Once Upon a Time season 7 premiere: Will you keep watching series reboot?
However, over time we will also admit that Once Upon a Time struggled to keep the momentum going. Some storylines (see the first half of season 5) became too confusing for their own good, whereas some relationships started to become redundant. We had also seen a significant regression when it came to one of the show’s coolest traits: Finding a way to “remix” popular fairy-tale character. Their versions of Aladdin and Maleficent became almost marketing opportunities for Disney movies, and that’s without even mentioning the Frozen arc that happened and was never mentioned again.
Do we miss Jennifer Morrison, Ginnifer Goodwin, Josh Dallas, and others coming out of the show’s premiere episode Friday night? Sure, but we do also admit that this reinvention of the show may have been what it needed — with so many characters on the original iteration of the show having happy endings, it was hard to keep those going in a way that was interesting. Aging up Henry and inserting a new setting in Hyperion Heights allows the show to remain somewhat new and to keep some of its creativity.
The irony here? Some of this said creativity is used in making the show almost a regurgitation of the original pilot episode. You had an adult being visited by their supposed child, who came with a ton of information about curses and their secret past. The big difference here was that the adult is Henry Mills, who ironically was the child the first time. He doesn’t have any information about what’s happening to him because of a new “curse,” and his daughter Lucy (armed with a storybook) is able to save the day. Henry is a different person than Emma Swan, but beyond that the premiere contained many of the same notes as Henry started to meet some other characters before eventually realizing that there may be some truth to Lucy’s statements.
It was fun getting to see Lana Parrilla and Colin O’Donoghue around in new roles as bartender Roni and Officer Rogers, especially since neither was cursed in the first season of the show. (Captain Hook technically didn’t debut until season 2.) Meanwhile, Rumpelstiltskin still remains creepy and mysterious, though beyond his torture techniques and becoming Rogers’ partner he didn’t get a whole lot of screen time.
Some of the standouts to the show include Gabrielle Anwar as Lady Tremaine, the wicked stepmother of Cinderella (Dania Ramirez) who is very much interested in taking over Hyperion Heights completely. Meanwhile, Ramirez was instantly likable as the show’s new version of Cinderella, who is Lucy’s mother and also Henry’s true love.
Overall, the Once Upon a Time season 7 premiere did enough to make us harken back to the original version of the show and what we enjoyed about it — we at CarterMatt also love that the new characters weren’t straight-up Disney imitations either. While the show almost copy-and-pasted the entire pilot episode to make it work, there was magic in that first pilot. Even just a percentage of that magic here still makes it worth checking out again.
Are you going to keep watching after the Once Upon a Time season 7 premiere?
Share in the comments below! Meanwhile, you can also preview the next episode here or like us on Facebook to get more updates on Once Upon a Time and other shows we cover. (Photo: ABC.)