Once Upon a Time

Once Upon a Time gets off to a bewitching start.

What's best about Time is its ambition; it glows with a near-theatrical shine, challenging viewers to think about TV drama as something other than boilerplate.

Fans of the fantastical can do far worse than Once Upon A Time, which manages to both stir the pulse and please the senses with its beautifully imagined medieval times.

There's gorgeous fun to be had here.

Once Upon a Time is both family-friendly and smart enough to win viewers of any age and level of sophistication.

In its premiere episode, Once Upon a Time offers a mix of hope and cynicism, coupled with familiar television and film allusions (not unlike the Shreks).

Once the action leaves the overly Maxfield Parrish-ized world of magic trees and drooping pregnant princesses, things pick up considerably.

For now, it's an enticing cupcake, but I want to see if it's more than frosting all the way down.

The pilot certainly looks great, and it's hard to imagine better choices for the leads than Goodwin and Parrilla.

Horowitz and Kitsis are clever and playful in how they insert the fairytale characters into the present day, which kept my interest even when, as I said earlier, I was chuckling.

The series isn't very original (at one point, it even steals Lost's now-iconic eye-opening shot), but that doesn't stop it from being relatively satisfying on its own terms.

Somebody should kiss a frog or something to break the evil spell and let this show be as much fun as it should be.

I don't see this fairy-tale fantasy having broad enough appeal to conjure up the kind of viewer numbers it will need to stick around.

The cast would do well to have more fun, but the layered storytelling has it charms. [31 Oct 2011, p.35]

Give ABC credit for trying something different. But next time, try harder. And better. And maybe shorter.

No other new show this fall is attempting to tell a bigger story, and we're hoping the rough patches smooth out and it fulfills the potential that's there in its very strong cast and premise.

In its pilot, Once Upon a Time succeeds on charm but comes up short on logic.

Watching the pilot again, though, it became harder to ignore the soap opera underpinnings and the twee sentimentality.

There are times when the enterprise lacks a certain heft and when the fantasy realm seems a little generic. Also, some characters, especially Lana Parrilla's Evil Queen (who is also the mayor of Storybrooke), are one-dimensional in kind of maddening ways, though Robert Carlyle makes up for that with his charismatic turn as both Rumplestiltskin and a Storybrooke resident named Mr. Gold.

Unfolding simultaneously in two distinct worlds, the series has an enchanting premise, even if it plods at times when it should sparkle and soar.

The larger problem, though, is that unless you're deeply invested in the fairy tale characters and seeing the variations on their familiar backstories--seeing, for instance, that Snow and Charming had a very different first meeting than the one we know about--then most of the story and character work is flat, despite a cast of likable, game actors.

The ambition is impressive...But Morrison is a wooden lead, and the back stories--a random collection of fairy tales--don't promise to surprise.

The show is a bold idea, and there's hope for the modern-world portions, but it doesn't quite know what it is (or maybe it does, but the audience won't).

The series, fueling itself with folklore, proceeds as if no characterization is required.