7 Hunks from "Once Upon a Time," Season 7

Once Upon a Time, Season 7 is a blatant, unnecessary reboot.

Season 1:  Fairytale characters are living in our world, in the town of Storybrooke, with wiped memories and new identities.

Season 7: Fairytale characters are living in our world, in the town of Hyperion Heights, with wiped memories and new identities.

Season 1: The Evil Queen Regina has orchestrated the whole thing in order to get revenge on her stepdaughter, Snow White.

Season 7: The Evil Lady Tremaine has orchestrated the whole thing in order to get revenge on her stepdaughter, Cinderella.

 Season 1: 10-year old Henry Mills tracks down his birth mother, who happens to be Snow White's daughter, the only one who can break the curse.

Season 7: 10-year old Lucy tracks down her birth father, Henry Mills, who happens to be Cinderella's long-lost husband, the only one who can break the curse.

Yawn.  And they're fresh out of fairytale characters.  The only new ones who show up are Mother Nature and Baron Samedi, Hansel and Gretel, and Captain Ahab.  I don't remember Mother Nature actually being a character in any story, and Baron Samedi is a Haitian voodoo god.

Season 7:  Fairytale characters are living in our world, in the town of Hyperion Heights, with wiped memories and new identities.

It's also a beefcake-limited season. The main characters are Cinderella, Lady Tremaine, the wicked stepsisters, Lucy, Regina...men mostly relegated to recurring and guest roles.  I could only find 7 respectable hunks.

1. Andrew J. West (top photo) as the adult Henry Mills, who has forgotten that fairytale worlds exist.  He published a bestselling novel about them, but insists that it is pure fiction.  Oh, and he's Cinderella's husband and Lucy's father.

2. Jeff Pierre (second photo) as Prince Naveen from "The Frog Prince," who is cursed by Baron Samedi but doesn't really turn into a frog.

3. Nathan Parsons as Hansel, who, after the candy house thing, ends up in Oz, and then in Hyperion Heights, where he becomes a serial killer.

4. Liam Hall as the Prince, who dates Cinderella before she marries Henry.  He doesn't have a first name because in the fairytale he's called Prince Charming, but that name is taken.

5. Kevin Ryan as Robert, who is working for Baron Samedi because his lover has been turned into a frog.

6. Dan Payne as Ivo, Hansel and Gretel's father.

7. Chad Rook as Captain Ahab from Moby-Dick, who owns a magic fish hook that Captain Hook needs to....well, who knows?

The Top10 Hunks of "Once Upon a Time," Season 6

In the 6th and sort of final season of Once Upon a Time, about storybook characters having soap opera battles, the writers rev things up by throwing in characters from every storybook they can think of.

Episode 1:  Deniz Akdeniz (left) as Aladdin, a former savior who has failed to save Agrabah, plus Oded Fehr as Jafar and Giles Matthey as Morpheus, the God of Sleep, who turns out to be Gideon, the unborn son of Rumplestiltskin and Belle (from Beauty and the Beast)

Episode 2: Craig Horner (left) as Edmund Dantes, the Count of Monte Cristo, who the Evil Queen hires to kill Snow White.

Episode 3: Cinderella, who does the glass-slipper bit Prince Thomas (Tim Phillipps), while her sister falls in love with his footman, Jacob (Max Lloyd-Jones, left),  Snow White is there for some reason, plus Gus (Jared Joseph), the rat turned into a hunk, is Cinderella's escort to the ball.

Episode 4: Dr. Jekyll and Mr Hyde (Hank Harris, Sam Witwer, left), who are actually ongoing characters this season, tell their back story, which involves competing for the love of the same woman.  Tom Sawyer (Reily Campbell) makes a cameo as a student in Snow White's class (her lectures all appear to be about birds).

Episode 5: Goldilocks makes an appearance in Agrabah.

Episode 6: Captain Nemo  (Faran Tahir) hangs out with Hook, along with Nick Eversman (far left) as Hook's long-lost half-brother, Liam (not to be confused with his full brother, also named Liam).

Episode 7: In a flashback about Snow White fleeing from the Evil Queen, the Woodcutter (Paul Johansson) makes an appearance.

Episode 8: "Henry anxiously prepares to take Violet to the school dance."  Way to throw in a mundane plotline.

Episode 9: Rumplestiltskin steals the newborn child of hill-climbers Jack (Nick Hunnings) and Jill.

Episode 11: Pinocchio usually bounces back between age 10 and age 30, with nothing in between, but here we see a teenage version (Rustin Gresluk, right).

Episode 12: Prince Charming's back story comes with Matt Ellis as Francisco.

Episode 13: Beowulf (Torstein Bjorklund), from the Old English epic, shows up in the Ogre Wars, making a deal with Rumplestiltskin.  Plus Brandon Spink as yet another incarnation of Rumple's son Baelfire.

















Episode 15: Vikings, cowboys, Prince Eric (Gil McKinney, left), who married Ariel the Little Mermaid, Aladdin, Captain Nemo, and of course Aesop (Thomas Cadrot), the ancient Greek storyteller, who was probably a real person.

Episode 16: Gideon, the son of Rumple and Belle (Gilles Mathey, left, as an adult, Anton Starkman as a kid), is captured by the Black Fairy, who happens to be his grandmother.  He bonds with fellow captive Roderick, and they escape together.  Gay subtext, finally!  Roderick is played by Grayson Gabriel (adult) and Mason Mackenzie (kid).

Episode 17: Back to Oz, with Alec Desert as the Tin Man.

After that, the cast is sort of full, so no new characters appear (except Tiger Lily  from Peter Pan.).  But it was a wild ride, with beefcake, bonding, and three lesbian characters.

Season 7 is a complete reboot, with an adult Henry Mills and a new cast facing a new Storybrooke.  I don't know why.

"Once Upon a Time" in Camelot

I'm ten episodes into Season Five of Once Upon a Time, about fairy tale and legend characters interacting in real life, and it's a heavy slog. 

I was looking forward to the heroes (Snow White, Prince Charming, their grown-up daughter Emma, Emma's boyfriend Captain Hook, the reformed Evil Queen, and her boyfriend Robin Hood, plus miscellaneous hangers on) going to Camelot.  But it starts off with the heroes returning from Camelot with their memories wiped, and Emma, formerly the Savior, as the Dark One (the ultimate evil).

Granted, her tied-back white hair, black suit, and monotone voice are rather cool, but what happened in Camelot?

We end up with three tiers of flashbacks:
1. Now in Storybrooke, with wiped memories, struggling to find out things that the audience already knows from:
2. Six weeks ago in Camelot,where the characters are addressing problems that began in:
3.  Long-ago Camelot.

Costume changes aren't enough to figure out who knows what at this point, who is an ally of whom, who's now a Dark One (they multiply like flies), and what they're questing after this time. They need Excalibur, and then the Holy Grail, and then some dreamcatchers, some squid ink, the tears of a lost love,a spark from the Flame of Prometheus and um..,fortunately, all of those things are a short walk away from 6-weeks ago or long ago Camelot.

At least there's some beefcake on display.

1. Liam Garrigan as rather young, stupid, morally corrupt King Arthur.  But to be fair, his kingdom is tiny.  When it's zapped to Storybrooke, the entire population hunkers down in a few tents on the outskirts of town

2. Elliot Knight as a very young, hot Merlin (Second photo)

3. Andrew Jenkins (right) as Percival, who helps a long-ago Arthur track down Excalibur, but it turns out to be broken.  No broken swords in the Arthurian Mythos, but there's one in Lord of the Rings.

4. Sinqua Walls (left) as Lancelot, who sparked with Guinevere, Arthur's main squeeze.

5. Giacomo Baessato as Grif, Arthur's page, who he talks into committing suicide as part of his plan to take over Storybrooke.

6. Guy Fauchon as Vortigen, the world's first Big Bad.  This isn't him, but it's what came up when I searched for "Guy Fauchon" "shirtless," so I'm going with it.

Plus there's a subplot about Merida from Brave trying to get a magical talisman to prove that her father was brave, which will allow her to take control of the Scottish kingdom.

I shouldn't complain.  The Scots Highlanders walk around barechested most of the time.

1. Paul Telfer as Lord Macintosh

2. Marco D'Angelo as the beefy Lord Maguffin.  Maguffin, like the Alfred Hitchcock plot device?

3. Josh Hallam as the white-fright-wigged Lord Dingwall.  Dingwall, like dingbat?

3-5. Colton Barnert, Jordan Olson, and Matthew Olson as Merida's three redhead brothers, who she spends several episodes trying to save from the evil highlanders who later become her loyal subjects.  Go figure.

And as a bonus, Mulan and Ruby (Red Riding Hood) show up and spark at each other, although Mulan is still cagey about the gender of her "lost love," and Ruby (a werewolf) is completely heterosexist: "I wouldn't know about romance.  I sort of ate my only boyfriend."

I understand that they hook up later on in the season>

On to the Underworld, with Zeus, Hercules, and miscellaneous musclemen!

The Top 10 Hunks of "Once Upon a Time," Season 4

By watching an episode almost every day, we're now near the end of Season 4 of Once Upon a Time.  It's been a wild ride, and rather exhausting, with characters from every fairy tale, legend, and popular novel intermingling, switching from evil to good to back again, switching alliances, and having a previously unmentioned back history with every other character.

So far there have only been 2 gay moments:
1. Mulan expresses a romantic interest in Princess Aurora.
2. Michael and John Darling (Peter Pan) masquerade as a gay couple attempting to adopt a child.

But there are lots of characters who display no heterosexual interest and can therefore be read as gay: Ella, Ursula, Smee (Captain Hook's second in command), Dr. Hopper (Jiminy Cricket in human form).

And the beefcake comes fast and furious, like the romance aisle at the bookstore.

The first half of the season brought in all the characters from Disney's Frozen (except that talking snowman), and had them fighting the Snow Queen, Ingrid (Elizabeth Mitchell, who played one of the Others on Lost).

1. Scott Michael Foster  (top photo) as a comic-relief Kristoff

2. Tyler Jacob Moore as Prince Hans, who takes over the kingdom of Arendale in the absence of its sister-queens.

3.Marcus Rosner as Jurgen, one of Hans' 12 older brothres.

And in a subplot, formerly evil queen Regina starts a Happy Ending with Robin Hood, only to have his previously-dead wife zapped up from the past, only to have her revealed as actually Regina's evil sister in disguise, plotting to destroy their Happy Ending.

4. Charles Mesure as Blackbeard the Pirate, who steals the Jolly Roger from Hook.

5. Will Traval as the Sheriff of Nottingham, who Regina's mother tries to hook her up with as an alternative to Robin Hood.

The second half of the season brings in three Big Bads, each of whom has a goal perfectly aligned with the "daddy and mommy issues" overall theme of the series:  Maleficent from Sleeping Beauty wants to be reunited with her daughter, also a dragon-human hybrid; Cruella De Ville from 101 Dalmatians, who wants to be reconciled with her mother;  Ursula from The Little Mermaid wants the singing voice that her father, Poseidon, stole from her.

6. Sebastian Roche as King Stefan, who Maleficent curses before she gets around to Princess Aurora.

7. Ernie Hudson (show in his buffed days) as a ridonkulous Poseidon, God of the Sea, Ursula's father.

In a subplot, Regina, formerly the Evil Queen, tries to find the Author of their stories, who can manipulate the events in their lives and give her a Happy Ending.  He turns out to be a ne'er do well tv salesman from our world who got roped into writing down the stories by the 1000-year old Sorcerer's Apprentice, who in turn takes orders from a mysterious deep-voiced fireball who might be God.

8.  Eion Bailey as August Booth/Pinocchio, who was turned into a 10-year old boy a couple of seasons back, but is restored to adulthood because he knows where to find the Author.

9. Patrick Fischler as the Author.

10. The scary talking fireball isn't God after all, but Merlin from the Arthurian legends (Elliot Knight), who will apparently be a Big Bad of Season 5.

A whole plotline about the hunky knights of Camelot?  I can hardly wait.