Once Upon A Time

Adventure, Fantasy, Romance

Director: N/A

Release Date: October 23, 2011

Once Upon A Time is Lost, but with fairy tale characters. Pros: some really amazing actors & fairy tale world can be as gritty & rough as ours so good job on reinterpreting them, particularly Red Riding Hood, Rumplestiltskin, Mad Hatter, Beauty & the Beast. Cons: many of the leads are not very good actors (Emma, Charming in both, Mary Margaret, but not Snow) & even interesting characters end up being a bit one note for the majority of the series-Regina/Evil Queen is more dynamic as series progresses, particularly in Wonderland & as a younger woman, but when reduced to just manipulation, yawn. Sometimes the show seems really subversive in a bad way: have adultery, kidnap the kid because they’re really yours anyway & if love is at stake, things will work out. Sometimes its really subversive in a good way: see Red & Autumn. Overall not one of my favorites because pulled punches for too long & then when it didn’t, went way too far the other way (Queen is too psychopath real in one episode in which it is revealed she is not only evil, but a murderous rapist & that’s just not fun to just jump into it after several episodes), but as long as it has Robert Carlyle & Sebastian Stan, I think that I’ll stay.

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