Once Upon A TIme

Though it might not be my favorite television show, Once Upon A Time is definitely on my top 10. Once Upon A Time is a drama, center around the lives of fairytale characters, who crash-landed in a small present day town called Storybrook, because of a curse by the evil queen. The show premiered in 2011 on ABC, and is now on it's fourth season.

One of the pieces of the show that never fails to amaze me and draw me in, is the costuming. The costumes are extremely intricate and detail oriented. The costumes are also almost always recognizable in comparison to the traditional fairytale characters they are based off of. The costumes for new episodes usually take between 5 days and two weeks to make, depending on the difficulty of the design and the time that was budgeted in the schedule for the costume department.

Edward Castro, the costume designer, woks with a team of 8 to 20 people, depending on the difficulty of the costumes being made for the episode. Not only do they take pride in the difficulty of the costumes they make, but also the durability of the costumes. The costumes have to be able to last multiple seasons, incase later episodes call for flashbacks. Castro told EW.com (2012) that some of the most difficult costumes they've done are designing a fireproof cape, building armor out of 500 metal conchas, and the numerous amount of wedding dressing and ballgowns they've created.

Want to learn more about some of the costumes they've designed and built? Check out this tour of the Once Upon A Time costume department!

Once Upon A Time...

This week I decided to do what I always do-- binge-watch yet another TV show. The pick this week just happened to be the ABC hit series "Once Upon A Time". I was feeling in the mood for a light-hearted show that entertained me while I procrastinated on homework. This show definitely did the trick. It is an ABC network show so Disney had their fingerprints all over this show. I'm really glad for this because it just wouldn't make sense if something fairy-tale based wasn't Disney-related. After all, Disney owns the rights to most (if not all) of those classic fairy tale stories. 

The show centers around Emma, an orphaned woman in her late 20's who is brought to a seemingly pleasant town in Maine called Storybrook by her son, Henry, who she gave away in an adoption agreement 11 years ago. This town is not just any old small town because it is a town filled with fairy tale characters from all of your favorite stories. The inhabitants in the town are fairy tale characters, but an evil curse was cast on them and they do not know their true identities. Henry is put to the task of making Emma believe in the magic of Storybrook and break the curse so that everyone can live "happily ever after". 

I find this show to be so fascinating because everything about it is so carefully thought out. Every fairy tale is woven into another to create one cohesive world. Snow White is friends with Red Riding Hood and they are both friends with Jiminy Cricket (who also has a dalmatian named Pongo from "101 Dalmatians"). The bad guys in the fairy tales also remain the same and feature bad guys like the Evil Queen from Snow White and Rumplestiltskin. There are also references to other Disney franchises like "Tron", "The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe", "Mulan", and "Sleeping Beauty". This show unveils the characters  and it lets the viewer guess at the characters true identity before it is revealed by other characters. 

I'm a big fan of this show because I love fairy tales of all sorts. I really enjoy the backstory that all of the characters have and you end up seeing the good in every character, even the bad guys. This gives the characters much more substance than I thought they had because you get to enjoy the humanistic traits of everyone. This show is great for divulging my love for the fantasy world. 

Revenge Hasn't Ever Looked So Good

I don't really know why I'm so into ABC dramas this year, but Sunday nights are turning out to be a pretty big deal for ABC. With Once Upon A Time scoring the network a highest rated drama, I think it's safe to say some network dramas are worth watching. But Once isn't the only ABC drama to be doing well. Airing Sunday nights after Once, Revenge is proving itself to be a drama of its own.

Revenge is kind of like Prison Break meets Gossip Girl. Sort of. Set in the Hamptons during the summer, it centers on a fantastically wealthy family who covered up a crime that left the main character, Emily Thorne, without her father. After blaming a terrorist attack on Emily's father when she was a child, Emily was forced to grow up in foster care, as well as a juvenile corrections facility. It is only when she reaches adulthood that she finds out the truth: her father was innocent.

After years of planning, Emily returns to the Hamptons (her real name was Amanda Clarke, she changed it to Emily Thorne to hide her true identity from her fathers employers) and sets out to get her revenge. 

The whole story is amazingly put together. It is somewhat reminiscent of Lost, however not nearly as complex, and the story is mostly told from the perspective of the main character. In flashbacks more and more of Emily's life is revealed and slowly the puzzle of vengeance is put together. 

It's an incredibly addicting show. I've almost finished the first season and its only been a week. I highly recommend it!

Mark Isham and Once Upon A Time

I know I've posted about the TV show Once Upon A Time before, but this time I want to talk about the musical score of the show, so it'll be different and really cool, I promise.

Mark Isham is a composer and musician in Hollywood, and he's been working for over twenty nine years in the industry. He has won both Grammy and Academy Awards for his score on the film Crash in 2004, and has both written and performed music for over 100 films to date, including most recently, The Lucky One starring Zac Efron.

In addition to his film work, Mr. Isham has also composed for television shows such as Once Upon A Time. The executive producers and creators of the new ABC series, Adam Horowitz and Eddie Kitsis, were big fans of Mark Isham after hearing his work in so many films and asked him to be the composer for the show.

This past February, Mark Isham and ABC Studio released the Once Upon A Time (Music from the TV Series) EP. The soundtrack features the four main orchestral suites from the series, including the aptly named "Once Upon A Time Orchestral Suite" and "The Queen's Curse" which are two of my favorite scores used in the show.

If you haven't seen Once yet, you should definitely do that, it airs Sunday nights at 8pm on ABC! It's the best show ever and it's written by the guys who wrote for Lost, so you already know it's going to be good...

Mark Isham's Once Upon A Time Orchestral Suite

Sci-fi and Fantasy Escapes

Movies. That is all I was interested in when I was younger. It wasn't until I reached about ninth grade that I suddenly became fascinated by TV shows. It all started with my father introducing me to a great show called Stargate SG1. This is a show about a military operation that has found a way to travel through the glaxay via wormhole. The wormholes are established through the use of a stargate. Each stargate on different planets have their own "addresses." SG1 is the first team sent through the wormhole to discover new worlds. So, this mix-matched team begins their adventures where they fight the Goa'uld (parasites that take over their host's mind and ruled over early human civilizations as gods, like the Egyptian gods), and many other enemies over the course of 10 seasons. This show was absolutely brilliant and was my obsession for a very long time.

After Stargate SG1 ended, I really didn't watch any other shows for two reasons. Number one, my knowledge of TV shows was limited and I didn't really want to spend the energy to find a new one. Number two, what could match up to my Goa'uld fighting heroes of the universe? It was only when I was a freshman in college and I discovered the wonderful Netflix, that the world of TV shows opened up to me again. I can't even begin to remember how many shows I have watched to date now, but I can list some of my favorites.

First of all, I should mention that my heart lies in the science fiction and fantasy realms. My theory behind this is that I personally love the feeling of being able to escape my own life for a time and delve into a completely new dimension and "experience" adventures with unforgettable characters. Anyway, I remember one of the new series that I fell in love with was a TV show called Robin Hood that was on BBC starting in 2006. There is not much to explain in the way of plot since almost everyone knows the story of Robin Hood, and it was a great show plot-wise, at least up until the very end. I won't give it away for those who decide to watch it, but it made me very upset. I guess it was a good thing that I was so upset because that is a sign of a good show. The acting was fabulous, and the presentation was altogether well edited.


I believe the next show I watched was Battlestar Galactica, which was on Syfy from 2004-2009. The concept behind this series was very interesting and the story was great... for about the first two or three seasons. Then something happened where nothing made sense. I don't know if that was because on Netflix the seasons were split up by half seasons (such as season 4 and season 4.5, why would someone do that???) and I missed a seasons worth of episodes or if the plot just went crazy. I never ended up finishing this series, but I did enjoy most of what I was able to see.


During the summer between freshman and sophomore year in college, my parents and I became huge fans of another BBC series called Merlin. Merlin is a show depicting the story of King Arthur and his knights of the Round Table all from the perspective of a young boy named Merlin. Of course, the events of this series do not necessarily follow what is depicted in the novel The Once and Future King written by T. H. White. In this show, Merlin is a young boy who is sent to Camelot by his mother to live with an old friend, Gaius. Except there is something special about Merlin that no one else can know about; Merlin can use magic, a offense punishable by death. It isn't until Merlin learns from a dragon trapped below the castle that it is his destiny to protect the cocky and rude Arthur that all the adventures for Camelot begin. This show is still playing, and I believe is on season 5. Some of the graphics and CG aren't the best, but the plot is so engrossing that you can get over it pretty easily.

Soon after that, came another one of my absolute favorite shows, Falling Skies. If you have not seen this show, I highly suggest you watch it. Yes, it is another end of the world show, but it is so much more than that. Once you think you have the story figured out, they throw another twist at you. The filming and CG is very good, and I can't wait for the next season to begin.

Some other series I have watched include, Downton Abbey, Lost, Terra Nova, part of Grey's Anatomy and Once Upon A Time. Downton Abbey is a show put out by Masterpiece Classics and has a great plot, and is filmed in such a way that you feel you are truly a part of the story. The characters are so unique that you end up falling in love with them. It is a story about a well-to-do English family living on the cusp of the twentieth century and their servants. The dynamics between these two groups flow together and apart at different parts in the story. I have only seen up to season 2, so if anyone knows whether or not this show is on again please let me know.


Terra Nova only has one or two seasons, I believe, because someone told me they it was cancelled. I don't know why. I absolutely loved the storyline. It is about a family living in a future where the Earth is on it's last leg thanks to pollution and lack of resources. People can't even breathe the air with out a device that filters it. In order to get a chance for a second life, the family accepts the offer to become a part of project Terra Nova. By going through a rip in the time continuum, they find themselves on Earth but millions of years in the past, with dinosaurs for neighbors. The family and the whole colony of Terra Nova must learn to survive or die in their new world.

What I think is the most amazing thing about all of these is that the CG doesn't have to be the best. The acting, the sound, the cinematography, and really great story lines all come together to make these shows successful in drawing in the audience to different times or even different worlds. I'm always up for suggestions for new shows to watch. Recently, someone suggested that I watch the new show Revolution, which is about a futuristic world where all electricity doesn't work. Cars don't work. iPods don't work. Nothing. The government falls and militia take over. Amidst all the chaos is one girl who is fighting to get her younger brother back from the militia men who took him. It looks like a very promising show indeed.

~Amber Capogrossi

As this season's shows are finally starting to be up and running, I've been getting increasingly more impatient with the new episodes of some of my favorite shows. "Once Upon a Time" is one of the shows I've been anxiously awaiting since it's finale last season.

When the show started last year, I remember sitting in Intro to Media Industries trying to figure out what pilots would survive and which ones would flunk. "Once Upon a Time" was one of the shows that was in my failure list. I was so used to watching American TV fail at fantasy shows, I wasn't even going to give this one a chance. I'd leave my fantasy shows to the Brits. Finally, about halfway through the season, my best friend told me I had to watch it. The two of us see eye to eye on just about everything: music, books, TV, hobbies, etc... She's one of the only people who would be able to convince me to watch something I wasn't sure on, and she did.

First off, I have to say, I'm really glad I gave it a chance.

The show is really well written; the subplots are all seamlessly interlaced, forming a latticework of characters. The design of the show is beautiful. I want to steal all the gowns off the characters. The actors are all brilliant, especially Jared Gilmore, who plays the little boy, Henry. It also doesn't hurt that Emilie de Ravin, who played my favorite character on "Lost," plays Belle, my favorite Disney princess.

The season premiere aired this past Sunday after a cliffhanger that left us with the characters finally remembering their fairytale pastlife. The new season promises a host of new chracters, from Mulan to Captain Hook, as well as a storyline just as exciting as the first season.

I'm excited to see the direction the show takes over the course of the year. It's safe to say this is one, and possibly only, fantasy show the U.S. didn't screw up.

Lost in Once Upon A Time with Kitsis & Horowitz

In 2004 a plane crash in the south pacific forever changed the lives of countless people. Oceanic flight 815 was over 1,000 miles off-course when it went down on its way to Los Angeles from Sydney, Australia.

If you aren't a fan of ABC's Lost, you might be wondering what plane crash I'm talking about. You should also be wondering what you've been doing with your life, because if you haven't watched Lost, then you don't know what you're missing.

In the beginning, I was hesitant to join the Lost bandwagon. It seemed like there was too much to understand, and the confusing storyline seemed like too much for me to handle. But that's really not the case. Yes, after a few seasons when the writers decided to play around with time-travel things got more then a little confusing. But by that time, you already are so hooked on the show- the incredible story of survivors on a mysterious island- the characters, all of whom have their own pasts that are intricately connected and explored throughout the six seasons of the show. They also all have their own quirks, from the honorable and brave Jack Shepard, to the sneaky and complex southern stylings of Sawyer, there is every character in between. From the loveable Hurley who, for a while, blames the crash on his own bad luck, to the british rockstar (and heroin addict) Charlie. The series does a remarkable job of weaving its story together in the most addicting way.

The cast of ABC's Lost.

The reason why I decided to write about Lost was because I recently got one of my roommates hooked on it and we've been watching season one for the past week. In fact, in less then a week she's almost completed season 1. It's just that addicting.

When Lost ended in 2010, two of the writers of the show, Edward Kitsis and Adam Horowitz decided to create a new show of their own.

Last October, Once Upon A Time made its debut on ABC. Highly anticipated by some Lost fans, Once did not disappoint. Premiering with the highest ratings among new television shows last fall, Once follows many of the previously established concepts found in Lost.

Once Upon A Time centers around fairytales. All the stories we grew up with as children. Snow White, Cinderella, Little Red Riding Hood, Pinocchio, and many more. These stories make up the canvas for Once Upon A Time. However, as with any show created by Lost alumni, there's a twist: the fairytale characters we know and love have been sent to the real world. Our world.

When Snow White's evil stepmother unleashes a powerful curse, she takes away all the happy endings of all of the fairytale characters. She vows to make them as unhappy as she is by doing this, and by sending them to a world without magic and happy endings. However, all curses can be broken, and in this case, our hero comes in the form of the daughter of Snow White and her Prince Charming (also known as James). It was said that on her 28th birthday, Emma would return to find her parents and save the fairytale characters from their new lives in realty. And so begins Once Upon A Time. Emma and her  son, Henry, must now try and break the curse that holds the residents of Storybrooke, Maine, captive.

If you're interested in watching the show, season one was just added to Netflix, so it's super easy to watch. (Additionally, all six seasons of Lost are available on Netflix as well)
Furthermore, for those of you who may already be fans of the show, season two of Once Upon A Time starts Sunday, September 30th.