that the central character is probably the least entertaining portion of the show, but this can theoretically be dismissed for now as an element easy enough to overlook.
OUAT is about as good a pilot as you could expect it to be. It effectively introduces its concept and characters with enough mysteries (as is par for course with former LOST writers) to bring you back for another episode. My only hope for future episodes would be more focus on the real world and the fantasy characters that inhabit it and perhaps some more clever fantasy character cameos, but it’s far too early to tell what’s going to happen just yet. Either way, after the first episode I’d say it’s fairly easy to be optimistic about what is to come.
