ABC’s Once Upon a Time spin-off, OUAT In Wonderland (Thursdays, 8/7C), is perhaps a shade darker, a hair nastier and considerably more whimsical. With a grownup Alice, a soulfully duplicitous Knave of Hearts and a queen who could teach Regina a thing or two about being evil, it is – if the pilot is any indication – more imaginative and even more twisted fun.
The premiere, Down the Rabbit Hole, opens with the young Alice (Millie Brown) popping out the ground and running home to discover she’s been gone long enough that her parents thought she was dead. As she watches through a keyhole, her father (Shaun Smyth) and someone we will recognise later talk (Jonny Coyne) about her stories – they think she’s lying.
Roll credits and fade into the Knave (Being Human’s Michael Socha) breaking into a diner and pouring himself a cup of coffee (and leaving payment) before the White Rabbit (voiced by John Lithgow) appears and asks his help. The Knave is about to refuse when WR says it’s for Alice.
Cut to the grown Alice (Sophie Lowe), sitting at a stout conference table facing a panel of three – including the bald man we saw talking with her father when she was a child. They seem unwilling to believe her when she tells them she no longer believes the stories she told then and since. The doctor asks her to sign a release consenting to a procedure that will allow her to forget – and spare her any more pain.
The next morning, the Knave tries to rescue her but she refuses to go with him until he tells her, ‘He’s alive.’ The he in question is a genie named Cyrus (Peter Gadiot), with whom she fell in love on her second sojourn into Wonderland – but she saw him fall to his death!
Before you know it, the two are back in Wonderland – though a wanted poster suggests that the Knave has done some very bad things since Alice left (which he’s told her, but we get the sense that she didn’t really believe him until we see the poster).
Down the Rabbit Hole is great fun because it weaves together multiple lands and times in much the same way as Once Upon a Time. The diner The Knave breaks into is in present day Storybrooke; the Bethlem Institute, where Alice was a patient is in Victoria times. Wonderland is a darker, stranger place than when Alice was there before, and the Red Queen (Emma Rigby) has a partner in crime (Naveen Andrews) who comes straight out of the Arabian Nights.
Many of the familiar elements from Lewis Carroll are there in some way – the Cheshire Cat (Keith David), the Mad Hatter (or at least his cottage), Alice’s changing sizes and so forth – but the story is new and every bit as psychedelic. Though the screener didn’t have finished visual effects, it does make it clear that this will be an even more colorful show than the original.
The live-action cast is very well chosen and the chemistry between the various partners (the Red Queen and Jafar; Alice and Cyrus; Alice and the Knave) is excellent. The voice cast is pretty inspired – Lithgow makes for a believably fussy White Rabbit and David brings appropriate menace to the very unfriendly Cheshire Cat.
Just by virtue of combining Wonderland and the Arabian Nights (and whatever fairy tale realm may yet appear), this series is more whimsical – and more biting – than original recipe. Where OUAT occasionally seemed to be reaching, even in its pilot, Wonderland has the feel of a universe that is far more comfortable with itself. It also buckles its swash at least as well – and the discovery that Alice is a thoroughly capable action hero feels more like ‘It’s about time’ than ‘WTF!’
Personally, I have to say that I enjoyed Down the Rabbit Hole more than any single ep of the original OUAT since its series premiere. It’s super stylish and surprisingly substantial. I’d love to have seen more episodes to get a better all-around feel for the show, but if the premiere is a fair representation, Once Upon a Time In Wonderland deserves to be a hit.
Final Grade: A
Photos by Jack Rowland and Jeff Weddell/Courtesy of ABC