Once Upon A Time - season 1 thread

My wife was looking forward to this and wanted me to watch it also. It was ok. I wasn't really impressed enough to watch it next week.....until the last 10 minutes. With the introduction to more characters (Granny, red riding hood) I'm curious to see what happens next so I'll stick around for another episode.

I quite enjoyed it and am eager to see how Emma gets involved in the stories of all of these characters in Storybrooke. I'll be eager to see what kinds of ratings this pilot episode drew.

I tuned in, mainly to see Giancarlo Esposito, but a little disappointed he was not in the Pilot.

 

I read from one of the critic's review, that the 2nd episode is better than the 1st, which I thought, was all over the place. But it is the Pilot, which is just setting things up for the season.

 

 

Considering the LOST pedigree, I was expecting a bit more. I'll give it a few episodes though.

Ratings were very good - 12.8 million in the overnights. That's ABC's biggest series launch in two years.

I thought it was very entertaining. I will watch again.
Hellva lot better than Terra Nova.

But that was nothing compared to the teacher version of Ginnifer Goodwin.  She looked like Mr. Peepers.  

Assuming the charactors in Storybrook are all from fairy tales, who is the teacher with the big ear suposed to be? Was she at the big gathering in the fairy tale world?
I didn't see dumbo at the table so my first guess is wrong.

I think Goodwin looks really good with the pixie hair cut.

I thought Morrison looked old at times.

Goodwin's tastes must match your own, which definitely don't agree with mine. I thought she was way hotter with the longer hair. In fact, I found her borderline uncomfortable to watch with the pixie cut. And yes, Morrison had aging around the eyes at times. But let's not kid ourselves... the hotness factor on this show is in the red, especially when you throw in Lana Parilla (I remember her from Swingtown). Even with the aging, I couldn't help but notice Morrison is one beautiful woman.

 

On the other hand, Morrison strikes me as being from the Sarah Michelle Gellar school of "acting" -- just look cute and read the lines. They're both so reserved and non-expressive (IMO, of course). I gave some thought to why Goodwin is essentially the primary star (if you doubt this, go to the IMDB page and see who is first billed, and whose pic is displayed). But as a gut check, I'd say I've seen Goodwin be a much better actor. Snow White needs to be someone expressive. Morrison is better as a no-nonsense bounty hunter somewhat beat down by life.

 

I don't know if it was just the Mia Farrow hairdo (maybe there was makeup thrown in there for effect), but her eyes looked buggy and her ears stuck out like open cars doors. She looked... creepy.

 

BTW, did you mean "in the red" or did you actually mean "in the black"?  I wasn't sure by your comments on the hotness factor.  "In the black" is good -- "in the red" is bad.
 

 

In a financial sense, yes. I think Mikah is picturing a temperature gauge, where the hottest part is red. I don't really agree. I kind of liked Emma, but the others didn't really do anything for me. Unlike most posters here, I don't even know who they are. I've seen the girl who plays Emma somewhere, but other than Robert Carlyle, didn't know anybody (other than knowing that Morrison had something to do with House).

I thought it was enjoyable enough to come back. Next up: Grimm. I don't expect much from it.

Edit: See, I just looked it up at wiki and found out that Emma is Morrison! I figured she was the evil queen. Shows how little I know.

I wouldn't touch that first sentence with a ten foot pole.   The plotting on this show is terrible.

 

If what we saw tonight is all that this show is going to be: these two determined women trying to take one another down over that child, I have no interest in continuing to watch. I'll give it one more week.

Shrek meets Dynasty.

I'm not too enthused, but I'll give it another couple weeks.

This show has received a full season order.

 

The only highlight of the 2nd episode was seeing Giancarlo Esposito, in a role that is more comedic. Other than that, I find the show to be okay at best, and dull at worst.

 

And I just saw the 3rd episode, and I just wonder, how it can last as a regular TV series. I mean, how many more times will Henry try to convince everyone that they are really fairy tale characters? It gets a bit tiring after a while. And even if he succeeded, then what? It's a long process to reverse the curse?

 

And trying to follow along the fairy tale portion of the show, along with the real world part, does get confusing. I know that it is not a faithful adaptation of the Disney or Brothers Grimm stories, but still, it's just all over the place. It seems like it's trying to follow the same formula as Lost (I know Damon Lindelof was a consultant for the show), but so far, it's not working.

 

And not nearly as good as the 10th Kingdom either, which I enjoyed a lot back in the day.

I'm not sure I wouldn't like the series more if it remained strictly in the storybook realm and dropped the modern stuff entirely. The backstories of these characters could make great fodder for an imaginative series all on their own without the modern counterparts. My favorite parts of last night's show were the initial meeting between James and Snow and their adventures together.

Are the Lost style musical cues supposed to make this more dramatic and mysterious or something? It's not working.

In the last episode Jennifer Morrison's character even had this look on her face like she couldn't believe how stupid the story is.

I'll let the PVR grab one more, but if something interesting doesn't develop in the next ep I'm out.

I was watching this week's and thinking how lame this show is, but figured I'd try to last until the winter break, which they said has so much happening that it feels like a season finale. Then I read some comments from the hardcore, rabid fans of this show at another site. How can someone be that into this? The best part of the whole show is the Galaga production logo.

I may just wait until the season ends, and watch the episodes in a marathon, assuming I have nothing else to watch. For now, it's just not worth the time to watch it "live", or keep up with it, week to week.

See, I'm the opposite.  If it's a show "worth watching", I'd much rather wait and watch it marathon style.  Particularly with a serialized show, that's the only way to go.

 

As for Once Upon A Time, I'm only watching it because my 8 year old daughter really likes it, and it's the only show we can both watch and I at least find it watchable.  Sure beats iCarly and Good Luck Charlie.

That's probably the real answer. It's not that it's lame, it's that it's made for families and not adult men. Which is good. There ought to be things on for the kids, and the fireworks in the distance did remind me of the old Disney broadcasts. But, not having kids, it's probably alright if I bow out.

And satisfy the people who have been saying that family programming has been absent on network TV for years.

 

The old Disney broadcasts - that brings back some memories, reminding me of the days of when my family would get together and watch the Disney Sunday Movie, with an intro by Michael Eisner.

Walter C is a young whipper-snapper! Walt Disney used to introduced The Wonderful World of Color!

 

Wow, I have no idea what suppose to mean.

 

Okay, getting back on topic... I did not bother with the 4th episode, since it was not holding my interest enough.

Edited by Walter C - 11/16/11 at 9:11am

He was implying that you are actually young by comparison.  For you, "old Disney broadcasts" were introduced by Michael Eisner.  Hugh was, I think, implying he's old enough to remember when "old Disney broadcasts" were introduced by Walt Disney himself :)