This week's DVD rental ...

was Once Upon a Time, a fantasy tv series from the writers of LOST. Here's a bit about it from a past review ....


- Prince Charming's castle

The gist of the story: On orphan Emma Swan's (Jennifer Morrison) 28th birthday she is visited by a charming boy, Henry (Jared Gilmore), who tells her she is actually the daughter of Snow White (Ginnifer Goodwin) and Prince Charming (Josh Dallas). No, the child is not an escapee from a nearby loony bin but he's in fact the son she gave up for adoption 10 years before. Also revealed in this fun meet cute: Emma, a jaded bail bondsperson, is the only hope of saving the whole town of amnesiac fairy-tale characters.

That's where the fun begins. Emma was not actually abandoned as a child but sent away to be protected from the Evil Queen's curse and ultimate unhappily ever after: Maine. Dun. Dun. Dun. Basically the fate of all happy endings rests on her shoulders. Her backstory is unbelievable, but any birth mother with a soul can't help but be moved by Henry's passion, and Emma is.

The characters are intriguing in both worlds. Ginnifer Goodwin enchants as Snow White and her Storybrooke counterpart, Mary Margaret. The Evil Queen (Lana Parrilla) aka Regina, the mayor of Storybrooke, is not a one-dimensional villainess. She is mean, conniving, slightly heartbreaking and clearly the hero in her own story. While Emma Swan is the cool girl that you'd want to be your BFF, but she has no friends because badass orphans can't have friends .....


- the evil queen's huntsman is the sheriff in the mundane world

I've just watched the first few episodes but I like it. I've been really intrigued by fairy tales since I was little and it's interesting to see them reinterpreted modernly (a mini-series kind of like this was The 10th Kingdom, which I posted about here and here). Here's a tv promo for the show ....