New Old Fairy Tales...and Robert Carlyle

Looking at this, you're probably thinking, 'holy hell, three posts in the span of one week? Somebody's apparently gotten herself together!' Well, I'd love for that to be true, but it is a blatant untruth. Instead, what I'm is doing is procrastinating. My fake midterms are coming up and I have no desire to study for them or actually do anything school-related so...I blog. Also known as throwing my thoughts out into the proverbial Internet stratosphere and hoping that somebody is amused, entertained, touched, all three, or none of the above. Also, I've decided to boycott Facebook until the Election Day because, while I know everybody is absolutely 100% entitled to their opinion, I have no desire to read a whole host of political posts, memes, notes, and article links. People embrace their right to engage in free speech, I embrace my right to find other avenues of entertainment until elections come and go.

This post is dedicated to Once Upon a Time, one of ABC's newer shows which, at least for me, is an absolute slam dunk (hopefully I used that correctly because I know nothing about basketball...but it sounds right). I started watching this show because I am a geek at heart. Like still get really excited about fairy tales geek. And I also had about ten friends telling me that I had to watch this show and, if I didn't, they'd boycott me. During one of many attempts at procrastination, I thought it would be a great idea to start watching this. And it paid off completely.

I shall start with the world's most general plot EVER. Basically evil witch casts mega bad spell as a vengeful act and what the spell did was tear everybody out of super happy magical world and thrust them into Storybrook, Maine in the real world- a place where people never leave and nobody ever goes. None of the magical beings remember who they were in the real world. But they have a savior- and that savior is Snow White's and Prince Charming's daughter, Emma, who was brought to Storybrook by her biological son that she gave up, Henry. Convoluted? Little bit. But then throw in flashbacks to various character's lives. And you have a whole host of characters, not the least of which are Mad Hatter, Rumpelstiltskin, Cinderella, Snow White, Prince Charming, Belle, Gepetto, Pinocchio, the Evil Queen, and many, many, many others. And, in fairy tale land, they all know each other. Like Cinderella and Snow White are friends, how awesome is that. It sounds slightly confusing but it is excellent, I promise, if a bit cheesy. 

However, now I have to tangent. I have a longstanding love of Robert Carlyle. For those of you who don't know who he is, he is Gaz from The Full Monty, he is Renard in The World Is Not Enough, he is Don Harris in 28 Weeks Later, he is brilliant. He is also Scottish, for those of us who adore Scottish accents. I don't know why I have loved this actor since The World Is Not Enough but there is just something about him. He is also Rumpelstiltskin in Once Upon a Time (haha, you knew I would get to the point sometime!). Part of the reason that I love this show so much is because of Robert Carlyle. That's not to say that everybody else isn't wonderful (they are) but there is just something that is extra wonderful about him. They also give him a really cool plotline that I cannot reveal without spoiling but, I will say this...it is wonderful. Like made him even more so my favourite character in the entire show. Also, hint two: for those of you who were raised on Disney animated movies released during, say, the Disney Renaissance (years- late 1980s to 2000-ish), you will be super excited on how they incorporate, quite unexpectedly I might add, Rumpelstiltskin into one of the storylines. But that is all I can say because to say more is to ruin how unbelievably unexpected and how exciting that incorporation is. Tangent complete and the gist of it is- I adore Robert Carlyle and will shamelessly root for any character he takes up (even the ones trying to kill James Bond).

This TV show definitely won't be for everybody. It's a...well, it's a...well, it's really difficult to describe what it is exactly. It's a love story, it's an action adventure, it's fantasy, it's just got a little something for everybody. I have yet to test it out on Heath so you're really just getting a woman's opinion here- however, from the comments on Hulu, there are lots of men who like it! I'm not sure that's an adequate sample of the average male population though, to be perfectly honest. But, although this show is infinitely cheesy, it is really good. It reintroduces fairy tales in a different light and that's something important. It would be easy to become disenchanted with fairy tales (see what I did there? Sadly, I'm probably more amused by that than any of you are) because we hear them over and over again from the time we're born. Until I was about eight, there wasn't a night that I didn't read my big blue book of fairy tales before I went to bed. Obviously, they become old hat and other things can take their place. But they have a startling ability to make us think and to teach us lessons and to remind us why women being allowed to become something other than housefraus is a good thing (sorry, I think that might be my own personal lesson....carrying on). And what Once Upon a Time does is take all of those old lessons and all of those old characters that we loved and give them a face lift. You know, Snow White, in both worlds, although idealistic and sweet, is kind of a BAMF. I mean, she kicks ass- she can use a bow and arrow like nobody's freaking business. And then Rumpelstiltskin- he's bad but he's not evil (you thought you'd catch me making a spoiler- uhuh. Not happening). And then Red Riding Hood? Yeah, she's Snow's best friend in fairy tale world and she has an awesome story line. I could seriously go on and on about this, which I kind of already have, but all of these are just examples of how they take these and modernize the stories while still rooting them in the fairy tale lore that made us love them in the first place.

So yeah...go watch it. It's amazing.

On a side note, I am pondering making pumpkin pie sometime this weekend after I get done with the make-believe midterms. Pictures of that amazingness- or whatever wondrous bake-stuffs I actually decide to make- will probably make their way up here sometime...eventually...down the road...maybe. No firm promises here! In the meantime, Harley Quinn, over and out!