ABC's Once Upon a Time Series

Well, it's been about time! With all the recent buzz over NBC picking up a fairy tale based series, the first series that ABC announced a while back had disappeared from the limelight. Now we are finally getting more news about ABC's Once Upon a Time series, starting with interviews with the creators/writers as well as an announcement of who will direct the pilot. CBS and Fox should get on the bandwagon next, don't you think?

From We Grill Two Former Lost Writers on Their Dark Fairy Tale Pilot:

Once Upon a Time (on which Damon Lindelof is also consulting) has a twisty, dual-plotted premise reminiscent of their previous gig: A young boy lives in Storybrooke, Maine, where he's convinced things aren't what they seem, and we also get glimpses — through flashbacks? flash-sideways? — of a fairy tale land where familiar evil queens and dwarves with sharply drawn personalities are quite real. Though the project is still early in its development and might not make it to air, the Lost-size hole in our heart propelled us to call up Kitsis and Horowitz to get some early details.

What is Once Upon a Time about?Kitsis: What we want to do is take a look at well-known characters and stories and kind of dig deeper than what you know, and say, "Here's what you didn't know." We want to try to bring [the characters] out as people instead of just metaphors to deal with our fears
Horowitz: For us, first and foremost, this is a character show. We want to take the iconography that we've always loved and find find a new way to look at what makes these fairy-tale characters tick.

How was this idea born?Horowitz: It was eight years ago. We had come off Felicity. And we got into a discussion about the kind of show we'd like to do, and why we write. We started talking about the myths and fairy tales that had inspired us, which led to, "How do you explore that in a new way?" We had no interest in retelling every story everyone knows.
Kitsis: And we started to say things like, "What if you were the evil queen? How annoying would it be to live in the enchanted forest ... [and] you have no hope of a happy ending?" It was that kind of weird take on it. We were younger writers, so people weren't in such a hurry to buy a crazy idea from two guys who were very young in their career. But the idea stuck with us.

There is MUCH more in the article, so do click through to read it all if you are interested.

And from ABC’s Fairy-Tale Pilot Gets a Director:

Once Upon a Time, the buzzworthy ABC drama pilot from Lost alum Edward Kitsis and Adam Horowitz, has found a director. Vulture hears Entourage vet Mark Mylod, who directed the pilot for Showtime's Shameless (as well as the original British series of the same name), will direct Time for the Alphabet. Damon Lindelof has been serving as a consultant on the potential ABC series, which imagines a world where fairy tales may be real. Mylod's other credits include Ali G Indahouse and the upcoming Anna Faris–Chris Pratt comedy What's My Number.

Of course, the network has to like the pilot, too, in order for this to ever hit our big little screens. But it does sound interesting.

Now the question is, after reading the descriptions of both, do you prefer the Storybrooke/FairyTale Land conceit or the grittier cop drama that NBC is considering?

I admit the ABC one sounds slightly more interesting to me. But then again, I keep getting images of Fairy Tale Police Department: Complete Series whenever I read about the NBC series. It won't be anything like, I know, but it's there in my head and it won't get out! As well as the HEA in Hoodwinked Too. I see more potential for original content with the ABC one, I guess. But I also have faith in the former Buffy writers, so I am not dismissing either and hope both make it to an eventual air date.