'Once Upon a Time' season 6 news, spoilers: New season won't be cut in half

When it returns this fall for its sixth season, "Once Upon A Time" will take a detour from its tried and true modus operandi of releasing separate halves of each season. Moving forward, the long-running ABC fairy tale drama will be airing one long 22-episode story, which will certainly have its share of pros and cons.

"Once Upon a Time" creators and executive producers Edward Kitsis and Adam Horowitz were at the recent ATX Television Fest, where they spoke about the upcoming season of the ABC series, as well as their new show "Dead of Summer."

Revealing the new format for "Once Upon a Time," Horowitz said they are "planning a 22-episode story as opposed to breaking it up into two halves this year," as reported by Entertainment Weekly.

"It's been really exciting and fun," he added.

"Once Upon a Time," which takes the fairy tales audiences know and uses the characters in them to populate the fictional town of Storybrooke, has introduced a new fairy tale villain each season and usually has the main characters facing off against the baddies and ultimately prevailing.

During their panel, Horowitz and Kitsis also talked about their plans for "Once Upon a Time" season 6 and how it will be different from the previous five seasons.

"This season is going to be different from past because it's not going to be Hyde comes to town, we fight with him for 10 episodes, and then in the winter finale, he dies and we move on," Kitsis explained, as quoted by Deadline. "We are changing around what we're doing this year and going back to that season 1 mentality of small town stories and smaller arcs."

Fans will have to stay tuned to find out whether or not these new changes will prove beneficial.

"Once Upon a Time" season 6 will return this fall on ABC.