Once Upon a Time First Look: Tiana Is a Princess With a Mission (and Enemies!) 

‘s Mekia Cox makes her debut as Tiana — and TVLine has a first look at her arrival.

In Season 7’s third episode, “The Garden of Forking Paths,” Cox first appears as the

heroine, but the circumstances under which she makes the acquaintance of Henry Mills (played by Andrew J. West), the Evil Queen (Lana Parrilla) and Captain Hook (Colin O’Donoghue) could probably be better.

Fall TV Cast Changes: Leaving & New Actors

“We meet Tiana in a fairy tale realm in turmoil,”

creators Adam Horowitz and Eddy Kitsis tell TVLine. “She’s a princess with a mission — to restore freedom to her people.”

Judging by the photo above, however, Tiana and this season’s new version of Cinderella (

creators. “She’s been through a lot when we meet her, but she never wavers even when doubting oneself would seem to be the most logical, and safe, course of action.

“She has her share of enemies,” they add, “but that goes with the territory when one is fighting for a just cause.”

Cast in July amid a flurry of Season 7 additions (including Ramirez,

‘s Adelaide Kane), Cox was recently promoted from recurring to series regular. Additionally,

‘s Robin Givens is set to guest-star as Tiana’s mother Eudora, a benevolent noblewoman now facing financial disaster.

christens its new time slot, Fridays at 8/7c, on Oct. 6.

, or for any other show? Email InsideLine@tvline.com and your question may be answered via Matt’s Inside Line.

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Did the writers bother watching The Princess and the Frog? Tiana lived in 1920s New Orleans, not some Medieval kingdom, and her mom wasn’t royalty.

Yeah, I was gonna say the same thing. This is absurd. Why make such a radical change?

That said, MAYBE this version of Tiana is based on an alternate version of the Princess & The Frog in which Tiana is royalty in a Medieval kingdom, which seems to be the point of the season, to present alternate versions of well-known fairy tales.

OUAT seems to be implementing the same sort of gimmick seen in The Flash in the form of the multiverse and altered versions of Prankster, Henry Allen, Caitlin Snow, Vibe/Reverb, and others.

It IS disapointing because I was looking forward to a live-action version of Princess & The Frog, with the 1920’s setting and all that entailed.

“The Frog Prince” which “The Princess and the Frog” is taken from was written many years before 1920 by the Brothers Grimm.

But in that version the princess was not portrayed like Tiana was in the animated adaptation. But yeah, this could be just that, using the original and combining it with aspects of the animated movie to portray a different iteration of the same thing, which seems to be the point of the season.

It’s like watching Mirror, Mirror in which Roberts played one version of the Evil Queen, and watching Snow White & The Huntsman in which Theron played another version of the Evil Queen, and watching Snow White: A Tale of Terror, in which Weaver played yet another version of the queen.

That’s what I think this season is doing based on the promos we’ve seen.

That’s sort of what they did with the Frozen arc in season 4, combined the original Snow Queen fairy tale with the Disney version. I’m okay with that.

And yet the description provided bears no resemblance whatsoever to the Grimms version either, other than Tiana being royalty. Pity, they finally had the chance to tell Beauty and the Beast right (both stories are practically the same at its core; Beast was actually a cultured, gentle soul in the original tale), and they blow it. Again.

The movie The Princess and the Frog says it is based on a 2002 book called The Frog Princess by E. D. Baker. That one has a princess with a mother who is queen and the princess turns into a frog when she kisses the frog, just like in the Disney movie. Otherwise, it isn’t in the 1920s or New Orleans and the princess isn’t named Tiana. But if they are going back to the book to borrow more, they can combine the book princess’s fairytale kingdom and royal mom with a feisty, smart girl named Tiana from the movie. Oh, and the frog prince from the original from the Brothers Grimm. Unless they borrowed the idea from a Roman story in Petronius’s Satyricon, in which case all bets are off because none of us knows what was in that one…

And the Beast wasn’t Rumplestilskin, and Tiger Lily wasn’t a fairy, and Prince Charming married Cinderella, not Snow White and the Wicked Witch didn’t live in medieval times either and none of the characters interacted with Rumplestilskin except for the characters from his fairy tale… Should I go on? ;-)

Tiana is loosely based on two princesses: Princess Emma, the heroine of E. D. Baker’s novel The Frog Princess, and the princess from the Brothers Grimm fairy tale “The Frog Prince”, which inspired Baker’s novel.

It sounds like she’s Tiana in name only. I’m not complaining, many of the characters are nothing like their Disney counterparts, but they better prepare for people to complain. The theme of Princess And The Frog was hard work vs leisure and finding the balance. Sounds like this Tiana is a typical OUAT princess who happens to be black.

I will be missing Emma Swan, and Emma/Hook, and Charming Family, #CaptainSwan

Since Mekia Cox is a regular on OUAT where her status in Chicago Med stands due to what happened in the medical show season finale?

I don’t know if ChiMed already started filming since the show was bumped to midseason.

Of course. She must free her people because she’s “black”. Smh why is that????

Then I guess it’s fitting that all the new villains announced so far(Lady Tremaine, Drizella and The Witch) are white, LOL.

Of course make this about her race. How many times has Emma and her family saved “her people” and nobody bitched about her being white. racist idiot.

Another down on her luck feisty princess with enemies who must save her people. OUAT is not rebranding, they are doing the same thing with new characters which would have been fine if it was a whole new story and not some silly continuation with some characters and not others. I hope I’m wrong though

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