COMMENTARY | The premise of “Once Upon a Time” is that fairy tale characters have been brought to the real world, have their memories erased, and been given new identities in a town in Maine called, naturally, Story Brooke.
Kudos for originality. Spoilers follow.
The episode starts in modern Boston with Emma, a bounty hunter, played by Jennifer Morrison of “House” fame. She is cynical, a loner, and lonely. In other words she is the perfect person to be selected by fate to be the savior of the fairy tale people, news of which comes from her biological son whom she gave up for adoption years ago.
Emma, not believing the inconvenience she is being put to, drives Henry, the son, back to Story Brooke. Hank’s adopted mom is the mayor of the town, Regina Mills, and also the Evil Queen.
It seems that when Prince Charming awoke Snow White from her slumber, brought about by the Evil Queen’s poison apple, they got married with the intent of living happily ever after. However the Evil Queen crashed the wedding and announced that this plan was going to be thwarted with a curse to arrive later.
Geppetto, the one with the boy and the nose, builds a wardrobe from the wood of a magic tree to shield the daughter of the Prince and Snow White from the curse. There is a prophecy that states that she will return on her 28th birthday to save the fairy tale people.
The wardrobe works as expected and the baby is teleported to the side of a highway in our world, found, and put into the foster system. She grows up to be the cynical bounty hunter named Emma.
Story Brooke, by the way, is a place where time has stopped. That means that no one has actually aged in almost 30 years. That includes Snow White, who is the local school marm, Prince Charming, who is a John Doe in a coma in the hospital thanks to a sword wound, Rumplestiltskin, the richest man in town, and Jiminy Cricket, the town shrink. However, when Emma arrives in town, time starts up again. Part of the curse is already broken.
This clearly has potential, especially with the flashbacks back in fairy tale land.