Like "The River" I had hoped that "Once Upon A Time" would end up being a worthy successor to "Lost."
It isn't.
Which is not to say it isn't any good. It is. It just isn't "Lost." And perhaps I am being unreasonable in looking for a "Lost" replacement. There will almost certainly not be another "Lost."
"Once Upon A Time" is produced by some of the same people that were responsible for "Lost," though, and in many ways it shows. The writing is mostly as good.
The premise for the series I will quote from wikipedia in order to spare myself a great deal of typing...
The story is set in the small town of Storybrooke, Maine. The town is populated by characters from fairy tales, who have been exiled to the real world due to a curse cast by the Evil Queen (Lana Parrilla) as part of a revenge plot against Snow White (Ginnifer Goodwin), and Prince Charming (Josh Dallas). Because of the curse, the inhabitants of Storybrooke have no memory of their true identities and have been stuck timelessly in Storybrooke for years.
This changes when Henry (Jared S. Gilmore), the adopted son of Storybrookes Mayor Regina Mills (also Lana Parrilla), seeks out his birth mother, Emma Swan (Jennifer Morrison), a bounty hunter living in Boston and coerces her to come to Storybrooke. Henry, who knows about the curse from a book given him by his teacher Mary Margaret Blanchard (also Ginnifer Goodwin), informs Emma that she is the daughter of Snow White and Prince Charming and that she is destined to break the curse holding everyone in Storybrooke. Skeptical, Emma decides to stay in Storybrooke after seeing how lonely Henry is and how he is emotionally neglected by his mother. In staying, Emma continues to run afoul of Mayor Mills. This conflict only increases when Emma becomes the town Sheriff.
Each episode usually focuses on one main character who is experiencing some sort of conflict in Storybrooke. Flashbacks also show what their character's story was in the fairy tale world of the Enchanted Forest. In the first season, almost all of the flashbacks involved Rumplestiltskin (Robert Carlyle) making deals with the protagonists as part of some sort of machiavellian plot. In Storybrooke, Rumplestiltskin is known as Mr Gold, the wealthiest man in town.
I have watched all of the episodes and I have only had issue with one so far: In an episode where Henry is trapped in a mineshaft (mineshaft? really?) he is rescued by Emma for no apparent reason other than she is the lead in the series. That was just stupid because we have all seen real life mine rescues and they are always performed by experts...real experts. So in this one instance the writers were overwhelmingly stupid. But that's my only real quibble with the series to date.
The series is character driven rather than driven by say, a quest. There is a quest and eventually I believe it will be concluded but again, that is not what is currently driving the series. I complained about "The River" for not being driven by a quest, for making the quest subordinate to the priority of making each episode more or less self contained and you could take issue with "Once Upon A Time" for this, too. But I don't have a problem with it because they are weaving the characters into the quest in such a way that my attention is kept quite focused. Unlike "The River" there is enough continuity to keep me wondering what will happen next. Not quite a cliffhanger ending every week but pretty close. The quest in this case is advanced on a steady basis...progress, however confusing at times, is made.
Additionally, it is about as family-friendly as television fare gets these days so I can allow my twelve-year-old daughter to watch it with me. That's a nice bonus because it's the rare media event where my daughter can be entertained and I'm not bored out of my mind.
In short, for me, it's worth tuning in every week.
