Once upon a Time is an American drama series created by Edward Kitsis and Adam Horowitz who are most well known for writing the episodes for the show lost and wrote the story for Tron Legacy. This series ran on ABC for seven years over the course of seven seasons and has garnered favorable reviews from the masses. I went into the first season of the show completely blind but was surprised at finding things that i enjoyed as well as found things that could have been made better.
The series revolves around Emma Swan (Jennifer Morrison) a 28 year old who is unknowingly the daughter of Snow White (Ginnifer Goodwin) and Prince Charming (Josh Dallas) in a fantasy world that an evil queen put a stop to by placing a curse on the people who now live in the real world in Storybrooke Maine. When a young boy named Henry (Jared Gilmore) finds Emma saying she can break the curse from Regina (The Evil Queen) (Lana Parrilla) Emma unknowingly finds herself in Storybrooke Maine solving cases for the people in the small town while finding out the truth of the past life and the people afflicted by the curse.
There are two different storylines that walk side by side for each other in every episode this season. The first plot thread takes place in the real world with Emma trying to solve a case about an interesting character or characters. the second plot thread takes place in the fantasy world where their are fairytale beings and creatures. Both stories are made to understand the characters and their dilemmas from two different perspectives. It’s fair for me to say that I like the fantasy plot lines better as those stories have the more interesting backgrounds compared to the ones in the “real” world. Also, the quality of episodes do range from being surprisingly good to surprisingly underwhelming. It’s a bit of a rocky road but the good episodes are so good that they make sitting through this show feel worth it in the end.
The cast of characters they have for this show do show hints that they have tons of personality even if sometimes they may not quite give it there all in some cases. Emma is sort of your typical strong woman stereotype but i do like that they give her unique flaws that challenge her character from time to time. The Evil Queen or Regina can be quite menacing both in the fantasy world and the real world and her facial expressions perfectly encapsulates the true spirit of evil every time she’s on screen. The surprise character for me at least was Rumplestilkin (called Mr. Gold in the real world) as his motivations were completely unpredictable and somewhat menacing. The only character that seemed to annoy me from time to time though is Regina’s son Henry played by Jared Gilmore. It’s not that he’s the worst kid character, but his acting doesn’t seem totally all that believable and his way he delivers his acting feels very off-putting for a show that is suppose to be serious. There are of course many other characters in the show that make an appearance in the real world and the fantasy world but you’ll have to watch the show to see them all.
Now the cinematography in the real world is fine at best but it is nice to see the small rual town of Storybrooke Maine and all of its charming residents. The real show-stealer though is everything that takes place in the fictional fantasy world as the effects team go all out with the makeup for characters and visual effects for creature characters such as Jimminy Cricket and the fairies. You won’t be blown away by most of the cinematography, but there are still many aspects to admire from a visual standpoint. Also the music by Mark Isham is quite good in the fantasy world while in the real world the music is rather typical of any drama show you would ever see.
This is a show I had no expectations for, so it came to my surprise that the show was perfectly good as it was. I’m not gonna act like this is the greatest show i’ve ever seen in my life, but the show does provide a unique and modern day twist to fairytales in the form of a drama series. The ending of this season left a cliffhanger as to what I can expect for this season and i’m all the more intrigued if it will be better or worse than before. There are better stories that do the modern twist on fairytale thing better, but I can happily say that I mostly enjoyed this season of Once Upon a Time despite some of its faults.
(Final Grade: B)