Forget
everything you know about fairy tales. In Once Upon A Time there are no
damsels in distress, no predictable tales, and its characters are so delectably
layered that it’s near impossible not to be utterly captivated.
Once
Upon A Time, created by Lost’s Adam Horowitz and Edward
Kitsis, is a TV series that will make you question and re-evaluate every
childhood story you have ever been told. “The idea is to take these characters
that we all know collectively and try to find things about them that we haven’t
explored before,” says Horowitz. “Sometimes it’s a story point, sometimes it’s
a thematic connection, sometimes it’s a dilemma they face in both worlds that
is similar.”
When it was
first introduced to critics most scoffed at the idea and predicted that it
would be the first of the new shows to be cancelled following the 2011 pilot
season. Not only was it not cancelled but it went on to become the most watched
and successful show for several years.
Here is a show
unlike anything that had been done up to that point in time. An amalgamation of
fairy tale show that starts after Snow White and Prince Charming’s happily
ever after and one that offers nuanced back-stories to all the
characters we thought we knew. How did the Evil Queen become evil? Is Snow
White really just a damsel in distress? Not in this story! And at the core of
the show and its narrative lays one overarching message: that belief and hope
in something better is the most powerful magic of all.
Through its
seven seasons the story of Once and its characters spreads
across several realms from the Enchanted Forest, to Neverland, to Oz, to the
Underworld, to Camelot, and several in between. But at the heart of the show
was the beautifully written characters. Created by Adam Horowitz and Edward
Kitsis these versions of otherwise well-known characters have become iconic and
are now, arguably, the contemporary references to their folklore counterparts.
If intrigue,
mystery and magic appeals to you then it doesn’t come any better than Once
Upon A Time. To set you off on
your magical journey, here is a brief synopsis of Season 1:
The Evil Queen, played immaculately by Lana
Parrilla, in a desperate attempt to ruin Snow
White (Ginnifer Goodwin), casts a dark curse which transports all fairy tale
characters from the Enchanted Forest
to a modern-day town called Storybrooke.
The kicker is
that no one has any inkling of their true identities with the exception of the Evil Queen. Enter Henry. The adoptive son of Regina/Evil
Queen, certain that the town is cursed, heads off to find his birth mother,
Emma Swan. Played by House’s
Jennifer Morrison, Emma is revealed
as the Saviour tasked with breaking
the curse.
