What I’m Watching: Once Upon a Time

Once Upon a Time: Season 1, Episode 14 “Dreamy” (C+)

I’m rather impressed with the pull that this show seems to have in terms of getting all the best television actors to come stop by for an episode or two. I’m a huge fan of Amy Acker from her work on “Dollhouse,” “Alias,” and a number of other shows, and therefore I got excited when I realized that she was portraying Astrid and Nova. Unfortunately, just like Giancarlo Esposito, she is destined for greater, more challenging things. Her romance with Dreamy and Leroy wasn’t all that compelling, and felt completely separate from the regular Storybrooke plot. We got only a glimpse of Mr. Gold and Regina, and nothing from them in the fairy tale world, since Bossy and the Blue Fairy did a good enough job of convincing Dreamy to stop dreaming and become Grumpy. The continued search for Katherine seems strange given how easily people tend to forget about things in Storybrooke, but it would seem that Mary Margaret is never going to be able to live down her affair with David, who, thanks to some scheming and manipulating on Regina’s part, has now been arrested by Emma in connection with Katherine’s disappearance. Just as Mary Margaret was finally able to reach some level of happiness, her dreams have now been shattered too. Seeing Belle in the fairy tale world was a reminder that she’s just another plotline that’s been locked away and disregarded, and I’m still hoping for a bit more cohesive coherence in terms of the storyline in the near future.