Once Upon a Time
So my wife and I have been watching Once Upon a Time, a new ABC show. I pretty much never watch anything on the networks (if you're following a show on a basic cable network, and you miss an episode, it'll be back repeatedly over the next week; with the networks, you have to actually remember to watch), but I have to admit I'm getting pretty caught up in this.
The premise, if you're not familiar with the show, is that the Evil Queen of fairy-tale-land (I'm not sure if it actually has a name) cast a curse which wiped away everyone's happily-ever-afters by transforming the land into the worst possible world, i.e., ours. Which, when you put it that way, kind of makes the show into a really depressing commentary-the whole premise, really, is kind of that things like true love and happy endings can't exist in our world. But, well, anyway, Snow White is now schoolteacher Mary Blanchard; Jiminy Cricket is a therapist; and the queen herself is the monarch-like mayor, Regina Mills. (You can see they had fun with the names; Cinderella becomes Ashley.) There are lots of nice little touches-in the first episode, as they're leaving the classroom, one of Blanchard's students hands her...a pear.
But there is one point on which the show failed me rather badly in this past episode. The danger of unthinkingly casting fairy-tale-land is that you run the risk of your cast being, well, snow-white. Which this cast is, other than the Magic Mirror/editor of the Daily Mirror, Giancarlo Esposito. (Excellent bit of casting, but then, casting Esposito in pretty much anything is excellent casting.) In the most recent episode, in the first minute of the episode we meet Cinderella and, naturally, her Fairy Godmother. When the godmother showed up, I genuinely thought, "Wow, hey, it's an actual non-white character!" (And I'm not someone who usually thinks about these things.)
Which was great and all, but it would have been better if she had more than 45 seconds of screen time before being killed off.
I'm certainly going to keep watching; I mostly like what they're doing with the show so far. But seriously, a plea to the creative force behind the show (i.e., the guys from Lost who aren't J.J. Abrams, and Buffy's Jane Espenson): think about what you're doing, OK?
(Also, personal note to Jane: I had no idea you went to graduate school in linguistics! Call me! I've got a screenplay I've been working on....)
This entry was originally posted at http://tahnan.dreamwidth.org/214314.html. Please comment there using OpenID.
The premise, if you're not familiar with the show, is that the Evil Queen of fairy-tale-land (I'm not sure if it actually has a name) cast a curse which wiped away everyone's happily-ever-afters by transforming the land into the worst possible world, i.e., ours. Which, when you put it that way, kind of makes the show into a really depressing commentary-the whole premise, really, is kind of that things like true love and happy endings can't exist in our world. But, well, anyway, Snow White is now schoolteacher Mary Blanchard; Jiminy Cricket is a therapist; and the queen herself is the monarch-like mayor, Regina Mills. (You can see they had fun with the names; Cinderella becomes Ashley.) There are lots of nice little touches-in the first episode, as they're leaving the classroom, one of Blanchard's students hands her...a pear.
But there is one point on which the show failed me rather badly in this past episode. The danger of unthinkingly casting fairy-tale-land is that you run the risk of your cast being, well, snow-white. Which this cast is, other than the Magic Mirror/editor of the Daily Mirror, Giancarlo Esposito. (Excellent bit of casting, but then, casting Esposito in pretty much anything is excellent casting.) In the most recent episode, in the first minute of the episode we meet Cinderella and, naturally, her Fairy Godmother. When the godmother showed up, I genuinely thought, "Wow, hey, it's an actual non-white character!" (And I'm not someone who usually thinks about these things.)
Which was great and all, but it would have been better if she had more than 45 seconds of screen time before being killed off.
I'm certainly going to keep watching; I mostly like what they're doing with the show so far. But seriously, a plea to the creative force behind the show (i.e., the guys from Lost who aren't J.J. Abrams, and Buffy's Jane Espenson): think about what you're doing, OK?
(Also, personal note to Jane: I had no idea you went to graduate school in linguistics! Call me! I've got a screenplay I've been working on....)
This entry was originally posted at http://tahnan.dreamwidth.org/214314.html. Please comment there using OpenID.