Fairytales are IN this season!! ...Or are they?

An image from the upcoming ABC series "Once Upon A Time"

What's with the fairytale market these days?  Seems like this year is the fairytale year for television.  Even the latest episode of "Gossip Girl" (one of my Monday night guilty pleasures which airs at 8pm on The CW) referenced the classic fairytale lifestyle in their latest episode.  The new fairytale stories begin with "Once Upon A Time" which will premiere Sunday, October 23 at 8pm on ABC.  The show is about fairytale characters that have been trapped in a modern world by the Evil Witch of the fairytale land.  This idea to me is reminiscent of Disney's live-action princess story Enchanted which came out in 2007 starring the adorable Amy Adams and the always dapper Patrick Dempsey.  Spoiler Alert:  In Enchanted the Evil Queen - played by the incredible Susan Sarandon! Love her! - sends Giselle (Adams) to New York via a magical well which leads to a pot hole in the middle of Time Square. [/Spoiler]  And that's where the similarities end. The promos for "Once Upon A Time" show a disgruntled evil Queen/Witch character, a few other characters that seem akin to Snow White stories (i.e. Snow White and her Prince), and your friendly neighborhood baby-stealer Rumplestilskin.  The witch casts a spell that sends her along with her subjects into a modern day sort of world where they all live in a quaint town called Storybrooke. The fact that Storybrooke is located in Maine just feels right to me.  Maine has its own special small town quality.  And for some reason I always think eerie thoughts about it.  Maybe it's the vast expanse between towns, or it could be Stephen King's fault (Storm of the Century happens to be a particular favorite of mine).  Either way the town is nestled away somewhere that no one would really question a mysterious town popping up.

The first episode of the season promises to introduce us to both sides of this show - The Fairytale "real world" and the Modern Storybrooke world, which for the purposes of the show, is in fact the "fictional world".  Now hold onto your shorts, people, because I'm about to reveal some of the goodies about this show.  First off, the top-billing reason to at least watch the pilot is that the show was born from the brilliant minds of some of the people behind "Lost"!  That's right, some of the former "Lost" writers and producers are behind this one, so I'm expecting a good mind shag to put this in American PG-13 terms.  Sorry for all you brits reading this one, no offense intended by my language.  While "Lost" had me in the first couple of seasons, and - for lack of a better term - lost me in the later ones, I'm hoping this show will stay on a good suspenseful track; one that is not predictable or confusing to a point where I stop caring.  The fairytale idea has promise, though.  I am intrigued to see how that will play out.  My second little goodie comes in the form of a repetitive character idea that I found quite interesting: adopted kids.  Well, one is not a kid any longer, but the theme seems to run in the family.  Emma Swan [Jennifer Morrison], who seems to be the main character from modern day world, has no idea that she is meant to be a part of this fairytale world.  None of the fairytale characters know who they truly are and that they are just trapped in Storybrooke because of a spell.  Anyway, in the first episode it will be revealed that Emma is not only a child of the foster care system, but that she also became pregnant when she was 18 and decided to put that child up for adoption when she decided that she would not be a good parent.  The fact that Emma was given up by her parents is something I'm going to have to guess could only be the work of our good friend Rumplestilskin.  Based on the previews I have seen, and some very interesting info I dug up from reliable sources, I'm guessing that Emma is the daughter of Snow White and her Prince Charming.  Emma was born in fairytale land, but Rumplestilskin probably made a deal to find a loophole back into fairytale world at the expense of Emma.  For this reason, Emma is separated from her family in the "real world" and is probably going to be the key to breaking the evil Queen's curse.  Funny enough she finds out about the whole 'Everyone in Storybrooke is a fairytale character trapped and you're the daughter of Snow White" from her own son, who is ten-years-old at this point.  He ran away to Boston to find her and she drives him back to Storybrooke.  Emma apparently makes the decision to stay in Storybrooke, but this leaves me wondering if that is really her choice or an act of witchcraft/spell-trickery.  For instance, she stays because she wants to learn more but this impulse is something that is an effect of the curse placed on the people in the town.  Think "Hotel California" if you are a classic rock fan, or more likely think a reverse Repelling Charm if you're a HP fan.

In the interest of time and spoilers I will end my discussion on this show there and revisit after the pilot has aired.  The second fairytale genre show will be coming Friday, October 28th at 9pm on NBC.  From the executive producers who were gracious enough to give us Buffy and Angel now bring to the flat screen "Grimm".  The tagline for the show is "This isn't a fairy tale. The stories are real." which says it all really.  In this show all of the stories that the Grimm Brothers wrote were real.  Those things really happened and they were documented, not fictionalized.  This show takes place in a modern day setting where the main character finds out that he is the descendant of the Grimms, so he himself is a Grimm.  He has the ability to see supernatural beings which are hidden from the rest of the world.  Think Men in Black, where J and K know that aliens exist so they are able to spot them in a crowd.  I had a better analogy but I forgot what it was.  Anyway, it looks like Grimm is a cop AND he's going to befriend a werewolf that he tries to stalk.  That's a good way to make friends.  "Hey man, I know you were all set on killing me 'cause I'm a werewolf and you're a Grimm and that's how things go, but maybe this time we could just share a beer and I'll help you get over all this 'I'm seeing supernatural beings wtf' shit and you can repay me by not shooting me with silver bullets 'cause that's totally cliche."  I'm afraid I don't know as much about this show as I do about "Once Upon A Time".  There wasn't as much to find on it.....or maybe it's just because it's 3:35am and I'm too tired to care about the spoiler details.  Probably a little of both.  Either way I'm excited to add another supernatural show to my Friday nights, considering all I have now is "Supernatural" and while I love to watch Jensen do his thing I still need more to sustain me through the weekend.  OH! I remembered another analogy, though I don't think this was my original one. Okay: So Grimm being able to see the supernatural beings is like in the movie The Last Unicorn and the unicorn gets caught by Mommy Fortuna and she looks around at all the other beasts that Mommy puts on display and she can see through the magic; She can see that the manticore is really just an old lion, and the dragon is a snake, etc. etc. SEE! I came up with a better analogy.  It's been an off day.

So now you know to keep an eye out for the new fairytales coming to a flat screen near you. 

     Reminder: "Once Upon A Time" airs Sunday, October 23 at 8pm on ABC
            &        "Grimm" airs Friday, October 28th at 9pm on NBC


Feel free to comment here with your thoughts after tonight's pilot.  Do you think fairytales are in this season?  I know I am looking forward to it, and I can't wait to hear what all of you have to say!


Coming Soon: Hot new TV Bromance, and Decade Pieces: What hit and what missed.