May 18th

Today I worked, and I picked up some more shifts at Mummy to supplement the hours of training I have at Guest Services. That means I still have 5 days scheduled at Mummy (including tomorrow). We'll just have to wait and see if that continues. I'm super excited to start my new job, but that's not what today is supposed to be about, today is about reviews.

Today I want to discuss my newest favorite TV show, which just finished it's first season, Once Upon a Time. The show airs on ABC and just got confirmed for a second season, which makes me incredibly excited. When this season started I decided to watch at least one episode of each new show. A lot of them fell on the wayside, but Once Upon A Time continually surprised me and kept me going back every single week.

WARNING!!! There might be spoilers

The show is a bit of a fairy tale retelling, a genre I've always been obsessed with in any form (TV, books, movies, comics). The evil queen from Snow White is the main evil force in the show. In the world of fairy tales she ruled with magic and an iron fist, but she was disliked and fought by Snow White and Prince Charming. Eventually it seems she was defeated and relegated to the underworld. It was there, with the help of Rumpelstiltskin, that she came up with a spell to destroy the people that hurt her. The spell comes to fruition just as Snow is about to give birth, and the daughter she is going to have is the only one who can break the curse. Of course Snow and Charming come up with a way to protect their child so that someday she can break the curse.

Fast forward about 30 years. Emma, a woman in the real world, answers the door to her apartment to find a young boy named Henry standing there. He informs her that he's the son she gave up for adoption ten years ago and now he needs her help. He lives in a town called Storybrooke in Maine, with his adoptive mother, Regina. Henry informs Emma that the town is populated by fairy tale characters under a curse. He says that Regina is the evil queen and Emma is the daughter of Snow White. He begs her to come to Storybrooke because she is the only one who can defeat Regina, break the curse, and let everyone return to their true home in the fairy tale land.

As you can imagine Emma doesn't really believe Henry, but she does decide that she wants to know him. She goes to Storybrooke first to give Henry back to Regina, but after arriving she begins to feel an attachment to the people in the town, and decides to stay. It turns out that none of the people in the town remember who they actually are, except the evil queen Regina and Mr. Gold (Rumpelstiltskin). Henry has a story book that tells him the true story of their lives, and he uses it to try and convince Emma that she needs to break the curse.

Every episode of the show combines a story happening to Emma in the real world with the back story of one of the fairy tale characters back in the fairy tale world. Mostly everyone's story relates to Regina, Snow, Charming or Rumpelstiltskin. And each glance back into the fairy tale world reveals more of what makes the characters who they are and how they reached the point where Regina decided to exile them all to our world.

What intrigues me about this show is how they've woven all of these fairy tale characters together. From Snow to Midas to Belle to The Mad Hatter to Pinocchio to Red Riding Hood, everyone exists together and they interact with each other. Of course they've added a lot of other characters (mostly kings) to round out the story, but largely every character is recognizable. What makes the interactions awesome is the brilliant crossovers that are created. Rumpelstiltskin is Belle's beast, Red Riding Hood is the wolf, Grumpy is in love with a fairy, and Charming was supposed to marry Midas's daughter. The story is complex and discovering each new twist and turn always excites me.

If you are a lover of fairy tales now is a good time for you to turn on the TV or go to the movies or pick up a boos, because they're making a comeback everywhere. Once Upon A Time is one of those comebacks, and it's absolutely one that is completely worth checking out.