ONCE UPON A TIME: Sophomore Effort

In the second episode of the series Once Upon a Time, “This Town Ain’t Big Enough” we meet Malificent, played by Kristin Bauer, who we learn is a friend of the Evil Queen.

Malificent is a Disney creation from the movie Sleeping Beauty (1959), and in addition to being one of the greatest screen villains of all time, she’s dead by the end of the movie.

Her appearance in he show confirms for me that this show is not a direct sequel to the Disney fairy tales, but a freer adaptation.

Malificent’s scene was excellent, but of more interest to me was the assembly of “those with the darkest souls” we see getting together to cast the terrible curse that serves the main narrative of the show.

Starting at the Evil Queen at the six o’clock position in front of the fire, and moving clockwise, we have a gallery of interesting villains, almost all of whom are unidentified.

First up is Henry, who we are lead to believe is the Evil Queen’s manservant, until we learn the terrible truth about him in this episode. (I won’t spoil that here.) Behind Henry is one of the Evil Queen’s guards. I’m convinced that at this point there are only two uniforms made for the Queen’s guards, because we’ve never seen more that two in any scene. The second guard is to the Evil Queen’s right.

Next to Henry is a woman we can’t make out too many details of. She appears to be black, and she’s holding something. She has feathers or a crown. This is the best shot I could find of her. Even tougher to make out is the armored figure to the mystery woman’s left.

who is transformed to stone for laughing at that the Evil Queen.

Then there’s the Ogre. Ogre’s are staples of fairy tales. I’d like to think this particular ogre had his ass kicked by the biggest Billy Goat Gruff back in the day.

The gnome and the ogre required special effects to make them small and tall, so they are at one end of the set. Actors present on set are at the other end. There is a space between the ogre and the blind witch. My guess is that this space is usually reserved for Malificent or Rumplestiltskin, but I’m probably reading too much into it.

The Blind Witch, played by Patti Allen.

There’s something tragic about her, but when she too easily pulls her knife to sacrifice a lock of hair, her creepiness outweighs and compassion you might feel for her.

She’s the only one present besides the Evil Queen to speak at this assembly, and her only line is “And we’ll be happy?” This character comes off more like a cenobite from Hellraiser than a charter from a fairy tale. My guess? She’s on of Cinderella’s wicked stepsisters, though she’s identified in the credits as “Blind Witch.” In the original story,Cinderella’s stepsisters had their eyes plucked out by birds. The lack of eyes makes one think of the fates, but that’s more mythological than fairy tale.

The last person at this meeting is some sort of axe wielding warrior.

This character looks like he wandered in from Lord of the Rings. He’s just a bit too generic to be easily identified as any particular character. He might be the Evil Queen’s Huntsman, the one who didn’t have the heart to kill Cinderella, but this plays against his having one of the realms “darkest souls.”

In the final analysis, I was disappointed that these sparsely drawn characters did not have greater textual depth. I wish the creators of this series would put as much thought into such peripheral appearances as they do in filling the show with allusions to the series Lost.

Still, two episodes in, I’m sticking with the show. I find the performances engaging, and the overall plot quite interesting. I would just like to remind the creators of this show that the themes and sources that they are tapping into are deep and awesome, and they lose a lot by not plumbing those depths.