ABC’s “Once Upon a Time” has announced plans to release a musical episode after the series returns in March.
Little is currently known about the upcoming episode
The musical episode was officially confirmed by the show's executive producers Adam Horowitz and Edward Kitsis at the international SCAD TVfest. Most information concerning the episode has been kept under-wraps, although it will likely air sometime in the spring.
Many of the actors employed on the show have musical backgrounds, such as Jennifer Morrison, Josh Dallas, and Ginnifer Goodwin. Added to that, fans reportedly asked the show-runners about a possible musical episode in an event from May 2016.
The premise of the ABC series involves the wicked stepmother from the “Snow White” story, Regina, played by Lana Parilla, cursing fictional characters to live in the real world, making it similar in content to Vertigo Comics’ “Fables” series. The idea of focusing on fairy tale characters was somewhat dropped in later seasons, which instead took on characters from classic literature, such as the Wicked Witch of the West from “The Wonderful Wizard of Oz” to Mr.
Hyde, in addition to original Disney characters, such as the casts of "Brave" and "Frozen."
What other shows have put on musical episodes?
The series is not alone in this endeavor. Other shows with similar upcoming musical episode promotions include “Supergirl” and “The Flash.”
The episode may have likely been inspired by the “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” episode, “Once More, with Feeling,” in which a demon had cursed the town to break out into song to expose deeply seated feelings, with the more sinister motive of causing people to eventually dance themselves to death from exhaustion. Jane Espenson served as a prominent writer on both shows, and the two shows share various other cast and crew. For example, Emma Caulfield, who played Anya on “Buffy,” plays the recurring role of the Blind Witch, the witch from the story of “Hansel and Gretel,” in various episodes in “Once Upon a Time.”