When 'Once Upon a Time' first started it was highly addictive and made the most of a truly great and creative premise. Really loved the idea of turning familiar fairy tales on their heads and putting own interpretations on them and the show early on clearly had clearly had a ball. Watched it without fail every time it came on and it was often a highlight of the week. Which was why it was sad when it ran out of ideas and lost its magic in the later seasons.
"The Price of Gold" follows on after the very promising, if imperfect (understandably) start set by the previous two episodes and it is showing that the show is getting better and stronger with each episode at this point. It replaces "Snow Falls" as the best episode up to this very early point in Season 1. There is the odd cheesy moment still in the writing, which considering that the first season is always the one where everything usually takes time to settle. "The Price of Gold" is most notable for the development of Rumplestiltskin (always a high point of the show before but even more so now that he is the main focus) and does splendidly in that regard as well as continuing to develop the likes of Emma and Regina.
As to be expected, "The Price of Gold" is a very handsomely mounted episode, with settings and costumes that are both colourful and atmospheric, not too dark or garish and never cookie-cutter. It is photographed beautifully and there were some make-up that suited the characters perfectly and pretty good effects work. The music is haunting, ethereal and cleverly used with a memorable main theme.
Much of the writing is humorous and engaging and the story establishes the concept and intertwines and mirrors the real and fantasy worlds very well. Love the story development of Rumplestiltskin and what was done with him and Cinderella. The characters still maintain interest.
The acting continues to improve all the time. Ginnifer Goodwin is charming and Jennifer Morrison is coming into her own as Emma, while Lana Parilla has lost none of what makes her one of the show's better performers in the first place. Acting honours though go to Robert Carlyle clearly having a whale of a time as Rumplestiltskin.
Overall, great golden episode. 9/10 Bethany Cox