"Once Upon a Time" on ABC HD

Just read the review of Grimm in the latest Entertainment Weekly. Doesn't sound very good. They have very positive impressions of this show though as long as you can get passed the silly premise. I have it set to record tonight. Looking forward to it.

The pilot has been on IMDb.com for a couple of days now I watched it and thought "I cant believe that I am hooked on a show about fairy tales."

EW gave Grimm a B- and Once Upon a Time a C. Apparently if these shows are good, it's not evident in their pilots.

It was an interesting show. Nothing like it on tv today. I will give it a few episodes to see where the storylines go. I expect a lot from it since the writers from Lost are involved.

Actually it was better than I expected. Drew me in, I'll be back for a few more episodes.

It was OK, but I don't see it making it. I don't believe there is a consistent audience for fantasy or scifi on a network tv scale.

Surprisingly, this show drew me in and has peaked my interest. They did a nice job laying down the mysteries but, how many season do they plan to take to finish the story? No matter how many they've outlined, I doubt it will make it because very few do. Therefore, I don't think I will continue to watch it right now. If it makes it, I'll catch up on the eventual home video release. Just been bitten to many times recently by shows that never make it to a resolution.

My interest was piqued, too, but because I can't get over being a naive sucker, I plan to stick with it. I thought Jennifer Morrison was wonderful in the very well written role of Emma Swan. I also liked young Jared Gilmore as the wise beyond his years Henry. Best of all, I saw that Giancarlo Esposito, of Breaking Bad fame, will be in future episodes as The Magic Mirror. I assume Esposito will also be a different, more or less real life, character in Storybrooke, ME.

I really like the "bail bondsperson," Emma Swan. She is tough and self reliant but also lonely, sad, and insecure. Emma's description to Henry of her own unhappy youth to explain why she had given him up for adoption moved me. I don't know how long the show can last, either, but I think it's off to an excellent start.

I forgot to set my DVR... are they rebroadcasting episode 1?

Overnight ratings are in, and they're good -- 12.8 million viewers and a 3.9 in the 18-49 demo!

Scanning several message boards this morning, and I'd say over 95 percent of the comments are positive, so perhaps Once Upon A Time has a chance to hold up well over the next few weeks and not follow the Pan Am trajectory (which started with 11.1 million viewers / 3.1 demo but leveled off in weeks 4 & 5 with 5.7 million viewers / 1.8 demo).

I enjoyed the premiere. It definitely had a Lost vibe to it, though perhaps more accessible because because of "known" characters and a less-complicated narrative.

That whole sending the baby through the tree thing reminded me of Jor-El and Lara sending baby Kal-El to Earth in a rocket ship.

I have to watch this again to nail down who some of the characters are. I was fuzzy on who that Mr. Gold was at the end.

I hope Once Upon a Time lasts, too. It is already Emmy material compared to Pan Am. Pan Am was so toweringly silly and all round awful, I deleted the pilot and cancelled my season pass before I had watched 20 minutes of it.

SeattleAl, Mr. Gold (in the real world) was Rumpelstiltskin (in the fairy tale).

During the first commercial break, I went to Wikipedia's page for Once Upon A Time and used it during the rest of the show to determine the real world-fairy tale connections just to be completely sure!!

I liked seeing fairy tale Grumpy turn into Leroy, the grumpy guy in the jail cell -- so perhaps in a future episode we'll see a medical clinic run by Doc!

Nielsen Overnights (18-49)
Strong debut for ABC's 'Once Upon A Time'
Averages a 3.9 in adults 18-49, best bow for any new drama
By Toni Fitzgerald, Media Life Magazine - October 24th, 2011

For the first time in years, ABC has a new No. 1 show on Sunday night.

The series premiere of the new fantasy drama "Once Upon a Time" became the first ABC program to outrate the network's longtime hit "Desperate Housewives" since "Grey's Anatomy" six years ago.

"Time" averaged a 3.9 adults 18-49 rating at 8 p.m., according to Nielsen overnights, 30 percent ahead of lead-out "Housewives," which averaged a 3.0 at 9 p.m.

"Time" was not only ABC's highest-rated show of the night but also the highest-rated non-sports show on television, on an evening where Fox preempted its usual animated lineup for coverage of game four of the World Series between the St. Louis Cardinals and Texas Rangers.

"Time" also became the highest-rated drama premiere this season, surpassing previous top draw "Revenge," which drew a 3.3 during premiere week. It was also the highest-rated show in that timeslot for ABC in nearly three years.

Meanwhile, it looks as though NBC may have suffered its first fall Sunday loss in years. The New Orleans Saints' 62-7 victory over the Indianapolis Colts, the worst thumping in "SNF" history, looks to have finished behind Fox's World Series coverage, according to early numbers.

Fox was first for the night among 18-49s with a 4.4 average overnight rating and an 11 share. NBC was second at 3.8/10, ABC third at 2.6/6, CBS fourth at 2.3/6, Univision fifth at 1.2/3 and Telemundo sixth at 0.4/1.

As a reminder, all ratings are based on live-plus-same-day DVR playback. Seven-day DVR data won't be available for several weeks. Forty-two percent of Nielsen households have DVRs.

Also, ratings for Fox's World Series and NBC's NFL football coverage are approximate as fast nationals measure timeslot and not actual program data.

At 7 p.m. Fox led with a 5.8 for NFL overrun and "The OT," followed by CBS with a 2.5 for "60 Minutes." NBC was third with a 2.0 for "Football Night in America," ABC fourth with a 1.5 for "America's Funniest Home Videos," Univision fifth with a 0.8 for "Rosa de Guadalupe" and Telemundo sixth with a 0.4 for "Pa'lante con Cristina."

NBC took the lead at 8 p.m. with a 4.4 for NFL pregame and the start of "Sunday Night Football," while Fox slipped to second with a 4.0 for baseball pregame and the beginning of the World Series game. ABC was third with a 3.9 for "Time," CBS fourth with a 2.7 for "The Amazing Race," Univision fifth with a 1.3 for "Mira Quien Baila" and Telemundo sixth with a 0.4 for more "Cristina."

At 9 p.m. NBC was first again with a 4.9 for football, with Fox second with a 3.9 for baseball. ABC was third with a 3.0 for "Housewives," CBS fourth with a 2.0 for "The Good Wife," Univision fifth with a 1.5 for more "Baila" and Telemundo sixth with a 0.4 for the first hour of the movie "Toy Story 2."

NBC led again at 10 p.m. with a 4.1 for football, while Fox was a close second with a 4.0 for baseball. CBS was third with a 2.1 for "CSI: Miami," ABC fourth with a 1.8 for "Pan Am," Univision fifth with a 1.0 for "Sal y Pimienta" and Telemundo sixth with a 0.4 for its movie.

Fox also finished first for the night among households with an 8.8 average overnight rating and a 14 share. CBS was second at 6.7/10, NBC third at 5.9/9, ABC fourth at 5.3/8, Univision fifth at 1.6/2 and Telemundo sixth at 0.5/1.

http://www.medialifemagazine.com/art...on-A-Time-.asp

I thought that was pretty clever. His name is Gold, because in the story he uses a spinning wheel to spin ...

and it was Robert Carlyle too. I hadn't checked out the cast before this so I was quite impressed by the number of recognizable faces.

It bordered on the hokey and I can see some horrible potential for the level of sugary sentimentality only found at Christmas but it's got potential to be fun and full of fairy tale injokes when others start turning up. Overall I thought it was pretty enjoyable.

I enjoyed it. Lots of Lost references. (the clock at 815, the door reading 108, the swan key chain).. I was waiting for Hurley to show up and fall off a wall.

As Rumplestiltskin he looked really familiar and then it dawned on me, it was Gaz from The Full Monty!

Was OK but would have liked it more if the fairytale aspect turned out not to be real and was just a way of the boy dealing with his isolation. Making the fairytales real is a bit of a cop-out.

to see where it goes. I didn't know much about it so I really had no expectations. Certainly different from anything else on Network TV, and a refreshing change from the usual cop, lawyer, doctor shows. Plus Jennifer Morrison in that red dress.
The guy playing Rumpelstilskin/Mr. Gold was excellent, really creepy.

As a LOST fan I should caught the various references, but they blew right by me.

I'm not real hopeful; these are the writers from LOST, afterall...

I'm still waiting for him to finally finish fixing the Destiny.

Hmmm. I figured it was a reference to the Narnia books since they actually used the word "wardrobe". Especially since "wardrobe" is on the verge of becoming an archaic word since no one needs them anymore due to closets.

I also found it strange that the teacher was wearing a crucifix. If all the people in Storybrooke came from a story where Christ didn't exist, why would she be wearing a crucifix?

But that was just a silly detail. The thing that bugged me the most was the "tone" felt strange and forced. At least to me, neither the writing nor the acting hit the right tone.

I think there's some interesting possibilities here, but I was never impressed by the writing on Lost [and Alias too for that matter]. To me, they just constantly relied completely on being "weird" not on telling a good story.

I thought it was pretty good. Certainly the pilot episode didn't set the hook like LOST's did but it was interesting non-the-less. My DVR series recording is set.

ps.... another LOST reference was the use of the same sound effect at the end of a segment,... right before the commercial break.

This was far better than I thought it was going to be. I really liked the overall tone of the show. As long as it doesn't get too sappy and sentimental, I think it has potential. I agree with the above posters that Rumpelstiltskin was outstanding. He gave off a very creepy and evil vibe.

Only thing I hate about the show is the teacher/Snow White's hair in real life. She looks fantastic as Snow White. But then I see her character in the classroom and she looks horrible. I can't stand it when women have hair that short. I mean, there's short hair, and then there's really short hair. But we're probably going to be stuck with it for the entire run of this show. I remember reading that when Ginnifer Goodwin (the actress playing Snow White) was on the show Big Love, she had it written in her contract that she could wear wigs. That way she can do whatever she wants with her hair. Here's the link to the article: http://news.instyle.com/2011/02/25/g...-goodwin-hair/ In the article, she says, I now have a wig clause written into every one of my contracts. I hope they throw a wig on the teacher character; soon.

As far as the writers of the show being Lost alumni, count me in the group that is happy about this. For me, minus its ending, Lost was one of the best shows ever on TV. I think the main reason why Lost let people down, was because it gave the impression that its mysteries could be solved by science. But then used magic as a cop out to not explain anything. Once Upon a Time won't suffer that same fate. I can't see them introducing any science into this show; ever. Its about magic, right from the start. So they can't disappoint us later with the lack of a scientific explanation for everything; because no one is going to be expecting a scientific explanation. The show is about fairy tales, after all.

So if I ever see the team from "Fringe" show up to investigate the town of Storybrook, I'm out. But on second thought, that actually sounds kinda cool.

I don't like it either and it took me some time to realize they were one and the same character. The cut makes her ears look huge.

I enjoyed it. I look forward to seeing what happens next.

Thanks. I couldn't remember the name of the SciFi show he was on.