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New series could live happily ever after
Once Upon a Time, filmed in Vancouver, shows early signs of being the breakout drama this fall
By Alex Strachan, Vancouver Sun November 4, 2011
When: Sundays at 7 p.m.
Where: CTV Also airs Sundays at 8 p.m. on ABC
It's a TV story fit for a fairy tale. Once upon a time, there was a hit TV show - and it wasn't the one the experts predicted.
After just two airings, Once Upon a Time, the filmed-in-Vancouver hardluck parable about a group of fairytale characters trapped in a New England town, is showing early signs of being the breakout broadcast drama of the fall, according to the entertainment industry website Deadline Hollywood.
Once Upon a Time drew a surprising 12.8 million viewers in the U.S. for its Oct. 23 debut, opposite both the NFL on rival network NBC and the World Series on FOX. More remarkable, perhaps, those numbers held up this past weekend for ABC, despite competition from The Simpsons' Treehouse of Horror, an annual Halloween tradition. Usually, a new program's ratings drop in the second week, once initial curiosity has worn off. Once Upon a Time has defied the trend.
Analysts attribute Time's success in part to the series' originality - it's neither a police procedural nor a courtroom drama - and its family-friendly feel. Once Upon a Time airs on a network, ABC, in a time period that was home for 55 years to the long-running family anthology series The Wonderful World of Disney, which ran between 1955 and 2008. The Wonderful World of Disney last aired on Christmas Eve, 2008.
By tapping into a family audience with its fanciful tale of a prince, a lonely adopted boy and an evil queen, Once Upon a Time may be filling a void in prime-time TV on the major broadcast networks.
Once Upon a Time airs on CTV in Canada, where it drew more than 1.8 million viewers for its Oct. 23 opener. Ironically, The Wonderful World of Disney ran on CBC in Canada.
Once Upon a Time is produced in Vancouver by ABC Studios, and was created by Edward Kitsis and Adam Horowitz, formerly staff writers and co-producers of the Emmy Awardwinning series Lost. The series's executive producer in charge of production is ABC Studios' Steve Pearlman, who, earlier this year, supervised production of the science-fiction thriller V, also in Vancouver.
Ginnifer Goodwin plays the dual role of Snow White and Mary Margaret Blanchard; Jennifer Morrison, one of the original cast members of House, plays the sole character of Emma Swan. Veteran character actor and Glasgow native Robert Carlyle plays the dual role of Rumpelstiltskin and town billionaire Mr. Gold, and Lana Parrilla, formerly of Boomtown, has the thankless role of the Evil Queen and the conniving town mayor, Regina Mills. The role of the adopted boy, Henry, is played by Jared Gilmore, who plays Don Draper's son in the Emmy-winning Mad Men.
Once Upon a Time's onscreen tale is a story of good and evil, involving poisoned apples and sleeping curses. The fairy-tale characters who reside in the New England town of Storybrooke have been cursed into forgetting their true identities.
Behind the scenes, though, the family drama looks, sounds, plays and feels more like family. Those poisoned apples, for one, are actually candied, Parrilla noted this past summer, during a break in filming.
"I give Jared [Gilmore] candied apples on the side, that aren't poisoned, obviously."
Parrilla doesn't see her character as being that cruel or evil, in any event.
"As Regina, I come from a place of love, really, and fear of losing a son, and the threat posed by Emma Swan coming into this town. Sometimes, when you're faced with that kind of threat, it doesn't bring out the best in someone. She feels this kind of possession over Henry, and she really wants him to love her. But he hates her. He just hates her. And we'll get into why, further down the road.
"But when we're not filming, Jared and I are buds and we have a great time together."
Kitsis, the series' co-creator with Horowitz, says the actors' small touches, improvised in the moment, add immeasurably to the overall effect.
"One of my favourite moments in the pilot is when Lana comes into Mary Margaret's classroom, and the kids are running out, and she just pushes them. There's this little push she gives - and I just loved that."
Goodwin, for her part, is determined that Mary Margaret not be too treacly or sentimentally sweet.
"Because Mary Margaret is unaware she has ever had a child, her maternal instincts are more subconscious than anything," Goodwin said. "She honestly is drawn to her daughter [Emma Swan] almost as a peer, and I think she admires traits in her daughter that she doesn't know or understand or even realize she got from her, when she was in her Snow White form.
"We're exploring this idea that there's a familiarity and trust there, and neither really knows why that it. That's not outlandish to me. We all meet people all the time who we feel are inherently similar to us, but don't know why."
Goodwin is determined, too, to put her time in Vancouver off-set to good use. At the season's outset, she vowed to tackle the Grouse Grind hiking trail.
Morrison, for her part, is throwing herself into her scenes opposite Goodwin.
"From Emma's perspective, Mary Margaret is disarming, because she's kind and doesn't have any ulterior motives," Morrison said. "Most of Emma's life, she's encountered people who are only nice if they want something from her. Interestingly, in the same way I feel about my own parents when I go home, it's like you suddenly feel 14 again. No matter how old you are, you're like, 'Oh, God, I'm right back to feeling like I'm borrowing the keys to the car,' or something.
"There's a DNA thing going on that neither of them realizes."
The early ratings success has come as a pleasant surprise to a series many assumed arrived too late in the season and with too little fanfare to make much of an impression. Instead, the future looks bright, all of a sudden.
Once Upon a Time may live happily ever after, after all.
http://www.vancouversun.com/entertainment/...l#ixzz1cmroS15g
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Once Upon a Time: Interview to Cast & Crew |
