(no subject)
Oct. 12th, 2013 01:48 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shadowkatAm rather impressed by Once Upon a Time: Wonderland by far the best pilot I've seen this season. A kickass heroine, an imaginative setting, and some rather complex and interesting supporting characters. (Granted it hasn't had a lot of competition in that department, the only other half-way compelling pilots that I've seen to date were Sleepy Hollow and The Back List.)
The plot is fairly simple, Alice journeys back from Wonderland, her father refuses to believe where she's gone. So she goes back and kidnaps the white rabbit in order to provide him with "proof". On the way home with the White Rabbit, she must escape through a maze from the Queen's Guard. To aid in her escape she eats a bit of the mushroom that makes her smaller. And hides in a bottle - which just happens to belong to the genie, Cyrus. Alice frees Cyrus and apparently the White Rabbit, and they have many and varied adventures until the Red Queen finds them and pushes Cyrus into the boiling sea. Believing Cyrus is dead, Alice is inconsolable and returns to her world. Her father - at his wits end - puts her in an asylum. It should be noted that the time period is Victorian Age or the 19th Century. So she's in a Victorian asylum in England, and wearing sort of steam-punk Victorian garb. The design has a sort of pseudo steam-punk Victorian feel to it.
When we see her again - her doctors are convincing her to have a lobotomy. Meanwhile that pesky White Rabbit (voiced quite effectively by John Lithgow) finds the Knave of Hearts (portrayed by the actor from Being Human) in Storybrook and convinces him to help Alice.
The Knave breaks into the asylum just after Alice agreed to the sinister Doctor's operation.
It's not until he convinces Alice that her one true love Cyrus is still alive, that she breaks out of the asylum and saves him. Note Alice breaks herself out of the asylum, she doesn't sit mildly by and wait for him to do it. On the way out they meet up again with the White Rabbit - and the sinister Doctor (who basically resembles Igor out of Frankestein or maybe that bald cousin of the Addams family) - the Doctor tries to convince Alice she'd be better off having the operation until well he freaks out upon seeing the white rabbit.
Off to Wonderland they go. And fall smack dab in the Marshmellow Swamp. Or Mellow Swamp.
Which is literally marshmellow. I find that rather innovative. It also gave me an absurd craving for marshmellows. At any rate, Alice figures out how to get out of the marshmellow quick sand and they search out the Mad Hatter's residence - where the doormouse apparently told the white rabbit that Cyrus was last seen. Along the way, the Knave discusses how he'd rather be anywhere but here. Alice convinces him to help her in return for three wishes which she has in her possession. She explains that she hasn't used the wishes, because they come with strings attached and tend to be rather unpredictable. Cyrus could quite literally be brought back to life with a noose around his neck. (What do you know a smart and kickass heroine). The Knave figures he can plot around that so agrees. And when Alice climbs a tree to find the Hatter's house, the Knave takes off with her three wishes. The Cheshire Cat, who has changed since she was last in Wonderland, appears to be working with the Red Queen, whose agenda has yet to be revealed. The white rabbit is also working for the Queen, but as a spy. (All of this fits the story rather well - the white rabbit was not the most trustworthy or honorable of characters, the Red Queen was hunting Alice, and one was never quite sure what to make of the Knave of Hearts.) At any rate, they find the Mad Hatter's House only to discover Cyrus is not there but Alice finds his magical necklace so all is not lost.
During this we discover two things where Cyrus is being held, turns out that the rabbit was right about one thing - Cyrus is not dead, and what the queen is after not to mention who she is working with. Similar set-up to Once Upon A Time - in that we have two villains, One female - Red Queen, and the other male, Jafar (portrayed by Naveen Andrews of Lost fame), the wizard from Aladdin.
The casting is quite good here - as it was in Once Upon a Time. And Sophie Lowe who plays Alice is a find, she's charismatic and spunky. She gets across vulnerability and wicked intelligence at once. Reminds me a little of Abbie in Sleepy Hollow. The guy who plays Cyrus is attractive, but it is soon to tell how good he is.
This series is a bit of a mash-up of Aladdin and Alice in Wonderland. Yet Alice is more based on Lewis Carrol, and Aladdin on well Disney's Aladdin or so it appears at first glance.
And like it's parent series - OUAT, it provides clever and at times surprising twists on established fairy tales and tropes. Plus the plot is fast moving, with questions being answered quickly. Also it's highly character driven. While the main goal is finding Cyrus (aka the protagonists true love), which as jaded television viewers know as the proverbial carrot which can't be reached until the series ends, the good news is that these writers don't play that game any longer. OUAT Wonderland only has 13 episodes - it's a closed arc miniseries that is slated to wrap itself up by mid-season. (Or so I've read, I hope they stick to that). And as evidenced in the parent series, these writers learned from the mistakes they made with LOST and tend to wrap up story threads quickly, all the while setting up new story threads in the process. As a result you get cliffhangers weekly and climaxes more frequently. Not a lot of boring filler episodes. All of which bodes well for this little series.
Will definitely keep watching.
Pilot? A
The plot is fairly simple, Alice journeys back from Wonderland, her father refuses to believe where she's gone. So she goes back and kidnaps the white rabbit in order to provide him with "proof". On the way home with the White Rabbit, she must escape through a maze from the Queen's Guard. To aid in her escape she eats a bit of the mushroom that makes her smaller. And hides in a bottle - which just happens to belong to the genie, Cyrus. Alice frees Cyrus and apparently the White Rabbit, and they have many and varied adventures until the Red Queen finds them and pushes Cyrus into the boiling sea. Believing Cyrus is dead, Alice is inconsolable and returns to her world. Her father - at his wits end - puts her in an asylum. It should be noted that the time period is Victorian Age or the 19th Century. So she's in a Victorian asylum in England, and wearing sort of steam-punk Victorian garb. The design has a sort of pseudo steam-punk Victorian feel to it.
When we see her again - her doctors are convincing her to have a lobotomy. Meanwhile that pesky White Rabbit (voiced quite effectively by John Lithgow) finds the Knave of Hearts (portrayed by the actor from Being Human) in Storybrook and convinces him to help Alice.
The Knave breaks into the asylum just after Alice agreed to the sinister Doctor's operation.
It's not until he convinces Alice that her one true love Cyrus is still alive, that she breaks out of the asylum and saves him. Note Alice breaks herself out of the asylum, she doesn't sit mildly by and wait for him to do it. On the way out they meet up again with the White Rabbit - and the sinister Doctor (who basically resembles Igor out of Frankestein or maybe that bald cousin of the Addams family) - the Doctor tries to convince Alice she'd be better off having the operation until well he freaks out upon seeing the white rabbit.
Off to Wonderland they go. And fall smack dab in the Marshmellow Swamp. Or Mellow Swamp.
Which is literally marshmellow. I find that rather innovative. It also gave me an absurd craving for marshmellows. At any rate, Alice figures out how to get out of the marshmellow quick sand and they search out the Mad Hatter's residence - where the doormouse apparently told the white rabbit that Cyrus was last seen. Along the way, the Knave discusses how he'd rather be anywhere but here. Alice convinces him to help her in return for three wishes which she has in her possession. She explains that she hasn't used the wishes, because they come with strings attached and tend to be rather unpredictable. Cyrus could quite literally be brought back to life with a noose around his neck. (What do you know a smart and kickass heroine). The Knave figures he can plot around that so agrees. And when Alice climbs a tree to find the Hatter's house, the Knave takes off with her three wishes. The Cheshire Cat, who has changed since she was last in Wonderland, appears to be working with the Red Queen, whose agenda has yet to be revealed. The white rabbit is also working for the Queen, but as a spy. (All of this fits the story rather well - the white rabbit was not the most trustworthy or honorable of characters, the Red Queen was hunting Alice, and one was never quite sure what to make of the Knave of Hearts.) At any rate, they find the Mad Hatter's House only to discover Cyrus is not there but Alice finds his magical necklace so all is not lost.
During this we discover two things where Cyrus is being held, turns out that the rabbit was right about one thing - Cyrus is not dead, and what the queen is after not to mention who she is working with. Similar set-up to Once Upon A Time - in that we have two villains, One female - Red Queen, and the other male, Jafar (portrayed by Naveen Andrews of Lost fame), the wizard from Aladdin.
The casting is quite good here - as it was in Once Upon a Time. And Sophie Lowe who plays Alice is a find, she's charismatic and spunky. She gets across vulnerability and wicked intelligence at once. Reminds me a little of Abbie in Sleepy Hollow. The guy who plays Cyrus is attractive, but it is soon to tell how good he is.
This series is a bit of a mash-up of Aladdin and Alice in Wonderland. Yet Alice is more based on Lewis Carrol, and Aladdin on well Disney's Aladdin or so it appears at first glance.
And like it's parent series - OUAT, it provides clever and at times surprising twists on established fairy tales and tropes. Plus the plot is fast moving, with questions being answered quickly. Also it's highly character driven. While the main goal is finding Cyrus (aka the protagonists true love), which as jaded television viewers know as the proverbial carrot which can't be reached until the series ends, the good news is that these writers don't play that game any longer. OUAT Wonderland only has 13 episodes - it's a closed arc miniseries that is slated to wrap itself up by mid-season. (Or so I've read, I hope they stick to that). And as evidenced in the parent series, these writers learned from the mistakes they made with LOST and tend to wrap up story threads quickly, all the while setting up new story threads in the process. As a result you get cliffhangers weekly and climaxes more frequently. Not a lot of boring filler episodes. All of which bodes well for this little series.
Will definitely keep watching.
Pilot? A
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2013-10-12 06:30 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-10-12 10:45 pm (UTC)Personally I think the OUAT universe is a perfect platform for launching these self-contained tales. You can also ...after the series concludes, allow the characters to pop up on the original series in cameos.
I love OUAT...most innovative thing I've seen on TV in years.
no subject
Date: 2013-10-12 11:57 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-10-13 07:30 pm (UTC)I thought SMASH was going to be that way, but damn, they screwed it up. And Glee..sigh, it started out okay but sort of went off-kilter.
Pushing Daisies came fairly close to hitting the mark...it was just so much fun, and light yet dark at the same time, plus musical numbers.
no subject
Date: 2013-10-13 11:28 pm (UTC)Buffy - it's funny. I always loved it, as you know, but I also never quite felt it was written FOR me, except ironically in S4, when it seems most people had trouble relating to it. I was Buffy and her friends' exact age and was going through a hard time adjusting to college at the same time that they were, and I really felt like it was speaking directly to me at that moment. My HS experience, otoh, was very different than theirs, so while I always enjoyed the story, I never felt that Sunnydale HS hell mirrored the exact HS hell I was going through. And so it was really only 1 year that I felt connected to the show on every level, as opposed to very much enjoying it and loving to dig into its deeper levels.
SMASH - such a disappointment, although the original musical numbers rarely let me down. Honestly, if they started doing musical numbers on ONCE, it would be my favorite show of all time. ;)
no subject
Date: 2013-10-14 01:49 am (UTC)I always loved it, as you know, but I also never quite felt it was written FOR me, except ironically in S4, when it seems most people had trouble relating to it.
For me it was Seasons 5 and 6. Post college, when she was struggling with jobs, illness, and depression. Particularly S6. Season 6 felt written for me - in a metaphorical sense that was difficult to explain, although I tried through an insane number of essays.
Although I did identify quite a bit with various episodes in S4. And Buffy's inability to drive - endeared me to the character forever. LOL!
The first three seasons I didn't relate to at all. It didn't mirror my HS Hell either.
Agree on SMASH - the musical numbers were great. (I'm actually having similar issues with Glee - great musical numbers, but gah.) I'm not sure the rest of the audience could handle musical numbers on ONCE, but I'd certainly adore them. (A lot of people, I've noticed, don't like musicals. Never understood this.)