Grimm: tv show review from Miss Eliza

Grimm

~ from Miss Eliza

People love Fairy Tales. How else can we explain that they have lasted hundreds and hundreds of years. The building blocks of stories are in those creepy Germanic woods that the Brothers Grimm ventured into to collect their tales. As time goes on, Fairy Tales are spreading into more mediums. From blogs (ah-hem) to movies to television, Fairy Tales are everywhere. Last fall saw the debut of two new series heavily rooted in Fairy within just a week of each other and Halloween, the holiday apex of all things "other." I was excited about both shows, one because it was co-created by one of the people who did Buffy the Vampire Slayer, the other, David Greenwalt shout out, Once Upon a Time, because it called to the princess in me. Sadly, Once Upon a Time put me off right away... I know, I know, I should watch it again, it gets better, don't worry, Misty has kindly berated me, also it has Buffy people as well, but I feel it's too much in the Damon Lindelof wheelhouse of interconnectedness that supposedly has some meaning yet really doesn't. I hated Lost. Yes, it's been years, but I'm still bitter. Bitter, bitter, bitter. I think the best review I read of the new show was that "the real Fairy Tale is in believing that Jennifer Morrison is 28." Ok, maybe I just don't like the show because of my Jennifer Morrison issue, she almost ruined How I Met Your Mother last season! Her husband was so much better, Kyle MacLachlan as The Captain, genius... but I digress... to get back to the shows at hand: Grimm, Grimm has promise.

Grimm is a police procedural that follows a cop, Nick Burkhardt, who finds out he is descended from a line of Grimms, who are supernatural exterminators basically, though he personally doesn't kill every creature he sees, unlike those who came before him. Very soon you realize that all of Portland's crime has to be committed by creatures with weird Germanic sounding names. Yes, it's a bit cheesy. I mean, I don't think Nick has run across a normal criminal since he inherited his "gift." Also, his trailer. I should never forget to mention his airstream trailer of baddie hunting gear that he doesn't logically keep in his garage, but at a storage place across town. His superior is a baddie of some sort, not sure what kind because the mythology of the show is more than a little muddled, his partner is inept and more than usually hostile, their underling is developing weird Renfield traits like eating paperclips while sashaying about with the paperwork and Nick's fiance is pretty dull and looks about 20 years older than Nick with his Bieber-esque hairdo. The special effects are so bad, you long for the days of cheap prosthetics from Buffy. Yet the show draws you in in spite of, or maybe because of it's cheesey camp.

Silas Weir Mitchell as Monroe

The show doesn't dwell in any happy princess land of pretty castles, the likes of which Disney would have created. Oh no, this is true Grimm. Dark, dank, mossy woods, where death is around every tree. Read the original tales sometime, they are not the stuff of happy endings. The city of Portland helps convey this atmosphere with it's trees and rain. Nothing says supernatural creepy like the dank and dark. Yet it's one of these "creatures" that is what makes the show what it is. Monroe, a Weider Blutbad, aka, Big Bad Wolf... I will admit I have fantasies about the show being just about Monroe. About how we'd follow this quirky wolfie as he repairs clocks and consults with Nick. Nick can stay, but not as the star, he'd be Monroe's sidekick from now on. After all it's Monroe's personal knowledge of this "other" world that has saved Nick's ass on more than one occasion. But, if they decided that even Nick wasn't needed... maybe Monroe just didn't get there in time with his superior knowledge and trendy sweaters because he was at Hot Yoga. The character, as portrayed by Silas Weir Mitchell is just so funny and unique. A Big Bad who's hung up his families evil ways, even admitting that Nick's ancestor killing his grandfather was probably deserved because of his butchering an entire village. Mitchell has been notable in the past for guest spots on My Name is Earl... but I gotta say, he's what makes Grimm work. Give me a little wolfie any day! (And yes, this could be also used to reference Scott Cohen in The 10 Kingdom too).

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You can find Miss Eliza at Strange and Random Happenstance, where she shares her unique take on classics, historicals, steampunkery and generally awesome books.

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