ABC
With the spring premiere of Once Upon a Time, the ABC fairytale series has turned a page in its storybook and wound up in Oz. The show has been known to pull characters not only from fairytales — both the traditional versions and the Disney incarnations—but fantasy and sci-fi literature as well — Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, Peter Pan and Frankenstein. Now, Once Upon a Time has introduced characters from The Wizard of Oz, but will it help a show that seems to be bogged down in fairytale lore?
While the first half the Once Upon a Time’s third season took place in Neverland — with some brief ventures back to Storybrooke or the Enchanted Forest — the main characters have now returned to the original setting of the show, and they’re under another curse. This time, however, a new resident of Storybrooke has appeared: the Wicked Witch of the West (Rebecca Mader) — she’s also featured in the flashbacks each episode.
The setup of the show’s spring season is a similar setup to that in the premiere season (their most successful so far in terms of plot). Because of this, the show has returned to what made fans fall in love with it originally. Though the direction is slightly different — because now wicked witches and winged monkeys are running (or flying?) rampant — it’s similar enough that fans will find it compelling.
Additionally, in the first half of season three, the show was severely limited in terms of characters. There was the main gang of good guys (joined by the Evil Queen and Rumplestiltskin) along with Peter Pan and his troupe of Lost Boys, but that was it. Now that the series has returned to Storybrooke, the show can once again work on developing more minor characters as well as the new characters they’ve added like the Wicked Witch and Robin Hood (Sean Maguire).
So will the Wicked vs. Evil battle revitalize Once Upon A Time? Definitely. We can’t wait to see the two witches fight for control of Storybrooke.
