Comic-Con 2012 Live-Blog: ABC's 'Once Upon a Time'

The Season 1 cast of "Once Upon a Time"

Credit: ABC

SAN DIEGO - It's time to get Saturday's (July 14) Comic-Con live-blogging underway. Today, I've got "The Vampire Diaries" and "True Blood" from Ballroom 20, plus a few hours of FOX animation to pick and choose from.

But first, it's one of the few new breakout hits from last season, the fairy tale drama "Once Upon a Time." From the huge ensemble cast, we're scheduled to have Ginnifer Goodwin, Jennifer Morrison,  Lana Parrilla, Josh Dallas, Emilie de Ravin and Meghan Ory on the panel. That means no Robert Carlyle, no Former Bobby Draper and a few other absences. We'll also have series creators Edward Kitsis and Adam Horowitz, who I will endeavor to tell apart.

Click through for the full live-blog...

11:02 a.m. Hmmm... The "Once Upon a Time" title cards this season were all different? Wow. I do NOT pay attention. Apparently Jack and the Beanstalk will be in this season, as will Mulan and Aurora.

11:04 a.m. "Let's bring out the men who invented this world?" ZOMG! The Brothers Grimm are here? Oh. No. It's Kitsis and Horwitz."What you can say is that very early in the season, you're going to see some of these people start to join our group," Kitsis says. "I didn't see a body," Kitsis says when the moderator suggests that Kristen Bauer's Maleficent character was killed off last season, what with Sleeping Beauty arriving.

11:07 a.m. A video starring Paul Scheer as Hart Archer, the founder of the dating site Singlebrooke. We see dating videos for all of the characters on "Once Upon a Time." There's also a talking dog. It's for the DVD, dropping on August 28.

11:09 a.m. Kitsis and Horowitz say we're going to learn Dr. Whale's fairy tale identity early this season.

11:10 a.m. I think Jennifer Morrison is going to The Ball after this. She looks gorgeous, but she's wildly overdressed for this panel. 

11:11 a.m. I like Meghan Ory. I'm glad she's going to be a regular. 

11:11 a.m. Will they do a musical episode? "We  could do a musical episode," Josh Dallas says. "I think we'd like to do a musical, but on ice," Kitsis says.

11:12 a.m. "Everyone says 'go back to,' but we don't know if there's anything to go back to," Horowitz says on whether or not the characters are going to be able to "go back" to Fairy Tale World. "I never could have conceived of the brilliance of the first couple of scripts. But I would say that as an audience member, it's exactly what you would want to see," Goodwin teases.

11:13 a.m. Are characters going to call themselves by their fairy tale names now? Kitsis says that the characters have spent so long in their Maine personas that it's part of them. 

11:14 a.m. Morrison says that she wants to see more about Emma's past and her foster parents, but we won't see that in the first couple episodes. "I'm much more interested in who Henry's father is," Horowitz teases. "We can definitively say that in Season 2, you'll find out the identity of Henry's father," Horowitz says. "I know! I do!" Morrison gloats. "I think people will be very excited to see that storyline play out for sure," Morrison teases, noting that she was told in the pilot process, because it's information that Emma would know. "It was something that I kind of needed to know for my research and backstory," Morrison insists. "It's either someone you've met or haven't," Kitsis says.

11:16 a.m. The showrunners tease that there is some bleed-through between Storybrook and Fairy Tale. "The show this year is not going to change from the one you loved last year," Horowitz promises, saying that there won't be structural changes.

11:17 a.m. "There weren't any stunt doubles. We did it. We kicked each other's a***es," Parrilla says of her fight with Morrison at the end of last season. "We didn't hurt each other. We just hurt ourselves," Morrison says. They weren't the only ones who got bumps and bruises. Goodwin went to the hospital in Episode 3 for a number of stitches and was back at work the same day. Troopers!

11:19 a.m. Lana is asked to do a line-reading of, "I will destroy you... If it is the last thing I do." The audience approves. It's also Lana's birthday tomorrow. So... I guess we're singing "Happy Birthday." I hope Comic-Con paid for the rights. Lana gives a shout-out to her Evil Regals. "They're my gang. My posse," Parrilla says. She communicates with them on Twitter. Apparently the Evil Regals are losing weight this summer and Lana has decided to stop smoking to join them in getting healthy.

11:24 a.m. Goodwin and Dallas recall nervousness filming their final "recognition" scene. They tried coming up with things they could say that would look like "Snow" and "Charming" that they could say so that it wouldn't get out. "Joe" and "Farming," apparently.

11:24 a.m. Will Red turn into a wolf this season? "Isn't that the question?" Orly says. She says that if she became a wolf, Ruby might want to feast on Dr. Whale first. And... Spoiler! Ruby's red streak is just a clip-in. She isn't going to have to dye the streak in before production begins this week.

11:26 a.m. Emilie is asked her first question. How does she keep a straight face around Robert Caryle? "He's probably my most enjoyable co-star to work with in any job I've had," she says. Suck it, Squirrel Baby. She praises the wardrobe department for both her yellow and blue dresses. Kitsis says they were prepared to use "dark magic" to keep Emilie around if her pilot had been picked up. Asked if she could have any of her "Lost" co-stars join her, Emilie says, "I think it would be fun to play with Terry [O'Quinn]."

11:29 a.m. Asked about other Disney characters they might want to have come on, Kitsis and Horowitz say Aladdin and Little Mermaid might be nice. There's a running joke, though, about how Goofy is Henry's father. 

11:29 p.m. Horowitz promises we'll learn more about Bael this season.

11:30 a.m. Are the actors more like their Storybrook characters or their Fairy Tale characters? "I turn into a wolf when it's midnight," Orly says. "I sometimes wish I was more like my character." Parrilla says. "I'm more like Mary Margaret and I wish I was more like Snow," Goodwin says. Parrilla admits, "Children do run from me. So do some adults."

11:32 a.m. Horowitz says Peter Pan was his favorite childhood fairy tale. Kitsis says it was Snow White. Morrison loved Cinderella and Alice in Wonderland. Dallas endorses Pinocchio, because it was the first he saw. Goodwin also says Snow White, who she related to because they're both brunettes. Parrilla's was Hansel and Gretel, because she couldn't eat candy. Orly says it was Little Mermaid or Peter Pan. De Ravin was in to Hitchcock and documentaries about murder when she was a kid, but she remembers liking Pippy Longstocking, who isn't a Disney character or a fairy tale. This leads to a back-and-forth with Kitsis and Horowitz not remember why Pippy Longstocking was special and asking if she could shoot lasers out of her eyes. De Ravin protests, "She could clean the floors!"

11:33 a.m. "We would love to be able to draw from stories from all over the world," Horowitz says, regarding expanding beyond the Disney realm.

11:36 a.m. There are no plans to bring the villains from "Something Wicked This Way Comes" into the series. "Can I have Chucky as a sidekick?" Parrilla requests. "I think his name is Henry," Kitsis says.

11:38 a.m. Last question already? It's from a "Roswell" fan for Emilie. She's kinda scary enthusiastic. She wants to know what "inner beauty" means to her. "[It's] what you put out there and give to people... You can control that and it's really cool.

11:39 a.m. Horowitz takes a second to thank the various writers, starting with Jane Espenson. The writers stand and the actors, led by Jennifer Morrison, stand for the writers. 

11:40 a.m. Horowitz also thanks us for watching. 

11:40 a.m. One last thing... It's a video. Featuring creepy Henry. "Bad things are still happening in Storybrook," Henry says. A dark figure enters the antique store.He breaks into a glass case. And takes... A HOOK! Guess who's coming, folks!

And that's all, folks...

Daniel Fienberg
Executive Editor

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A long-time member of the TCA Board and a longer-time blogger of "American Idol," Dan Fienberg writes about TV, except for when he writes about movies or sometimes writes about the Red Sox. But never music. He would sound stupid talking about music.