New ABC show fails to meet expectations with predictable plot
ABC’s new original series “Once Upon A Time” has been heavily promoted for the fall lineup, promising an interesting twist on a classic genre.
The show, which debuted Sunday, centers on a young woman, Emma Swan (Jennifer Morrison), who makes her living as a bounty hunter.
She has no real friends, and no family until a young boy, Henry, shows up at her apartment claiming to be the son she gave up for adoption.
As Emma talks to Henry, he reveals his belief that all of the residents of Storybrooke, Maine — where Henry lives — are characters from the classic fairy tales we know “or think we know,” and are trapped in a town frozen in time, completely unaware of who they really are, due to a curse cast by the evil enchantress from “Snow White.”
Furthermore, he says, it is up to Emma — the daughter of the fairy tale characters Snow White and Prince Charming — to save them.
Yes, it is obvious that the Evil Queen in the fairy tale universe is now Henry’s foster mother in the real world, and it is made clear that she and Emma are born to be enemies. It is also clear that Henry’s schoolteacher, Mary Margaret Blanchard (Ginnifer Goodwin), is Snow White in the fairy tale universe.
Emma meets many other characters as she looks around the place, including the owner of Storybrooke, who in the fairy tale world is Rumplestiltskin, the man who can see the future. She also sees Ruby and her grandmother, who own the fictional town’s inn and are modeled after the characters of Red Riding Hood and her grandmother.
While the premise plays on childhood loves and pulls on the strings of nostalgia, the pilot was poorly executed. Although the episode was slightly captivating and did keep the viewer watching, the storyline was simply too predictable and did not leave anything to the imagination.
There was no room for guessing, or drawing on memories of the childhood stories — the show was sketched out in the clearest, most fool-proof fashion. It is somewhat disappointing that a show this predictable comes from creators Adam Horowitz and Edward Kitsis, the same people who wrote for “Lost,” which left fans with a forever twisting and turning story line and weekly cliff-hangers.
It is pretty obvious that Emma was sent to Storybrooke to help the characters remember who they were in the fairy tale world, so that they can fight the Evil Queen’s spell. And since that conclusion comes with the pilot episode, the rest of the season isn’t looking promising.
It will be interesting to see how many seasons the show will last. It got great ratings with the pilot, but after the first episode, it seems this show could be wrapped up in just one season.
Hopefully the writers of “Once Upon A Time” will prove their abilities and graduate to more complex plot lines in their episodes. It’s a story with a lot of promise, but it’s all in the writers hands now. The story line needs to step up its charm factor.