“Once Upon A Time” is an enchanting escape for TV fans

ONCE UPON A TIME - ABC's "Once Upon a Time" stars Ginnifer Goodwin as Snow White/Mary Margaret. (ABC/KHAREN HILL)

Who knew there was so much more to fairy tales than meets the eye?

There are two series getting ready to premiere soon – ABC’s “Once Upon a Time,” which debuts at 7 p.m. Sunday, Oct. 23, and NBC’s “Grimm,” which debuts at 8 p.m., Friday, Oct. 28.

A “Grimm” review will be forthcoming, but here’s a look at “Once Upon a Time”:

Writers Edward Kitsis and Adam Horowitz (“Lost, “Tron: Legacy”)  have put together a totally absorbing series in “Once Upon a Time,” which displays how fairy tales can be broadened, and with even more imagination and creativity added to them, their characters can breathe new life.

“Once Upon a Time” blends flashbacks of familiar characters such as Snow White (Ginnifer Goodwin, “Big Love”), Prince Charming (Josh Dallas, “Thor”), the Evil Queen ( Lana Parrilla, “Boomtown”), Rumplestiltskin (Robert Carlyle, “The Full Monty”) and Jiminy Cricket (Raphael Sbarge, “The Guardian”) with the modern world in a truly unique way that makes up a completely  new story:

Snow White and Prince Charming’s daughter Emma Swan (Jennifer Morrison, “House M.D.”) is grown up and in the real world of today and doesn’t know who she really is because of a curse the Evil Queen has imposed

This curse has also stopped time and erased the memories of the fairy tale characters’ former lives as they exist now in the real-life town of Storybrooke, Maine.