Fairy Tale Firepower: Hooked on “Once Upon A Time”

*

So far, if you’ve been reading my blog, you’ve learned these five particular things about me:

1. According to my father, I think life is like a magazine or a fairy tale.

2. I’m slightly obsessed with Harry Potter.

3. I love creativity.

4. I like to be entertained and engaged, specifically through books and/or films.

5. I like to write about these things.

Today’s post is going to incorporate all of the previous five things, and this time I’m going to talk about a new television show, “Once Upon A Time,” which airs Sunday nights at 8 p.m. on ABC. I’m hooked.

Not since “24” have I felt compelled to watch an hour-long television show. I admittedly don’t watch much TV: I watch “Modern Family” (a relatively small commitment of 30 minutes one night a week; I can handle that); I watch “American Idol” with my kids in-season; and I watch lots of movies, including all the sentimental, mushy Hallmark Christmas movies that shockingly have already made their way into the holiday rotation.

That’s about all I can commit to with my family’s busy schedule combined with my own busy schedule. There’s not a lot of room left to commit to weekly television dramas.

But now I look forward to Sundays, and it has nothing to do with football.

I’m absolutely in awe of the creativity Edward Kitsis and Adam Horowitz, former writers of “Lost” who joined the party midway through Season 1, have brought to the world of the fairy tale. When I saw the preview for the season, I thought I might be in trouble. I wondered if the writers could seamlessly blend fairy tale lore with a present-day story.

Apparently, they can. I feel I must apologize for ever having second-guessed them.

The merging of the fairy tale universe with our present-day universe is working amazingly well in this show. It’s creepy, and Lana Parrilla (above) as the Wicked Queen makes the hairs on my arms stand on end. In her parallel present, she is the evil mayor of the town and carefully tends to her apple orchards. I absolutely adore her menacing, threatening, macabre behavior as she plays both the mayor and the queen in the same way I love Voldemort and his younger self, Tom Riddle. In fact, those two should hook up and run away together. They may be able to create their own nightmarish happy ending.

Last week in episode two, the writers unveiled a little of what makes the evil queen the way she is. We see her kill her own father. The fairy tale is dark and the show is shot in quick clips, which adds to its own momentum. In a flash, the episode is over and we are left hanging for a week wondering what will happen to Snow White (Ginnifer Goodwin), Snow White’s present-day daughter (Jennifer Morrison), Prince Charming (Josh Dallas), Rumpelstiltskin (Robert Carlyle), and the rest of the cast as they plot and plod along, and as we, the audience, wonder how and when the fairy tale will cross paths in its present parallel universe and how all these characters will fare in the end.

Snow White and her daughter are great characters, though they don’t know they are related to each other at this point, even though they are conversing. Goodwin’s Snow White is a tough cookie, and her daughter is as well. She has already gone nose-to-nose with the evil queen.

If this sounds confusing, it may be a little, just the way “Lost” was at times; however, I don’t think there will be unanswered questions in this show. The writers seem to be unraveling the plot and the connections little by little, and so far, I think it’s working beautifully.

There’s a lot of fairy tale firepower in this thing, from the Seven Dwarfs to Maleficent from Sleeping Beauty, just to name a couple. If you are someone who loved reading fairy tales as a child or liked the Disney classics, hold on to your seat. Kitsis and Horowitz have turned fairy tales upside down and have offered you the darker, unexpected side. Just as Harry Potter becomes darker and darker as each of the books and films moves along, “Once Upon A Time” is ready to take you to places you never imagined.

If you haven’t tuned in yet, it’s not too late. Look into your magic mirror or watch the previous episodes online. Try to catch up if you can.

There are less then five hours until Episode 3 airs.

I’m giddy about it.