When Does 'Once Upon A Time' Season 5 Start?

Once Upon A Time was renewed for Season 5 by ABC this week, and frankly, that's the best news I've heard in a while. Having watched the series from the very beginning, I've grown to love many of the regular characters (Regina, Rumpel, Hook) and grown to love to hate many others (they're too obvious to mention). Not only that, but I find myself invested in the complicated storytelling web the writers weave week after week, and we have far too much left to resolve — and too much left to discover — to say goodbye to the series just yet. And it looks like we won't have to just yet, or at least not for another year. Whew. {UPDATE: ABC has announced that OUAT will premiere on Sep. 27.]

The two-part finale for OUAT Season 4 hasn't even aired yet — that's this Sunday, if you hadn't already marked your calendars — so it's hard to speculate too much on what Season 5 might have in store, since we don't know what major catastrophe "Operation Mongoose" will leave us to contend with when the series resumes in the fall. After all, we've only just introduced Maleficent's daughter Lily, and given her misplaced darkness and Gold's desire to bring out Emma's, something tells me we're in for some major drama in that arena.

Then there's all the complication surrounding the Author, who's now working with Gold again after Regina failed to make him write — a task which is, after all, his entire purpose of being. While Regina believes she can have her happy ending with Robin Hood now that she's stopped standing in her own way and made a tenuous peace with her pregnant sister Zelena (who, if you recall, is actually the Wicked Witch), I think we all know that can never happen. And while Gold believes the Author can save him from succumbing to the blackness of his dark deeds and losing any semblance of Rumpelstiltskin (i.e. goodness), that's likely to go anything but smoothly, as well.

With all of that still up in the air, it probably seems a bit silly to be looking forward to Season 5 just yet because we don't want to get ahead of ourselves. Of course, that hasn't stopped fans from already speculating on which new characters and storylines they think will be introduced come fall. And yeah, it's exciting to think of all the new fairy tale favorites that could pop up in Storybrooke, I personally am more worried about a resolution of the plots that are still happening, first. The Season 4 finale is likely to tie up some of these loose ends, just as it loosens as many more knots to keep us all on tenterhooks for the next several months.

We may not now what Once Upon A Time Season 5 holds in store just yet, but at least we know it's happening, and that counts for something, right? We've just gotta hang on — it's going to be a long, long summer.

Images: ABC (2); Giphy (1)