On the one hand, preliminary exhaustion with modernized fairy tales—be they of the dark reimagining variety swarming toward the multiplex, or the magic-and-mystery shows crowding TV’s fall pilot season—makes us want to completely ignore a show like Once Upon A Time. The ABC drama from Lost and Tron Legacy writers Edward Kitsis and Adam Horowitz takes place in a town where “magic and fairy tales may just be real” like several other dramas coming next year, and even before it’s premiered it has us longing for a nice, realistic show about, say, a hospital staffed exclusively by incredibly hot young people. And then they go and cast Ginnifer Goodwin in it.
According to Deadline, the adorable Big Love star will play “Snow White/Sister Mary Margaret,” a woman who’s placed under a spell by the Evil Queen and who is brought back from death by Prince Charming—which suggests that, yes, in this town, magic and fairy tales are real, otherwise why would there be a character called the “Evil Queen”? People in regular towns don’t call themselves the Evil Queen unless they’re part of a drag troupe or something. And as much as we don’t need another Snow White story in particular right now, well, we also don’t need another Kate Hudson romantic comedy, and we’re still probably going to see Ginnifer Goodwin in Something Borrowed someday, even if it’s just to mutter to ourselves that she deserves better. So fine, we’ll watch your little Snow White show too. Damn it.