Once Upon a Time is ABC’s Fables ripoff show*, and while the first episode doesn’t air until Sunday, it’s up on imdb for free. The opening scenes look great, like they spent a lot of money on them. Partly because almost every TV show and movie operates on a subdued color palette (heavy on the orange and/or blue), but fairly tale land is reds and blues and greens and very bright. But then some of the subsequent scenes in fairy tale land look cheap. Which is unfortunate.

The odd thing about the pilot is that it is 100% setup. I know who the good guys are, I know who the bad guys are. I know the end goal of the good guys. What I don’t know is… what will a normal episode of this show look like? I don’t know how they go about achieving their goal at all, so (to borrow a phrase from a guy who blogs about comics in various places) there’s no indication what the storytelling engine is. I was almost expecting one of those things like Cupid or Brimstone or The Pirates of Dark Water, where x things have to be collected or whatever to accomplish the larger deed, but there was absolutely nothing. Which is strange, but it may actually work in the show’s favor, because I’m probably more curious to see how this show will work than I am to follow the story, but that means I will watch at least another episode.

The advantage of being on ABC is that they get to use Disney characters like Jiminy Cricket. But I haven’t seen a Disney fairytale movie in years, so I’m more up to date on the ones in Fables than anything else. So they could probably do some Disney stuff that’s fun to people who remember these things, but would be totally lost on me.

Random things about the ladies in the cast:

• Jennifer Morrison looks oddly mannish. I think it’s on purpose for her character, or whatever, but if they decided she was a lesbian, I’d totally buy it (and I could be down with that, especially if she goes back to looking hotter with darker hair).
• Ginnfer Goodwin has like 5 different hairstyles in this thing, and only one looks good.
• Keegan Connor Tracy, who sadly only appears briefly, looks unusually top heavy. About which I am not complaining.
• I am complaining about the choice for Little Red Riding Hood, who is the pissed off kinda gothy teenager with hair like Saffron from the band Republica (only longer), but the actress playing her isn’t actually TV hot at all.

* – As I see more ads for Grimm, I think it may not be a Fables ripoff at all. But Once Upon a Time totally is. Especially damning is the fact that ABC had a Fables series in development for quite a while, but doing this show instead they don’t have to involve Warner Bros. or pay Bill Willingham.