Season Two of Once Upon A Time, ABC’s drama about classic fairy tale characters living in modern times is now available on Blu-ray. This 5 disc set includes all 22 episodes in glorious hi-definition. This is why TV on DVD/Blu-ray has been invented. I’m the first to rail against ABC Tv’s flakey scheduling for breaking a lot of shows. Serialized TV programs like Once Upon A Time, Revenge, Scandal are meant for binge watching. I admittedly have a very short attention span and I lose interest when I only get 1 or 2 episodes every one or two months. So with Once Upon a Time I bailed on Season Two after Episode 7 last year.
When you watch this show on Blu-ray as a complete overarching story, the writing truly is brilliant and addicting. Now that the writers didn’t have to spend a lot of time establishing who these characters are and how their modern incarnations related to the fairytales that we know and love, they were able to radically expand their universe this season. All of the various plot threads, different settings and flashbacks really come together perfectly. The production design in this show is better than most big budget films. This show must cost an absolute fortune to produce.
Now that Storybrooke is visible to the entire world and magic exists in the real world, the producers actually ended up completely expanding the mythology and introduced the concept of other universes. We spent a lot of time in Fairytale land where we were introduced to the both Hook (Colin O’Donoghue ) and Mulan (Jamie Chung). We met Wendy and the Darlings and had a brief visit to a dark, twisted Neverland that is run by an evil Peter Pan, all before coming back to the real world and visiting that den of sin known as New York.
This show has wonderfully complex and fully fleshed out characters. No one is all evil or all good on this show. Snow (Ginnifer Goodwin), her feisty daughter Emma (Jennifer Morrison), the evil Stepmother Regina (Lana Parrilla ), and Mr. Gold (Robert Carlyle ) all hold their own and have moments where you think you know what they are going to do, but frequently surprise you. I’m amazed that young Henry (Jared Gilmore) is still around. I fully expected them to come up with some excuse to turn him into an adult Henry. Kid actors on fantasy shows usually don’t last beyond a season.
No princess need to be saved here, they need to be feared! These “Princesses” don’t take crap from anyone. There is a reason television is so good and much better than movies these days. It seems like all the best actors are on TV shows like this, Scandal, Grimm, Breaking Bad, etc. It would take up 2 paragraphs for me to name everyone in this large cast but everyone, except, maybe, Charming (Josh Dallas ) but from top to bottom, good stuff.
Video/Audio/Presentation
The video and audio transfer is flawless. I love the bright blue color palette used on this show. Everything looks gleaming, fresh and new. While the material is sometimes dark, the shine and gloss goes a long way towards lightening the tone. There weren’t any artifacts in the picture and while my HDTV doesn’t have the blackest blacks in the world, the contrast looked great. The 5.1 sound mix is nice, it’s TV so most of the audio had a nice, well balanced Center channel mix and rarely made much use of the rear channels.
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English 5.1 DTS-HD Master Audio
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English 2.0 Dolby Digital
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Subtitles are in English, Chinese, Spanish, Portuguese, French,
It comes in a standard Blu-ray case with a nice slip cover featuring some nice artwork – that would be awesome as a framed picture. The menu is simple and easy to navigate.
Extras
Season Play – Its been awhile since I watched a nice TV on Blu-ray set and I love Season Play. As someone who swaps discs all the time, it is nice to be able to stop a show and know that when I put the disc back in, it’ll automatically start from where I left off or let me know which disc and episode I last watched. It also allows you to create multiple profiles. I wish all Blu-rays and DVDs had this functionality..Not just TV Blu-rays but regular movies. Nothing annoys me more than when I accidently hit the stop button on my remote and have to go through the entire startup process – previews, scene selection or forced to fast forward to find my place.
Episode specific commentary tracks:
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Disc 1 – Audio Commentary on Broken with Actors Ginner Goodwin and Josh Dallas
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Disc 2 – Audio Commentary on Queen of Hearts with Co-Creators/Exec Producers Edward Kitsis and Adam Horowitz, and Actor Lana Parrilla
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Disc 3 – Audio Commentary on Manhatten with Co-Creators/Exec Producers Edward Kitsis and Adam Horowitz and Actor Robert Carlyle
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Disc 4 – Commentary on The Miller’s Daughter with Writer Jane Espenson, Commentary on Welcome to Storybrooke with Writers Ian Goldberg and Andrew Chambers
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Disc 5 – Commentary on And Straight on Til Morning with Commentary by Co-Executive Producer David H. Goodman and Actor Colin O’Donoghue
Other features:
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Good Morning Storybrooke (12 min, HD) – A very cute 12-minute feature done in the style of a cheesy morning talk show with Hart Archer & Goldie Locksley.
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A Fractured Family Tree, Narrated by Sarah Hyland of ABC’s Modern Family (7 Min, HD) – A look at Family tree of the Charmings and man what a convoluted tree it is. This featurette serves as a great introduction to all of the intricacies of the various relationships in the series.
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Sincerely, Hook (5 Min, HD) – All about Hook, need I say more!?
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Girl Power (13 Min, HD) – I love all the women in Once Upon A Time and this is a great showcase as to why these women kick butt!
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Fairest Bloopers of them All (3 Min, HD)
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Deleted Scenes (10 Mins) – There are 8 deleted scenes that total about 10 minutes.
Conclusion
I love this Blu-ray set, I don’t understand why Networks don’t put more shows out on Blu-ray. The extras are well thought out and not overwhelming. This series really is meant to be watched in Bing form. Anyone who likes fantasy and drama even a little bit need to give this show a try. This would be an A+ if they included a Digital Copy version.
Grades
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TV Show – A
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Video – A
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Audio – A
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Extras – A
Final Overall Grade – A