What to Watch: Once Upon a Time

“Once Upon a Time” is wonderful, sparkly and magical. It provides a unique spin on classic fairytales giving these stories and characters new life with the perfect balance of whimsy and weight.

In case you haven’t been watching, in the world of Once the Evil Queen (played by the fantastically terrifying Lana Parrilla) has cursed Fairytale Land, banishing all its inhabitants to Storybrooke, a small town in the real world where there are no happy endings, and no one can leave. The inhabitants were all former characters from fairytales and have no memory of their past lives, except the Evil Queen of course, who has given herself the new life of all powerful and absolutely terrifying mayor, Regina Mills. The only hope of the fairytales winning back their kingdom is the daughter of Snow White (Ginnifer Goodwin) and Prince Charming (Josh Dallas), Emma Swan.

Once takes its time exploring the relationships between these formerly fairytale folk, oscillating between the current, Storybrooke, and their past lives in Fairytale Land. Week to week the stories of individual characters are told, but the overarching plot follows Storybrooke’s only hope Emma (totally badass Jennifer Morrison) as she gets pulled back into the world of Storybrooke by her son, Henry (Jared Gilmore), who she gave up for adoption. Together, guided by a book of fairytales, they work to save the town from the evil Queen who doubles as the town’s all powerful mayor.

The worlds created are beautiful, picturesque and fitting of a fairytale, but the show does not deny the harsh underbelly that is at the root of all these sweet stories with Rumpelstiltskin and the Evil Queen acting as the primary villains.

Once possesses the romance, heartwarming goodness, and magical attributes of a fairytale, but it also has enough adventure, suspense and terror to anchor the stories. The characters in Once are given a unique opportunity afforded to become actual characters rather than the traditional fairytale character types. They get motivation, back stories, strengths, weaknesses and relationships outside their given tale.

The heart of this story is found in the children of the fairytales; Emma and Henry. The growing bond between Emma and Henry, and Emma’s discovery of regret for giving him away, ties her to the world. She gave him up so he could have a better life, but he ended up right in the hands of her enemy, adopted by Regina (the Evil Queen). With the support and generosity of the townspeople Emma, otherwise a loner, becomes included and finds her place in the town determined to help Henry and the town.

As Emma and Henry begin to uncover the truth about Storybrook, helping its residents find their way cracks in the curse begin to appear. Bells begin to toll when before this time had not passed. One of the central parts of the curse was the separation of Snow White and her Prince Charming robbing them of their happiness. As the curse weakens the couple find themselves back on the path to find one another. Along the way we meet Little Red Riding Hood, Cinderella, and Jiminy Cricket and many more with unique spins on their stories.

Once is a wonderful world to explore and I highly recommend that you check it out if fairytales are your thing. If they’re not try it anyway, who knows, perhaps it will melt your heart and have you believing in true love by the end of the hour worst case you’ll be rooting for the baddies to come out on top.

Once will air it’s final episode of the year this Sunday at 9 on ABC. Then you’ll have the winter break to catch up on all the earlier episodes before it resumes in the new year!