Published on November 11th, 2011 | by Benjamin Matern
0ONCE UPON A TIME – SNOW FALLS (S01E03)
By Benjamin Matern
Maybe it wasn’t my smartest move to watch this episode after an eight-hour-flight, suffering from jet lag and being awake for nearly 30 hours in the hope that it keeps me awake. I had to rewind several scenes because I was dozing off. Interestingly enough, I didn’t have that problem with the “Ringer” episode I watched afterwards. “Ringer”, for crying out loud!
As much as I lo
ve fairy tales and want th
is show to work and after seeing a slight improvement in Episode 2, this was in my eyes a total letdown. The complete shift from protagonist Emma to Snow White’s and Prince Charming’s true love only warmed over all fairy tales romance clichés combined, and while I found the costumes in the first two episodes absolutely stunning, we come across some Trolls costumes in “Snow Falls” that must have been stolen from the set of “Trolls 2”, bad as they are.
I’m probably just too tired, but there were several other elements that annoyed me. I didn’t mind seeing Snow White as some Robin-Hood-like girl who’s on the run because she did God-knows-what to the Evil Queen (will we ever find out?), but from the very first encounter with Prince Charming, the love story is too linear and predictable, though not badly acted, and the similar events in “our” world not surprising either. It’s interesting how romantic Snow is in the real world compared to her true self in the Enchanted Forest, but she falls for John Doe too fast – then again, I guess it’s a tale. It’s all about this kind of love and I am so grateful for Henry who constantly reminds all characters who they really are and what they should do (seriously: this boy needs to shush).
So now we know how Charming and Snow fell in love, but that didn’t advance the story, and of course last week we learned more about the Evil Queen and her frustration – but since the true background of her hatred is not revealed, there’s no empathy, and the “happy ending” she had hoped from the curse didn’t really seem to come true for her. I wonder if they will continue with these flashbacks that in my opinion have the sole purpose of keeping some sort of “magical” atmosphere. I’d wish they focused on Storybrooke and what became of the different characters, but maybe too many of the audience want to see nice costumes and luscious hair – if that’s the case, please never ever reuse those Troll costumes.
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