Thanks to the Evil Pusher Woman (a.k.a. Tansy Rayner Roberts) I have become addicted to the TV show, Once Upon A Time. I knew that getting a Netflix subscription was going to be trouble one way or another. Thus far I have binge-watched my way through season 1, all 22 episodes of it. There are 3 more seasons on Netflix and a fifth season is apparently planned. Doubtless many of you know far more about the series than I do, but I figured it would amuse you to see my thoughts after just one season. Feel free to laugh, but perhaps not too pointedly in the comments.

I must admit to feeling a bit guilty about liking the show, seeing as to a certain extent it is a giant rip-off of Fables. Then again, Bill can hardly claim copyright on fairy stories, and the show’s writers have done a decent job of making the story quite different. The only major point of commonality is having a heap of fairy tale characters trapped in our world. In any case, Jane Espenson is one of the major creative forces behind the project, so it is gonna be good, right?

The principle interest for me is seeing how the show makes use of the various fairytale characters, and comparing that to Fables. I rather liked the way that Fables made Prince Charming a serial seducer of princesses whom all of the women now despise. Once Upon a Time has a seemingly endless stream of cookie-cutter handsome princes, though only Snow’s Prince Charming gets a major role, and he’s just dumb. Then again, I really liked what the show did with Red Riding Hood, and their use of the Beauty & The Beast story.

With the show being a Disney property, they are required to throw in major Disney characters that are not from fairy tales. I really liked how they used the Mad Hatter. Mulan also seems very interesting, and a much more believable warrior princess than Snow. I am waiting with steadily decreasing patience for Ariel’s first appearance. If it doesn’t happen soon there may be some muttering about bias against redheads.

The first season is all about Snow and Charming’s daughter arriving to break the curse that has all of the fairy tale people trapped in a small town in Maine. I’m not sure that it needed 22 episodes, but then again there’s always the question of what to do next. Thus far what I have seen of season 2 is doing OK, but I worry about things down the road. With time, any long-running series will run out of plot ideas and descend into silliness.

Obviously a major attraction of the series is the female-led cast. Snow White, her Evil Stepmother (Regina), and her daughter (Emma) are all major characters. Red Riding Hood and her Grandma, Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty and Belle have all had important roles, as did King Midas’s daughter, whom I think the show invented. In addition to Charming we have Snow’s grandson (Henry) and Rumpelstiltskin as major male characters. When you throw in the supporting characters, especially all seven dwarfs, I’m sure there are more men than women on the show. But it is so rare to see more than one or two token women that the show seems female-dominated.

I haven’t done any proper Bechdel Test analysis, but I’d be prepared to bet that Snow, Regina and Emma spend the majority of their conversations talking about Charming and Henry. Then again, at the start of season two we’ve had Snow, Emma, Mulan and Sleeping Beauty set off on a quest together, which is pretty awesome.

Emma’s last name is Swan. I’m assuming that she’s a swan maiden of some sort, and that Henry’s missing father will turn out to be a prince called Lohengrin (or possibly Logan as the show will assume that a US audience would balk at a complicated German name).

The show makes to usual clumsy Hollywood efforts at diversity. There have been a few non-white characters (including Lancelot), but none of them major and they seem to die or become evil very quickly. Mulan is the only one likely to have staying power, because I don’t think Disney will allow them to kill her off. I can’t remember seeing any QUILTBAG characters.

Fairy stories are, of course, moral tales, and the show is no exception. The main planks of its morality appear to be the value of true love and the importance of personal freedom and self-expression (as long as you are cis and straight?). Duty of parents to children is absolute, but duty of children to parents is mostly frowned upon. Goodness only knows what my grandparents would have made of that, but the world changes, probably for the better.

Anyway, it is an interesting show, and I shall keep watching it to see how it develops. If you haven’t seen it, and can stand a show with lots of women in it, you might want to give it a try.