Once Upon a Time has long touted itself as a TV series about a slew of fairytale characters, but especially once the Frozen characters were introduced, we knew the ABC drama was most interested in bringing Disney characters into a different, live action platform to play with them a little. However, heading into Season 6, the network is going to spin the series in a couple of different directions and show lead Lana Parilla recently revealed that one of those directions might be bringing some major literary characters to life. Here’s what she had to say specifically:
We’re going to see the beginning of the new literary characters that are going to join the show next year.
Lana Parilla was talking to Hollywood Life about the upcoming season of Once Upon A Time, which has already been renewed for Season 6 by ABC. In the finale, Zelena, Hook, David and Snow were introduced to Dr. Jekyll and were pulled into “The Land of Untold Stories” which the Season 5 finale both touched on. Lana Parilla also touched on what is beyond the world of the portal.
They get pulled into this portal and enter this new world that we haven’t seen. They’ll encounter new characters and some new villains. There’s like a patient who’s in an institution and his overbearing warden. Those are just a few characters who are going to appear in season 6 for a period of time.
Once Upon A Time has never shied away from using non-Disney properties when the storyline needed it. The fantasy drama hasn’t only existed to further the Disney brand; it has a cohesive and interesting narrative (at least most of the time) too, and has introduced characters like Victor Frankenstein and even Merlin (who is in The Sword and the Stone but is also known from literature). With the addition of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde at the end of the season, literary characters are clearly going to be more important moving forward.
Production hasn’t started on next fall’s ABC lineup, yet, which means we don't have any specifics regarding which literary characters will be a part of the show in Season 6. However, it will be really interesting to see which characters will make the cut and which don't.
Interestingly, Once Upon A Time isn't the only show bringing literary characters to life. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's Moriarty and The Tempest's Prospero both factored into The Librarian's second season on TNT.
Once Upon A Time will return to ABC's lineup starting next fall. To see what the major networks and streaming services have coming up in the meantime, you can check out our summer TV premiere schedule.
