This fall, be prepared to take a trip down the rabbit hole. The fantastical fairytale drama "Once Upon a Time in Wonderland" will be premiering on ABC, putting viewers in Alice's shoes to experience a trippy journey of Mad Hatters, Cheshire Cats and talking caterpillars.
"Wonderland," the spinoff series to ABC's fairytale-themed show "Once Upon a Time," will be an adaptation of Lewis Carroll's timeless classic with an original twist. The show will focus on Alice (Sophie Lowe), a girl living in Victorian London who believes in the fantastical world of Wonderland. Doctors deem her insane, and try to cure her of her presumed mental disorder. Yet, Alice knows the world is real, and is taken to Wonderland by the White Rabbit just before the doctors giver her a treatment that would wipe her memory clean.
Viewers are then brought into the Wonderland world, complete with the White Rabbit, (voiced by John Lithgow), the hookah-smoking caterpillar (voiced by Roger Daltrey) and the Red Queen (Emma Rigby). Everything isn't like the original, however--viewers will see a character or two from the famous Arabian fairytale "Aladdin" thrown into the mix. One of main arcs in the show is the love story between Alice and the genie.
Crowds at Comic-Con and the Television Critics Association summer press tour were treated to a glimpse of what is in store for the 13-episode season. According to the Hollywood Reporter, attendees of Comic-Con saw a 20-minute presentation of the first half of the new series' premiere.
The first episode sees Alice breaking out of the asylum to which her dad had her committed. While breaking out, Alice says, "We're going to actually go [back] into Wonderland."
Edward Kitsis, one of the show's creators, shared who viewers will meet in Wonderland while at the TCA press tour. "You are going to meet Jafar (played by "Lost's" Naveen Andrews), get more of the Red Queen and get more a sense of that world."
Kitsis and co-creator Adam Horowitz described the series as a "psychedelic romance."
"It is trippy. It is weird. It is intense," Kitsis said.
According to TV Line, the sneak peak at the TCA event also revealed that Barbara Hershey is planned to reprise her "Once" role as the Queen of Hearts in flashbacks. The Red Queen will have an "uneasy alliance" with Jafar, the famous villan from the Arabian tale. Both characters work to keep Alice from reuniting with the genie, Cyrus (Peter Gadiot).
Kitsis and Horowitz said that Jafar will certainly be a villain, as he is in "Aladdin," but he will also have more of a human side.
"First off, like any character we introduce, we approach it from [asking] how do we humanize [the character], what's the way to make it real relatable and grounded, and then we find an awesome actor," Horowitz said.
"We wrote this part for [Andrews]," Kitsis said. "We knew we wanted Jafar, we knew we wanted Naveen. Similar to what we do with Once Upon a Time, no villain is just born evil, they're made evil. For us, that is the story of Jafar, the story of what is driving him to need this power. With Naveen, we know he can break your neck with legs - as we saw in 'Lost' - but he can also make you cry."
"It's about two big things," Horowitz added. "What does he want? And how did he get the way he is in order to want that thing?"
Yet, the showrunners added that Jafar's famous squawking parrot, Iago, will be left out of the series.
The creators also said that "Wonderland" will have a connection to its fantasy-series predecessor, "Once Upon a Time." The characters will have ties to the fairytale characters trapped in Storybrooke, Maine. The showrunners explained how that is possible. "This show exists concurrently in the 'Once' universe," Horowitz said. "It's not historical Victorian England; it's fictional Victorian England," Horowitz said. As in "Once," the storybook lands are removed from time as we know it.
Some hints were also revealed about the new season that are prompting a flurry of fan speculation.
It was hinted that the creators are thinking about adding the vicious Jabberwock creature from the original "Alice in Wonderland" tale. The showrunners have said that if the show is succesful, they hope to have another fantasy story told with the same cast members.
The premiere of "Once Upon a Time in Wonderland" on October 10 at 8 p.m. on ABC.
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