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"Once Upon A Time was surely one of the most buzz-worthy new shows this season, and it certainly had an intriguing premise - who doesn&amp;#039;t love fairytales, especially twists on fairytales? But with an ambitious concept, would Once Upon A Time manage to pull it off? The answer, on the basis of this first episode, seems to be - mostly. For one thing, you have to go with the show, and accept the ridiculousness it offers. If you can do that, you might just have some fun. If not, you&amp;#039;ll be rolling your eyes the whole way through. The pilot episode begins with that most old-fashioned of techniques - on-screen text. We learn that all the classic characters we know (or think we know) lived in an enchanted forest. But they found themselves trapped in a place where their happy endings were stolen - our world (seriously, is life in our world really that bad?!) Anyway, we&amp;#039;re about to find out how it happened... Then we head straight into the fairy world - a land of forest, mountains, and a mixture of snow and sunlight. If there&amp;#039;s one thing Once Upon A Time does well, it&amp;#039;s these landscapes. Sure, it&amp;#039;s CGI, but it&amp;#039;s stunning. We&amp;#039;re into recognisable fairytales straight away, too - we meet the seven dwarves, and Prince Charming wakes up Snow White with a kiss. We&amp;#039;re whisked straight to their wedding - again, the world looks absolutely stunning, but slightly fake, like a computer game. This isn&amp;#039;t necessarily a bad thing - the fairytale world is supposed to be removed from reality, and the look of the thing can help this. Anyway, the wedding is interrupted by the EVIL QUEEN.  Lana Parrilla is clearly having a lot of fun camping it up - seriously, she couldn&amp;#039;t be any more over the top. Snow White is a bit rude, calling her an &amp;quot;evil witch&amp;quot;, while Prince Charming does his best hard man thing, telling her not to stoop to the Queen&amp;#039;s level. But the Queen&amp;#039;s not here to wish the happy couple well, naturally.  In fact, she&amp;#039;s going to take everything they love and out of their suffering will rise her victory. She&amp;#039;s going to destroy their happiness if it is the last thing she does! With no moustache to twirl, the Queen settles for whooshing her cape around - and when Prince Charming throws his sword at her, she vanishes in black smoke. So hammy, but if you&amp;#039;re willing to take it as it is, kind of fun. But we scoot back to the real world, where a little kid is reading a fairytale book on a bus to Boston (it&amp;#039;s weird seeing Mad Men&amp;#039;s Jared Gilmore in present day clothes, right?) He&amp;#039;s got a credit card and he&amp;#039;s taking a taxi, but where to...? Meanwhile, we eventually meet Emma Swan (lead Jennifer Morrison - it took a while for her to appear on screen). She&amp;#039;s in a restaurant, pretending to be on an online date - actually, she&amp;#039;s set him up because he&amp;#039;s a fraudster. Morrison was great fun in this - properly badass, particularly when she bashes the guy&amp;#039;s head against the steering wheel. You can tell Emma doesn&amp;#039;t stand for no nonsense. But, of course, Emma isn&amp;#039;t all tough - she has no family or friends, apparently, and celebrates her birthday at home by blowing a candle on a cupcake. But there&amp;#039;s the doorbell - it&amp;#039;s that kid! Who is he? &amp;quot;My name&amp;#039;s Henry,&amp;quot; he says. &amp;quot;I&amp;#039;m your son.&amp;quot; Yikes! Yep, she gave a kid up for adoption ten years ago - Henry.  All Henry wants is for Emma to go home with him - to Storybrooke, Maine (I&amp;#039;m so glad Emma questioned the town&amp;#039;s name with an arch, raised eyebrow). Emma thinks of calling the cops (she says she has a superpower and can tell when people are lying), but Henry points out that he could say she kidnapped him. Smart kid. So Emma agrees to take him home. We swoop back to the magic of the fairytale world, where Snow White&amp;#039;s pregnant (not so pure anymore...) - and fretting about the Evil Queen&amp;#039;s curse. She wants to talk to &amp;quot;him&amp;quot; - whoever he is can see the future. Prince Charming isn&amp;#039;t too keen, but agrees for the sake of their unborn baby. They head down to a cellar to see Rumpelstiltskin - they&amp;#039;re warned not to step into the light and to keep their names a secret, but Rumpelstiltskin knows who they are straight away. In fact, Rumpelstiltskin is played really well by Robert Carlyle, he&amp;#039;s all creepy and horrid. He&amp;#039;s kept in a jail - why isn&amp;#039;t clear, but you don&amp;#039;t question it, because he&amp;#039;s all yukky. Anyway, he agrees to tell them about the Queen&amp;#039;s curse if they tell him the name of their unborn child. DEAL.   He explains that soon they will be trapped in a horrible place where everything they love is ripped from them - no more happy endings. Still, Snow White&amp;#039;s baby will return on her 28th birthday to save them all (or, at least, start the final battle!) He laughs maniacally and they leave, as Snow White agrees to tell him the baby&amp;#039;s name - Emma. DUM DUM DUM. Back in the real world, Henry tells Emma that his book of fairytales are all real - every story happened. Emma realises that he&amp;#039;s not lying, but just because he believes something doesn&amp;#039;t make it true, right? But Henry says Emma should know better - she&amp;#039;s in the book! They soon arrive in Storybrooke - where the clock has said 8.15 forever - but Henry refuses to tell her where he lives. He explains that the fairytale characters are trapped in Storybrooke and can&amp;#039;t leave - if they try, &amp;quot;bad things happen&amp;quot;. Emma is unsurprisingly unconvinced, and when Henry&amp;#039;s psychiatrist Archie shows up, it doesn&amp;#039;t exactly make her more inclined to believe him. Archie&amp;#039;s creepy too - telling Henry that &amp;quot;giving into one&amp;#039;s dark side never accomplishes anything&amp;quot;. But Emma&amp;#039;s more concerned with getting him home - turns out he&amp;#039;s the mayor&amp;#039;s kid. Oh, and Archie? He&amp;#039;s really Jiminy Cricket. Yeah... Henry doesn&amp;#039;t want to go back - his mom is &amp;quot;evil&amp;quot; and only pretends to love him. Wait, here&amp;#039;s his mother Regina - it&amp;#039;s only the Evil Queen! And she offers Emma apple cider. Yikes. Anyway, Regina has no idea how Henry tracked down Emma - she thought Emma didn&amp;#039;t want any contact (Emma confirms this is the case).  It&amp;#039;s not long before Regina - the Mayor - is defending her parenting skills, but she&amp;#039;s never heard of the fairytale book when Emma mentions it. It&amp;#039;s time for Emma to make a swift exit, though, but as she drives along she spots that Henry has left the book in her car (loved her: &amp;quot;Sneaky b**tard&amp;quot;). Unfortunately, when she looks back to the road there&amp;#039;s a wolf there - she ends up crashing her car into the Storybrooke sign. Nice.  The book&amp;#039;s pages flutter and one of the pictures begins to come to life - a device used a couple of times in the episode, and though it&amp;#039;s clich\u00E9d, it also works quite well. We&amp;#039;re back in the fairy world, where Prince Charming wants to fight the Evil Queen, but Snow White is feeling rather defeatist. Perk up, girl! Well, a fairy has a plan. There&amp;#039;s an enchanted tree which, if transformed into a vessel, will ward off any curse. Who better to take on the task than Geppetto? The only problem? It can only save one person... Naturally, Snow White&amp;#039;s picked to be saved - but when she kisses Prince Charming, she goes into labour. Uh oh! And, of course, the Evil Queen chooses this moment to strike - dragons and greeny dark storm clouds roll towards the castle... In a nice touch, dwarf Doc attends the birth.  Eventually, Emma makes her way into the world but the couple soon realise the wardrobe can just hold one of them - they decide to save Emma. She&amp;#039;s their saviour, after all. So Prince Charming grabs his sword and his daughter, and fences his way to her safety. The sword fights are pretty unconvincing, but generally fun. He gets Emma into the cupboard but is stabbed by an evil knight just afterwards. Still, when the evil knight opens the wardrobe, Emma&amp;#039;s gone. SUCCESS. Snow White soon finds her Prince dead, though, and not even a kiss can bring him back to life. Soon, the Evil Queen swirls in with her maleficent wind and darkness and announces that it&amp;#039;s her turn for a happy ending (though Snow White is defiant as Emma got away). But the Queen rips the ceiling from the room and announces they&amp;#039;re going &amp;quot;somewhere horrible&amp;quot;. Completely silly and melodramatic, but hey. It&amp;#039;s a fairytale. Back in the real world, Emma wakes up - in jail. Gepetto appears to be the jailor, weirdly. The sheriff turns up and Emma insists she wasn&amp;#039;t drunk, there was a wolf - honestly officer! Still, they let her out when Regina turns up, explaining that Henry&amp;#039;s gone missing again. Emma explains that she finds people for a job and she can track him down. Sure enough, she soon finds out that he used a credit card belonging to Mary Margaret Blanchard - his teacher. Yep, Mary is Snow White (nice use of &amp;quot;Blanchard&amp;quot;, from the French for white), and it couldn&amp;#039;t be more obvious - she&amp;#039;s holding bluebirds and sending them flying. Seriously. Anyway, Mary had no idea that Henry had taken her credit card, though she takes the blame as she gave Henry the fairytales (she explains to Emma that &amp;quot;even the possibility of a happy ending is a very powerful thing&amp;quot;, and Henry needs a bit of hope in his life). It&amp;#039;s all a bit awkward when she explains he&amp;#039;s had a tough time coming to terms with being adopted, yikes. When Regina has gone, Emma realises that Mary knows where he is - turns out he&amp;#039;s in his castle. It seems that Henry has a wooden fort on the beach. Emma goes to find him and is fed up with all his fairytale nonsense, but Henry says she likes him really - she just feels guilty about giving him away, but he forgives her. After all, Snow White did it to her. Anyway, all he wants is for Emma to stay around for one week - she&amp;#039;ll see he&amp;#039;s not crazy. And then we get the episode&amp;#039;s one genuinely emotional moment, when Henry moans that his life &amp;quot;sucks&amp;quot; and Emma tearfully reveals the truth about her life - she was abandoned on a freeway, and her foster family sent her back when they had their own kids. At least Henry&amp;#039;s mom is trying, right? Morrison dealt with this well, and it was the sparsest, most affecting moment of the episode. Not sure we&amp;#039;ll get more of that, but I hope so. Anyway, Henry insists that Emma wasn&amp;#039;t left at the side of the freeway - that&amp;#039;s just where she ended up after transporting through the wardrobe. But Emma takes him home and admits to Regina that she was expecting to spend her birthday alone before Henry turned up.  But Regina shows her horrible side - without letting Emma defend herself, she growls that she is Henry&amp;#039;s mother, not Emma, and Emma gave up all her rights ten years ago. In fact, if Emma doesn&amp;#039;t leave town, she will &amp;quot;destroy&amp;quot; her. Eek. Emma has one last question - does Regina love Henry? Regina says she does, but Emma seems to think she&amp;#039;s lying. Inside, Regina takes Henry&amp;#039;s fairytale book and then goes to look in a mirror... Who&amp;#039;s the fairest of them all?  As the episode comes to a close, we see Mary in hospital volunteering - oh look, it&amp;#039;s Prince Charming in a coma! Meanwhile, Emma apparently decides to stay in Storybrooke for a week after all and goes to stay at the local bed and breakfast, &amp;#039;Granny&amp;#039;s&amp;#039;. Inside, we get a goth, angsty, promiscuous version of Red Riding Hood. Brilliant. Anyway, Emma makes her booking and says her name - as Rumpelstiltskin turns up and says it&amp;#039;s a lovely name. Of course, he&amp;#039;s not Rumpelstiltskin here - he&amp;#039;s Mr Gold, and he owns the town (he takes money from Granny, for one thing). After he leaves, Emma insists she&amp;#039;ll just be here a week and takes a key. As she does, Henry stares out of the window at the clock - which finally moves. And you&amp;#039;d have to be made of stone not to smile, just a little. So that was the Once Upon A Time premiere. The fairytale world was wonderfully over the top, but oddly I kind of preferred the real world storylines - mainly because Jennifer Morrison is so good. It&amp;#039;ll be interesting to see the balance in the future - I&amp;#039;m not sure how we can see the fairytale world again, since the Evil Queen&amp;#039;s sent everyone to our world, but I&amp;#039;m sure it&amp;#039;ll be figured out somehow.  Once Upon A Time looks like it will be a love-it-or-hate-it kind of thing - either you&amp;#039;re willing to let it play around, or you&amp;#039;ll find it grating and nonsensical. At the moment, I&amp;#039;m leaning towards the former - what about you? What did you think of the season premiere? Leave your comments below! "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.digitalspy.com/tv/once-upon-a-time/review/a347185/once-upon-a-time-once-upon-a-time-recap/>