I started watching the show Grimm for reasons I don’t remember. I think I was really bored one night and went on Hulu and saw it and thought, okay, I’ll watch that.
The show is ridiculous.
The show is based around the Mother Goose and Grimm fairy tales. The show revolves around detective Nick Burkhardt who finds out through his creepy dying aunt that he is a descendant of the Grimms, a family who has been fighting the villains of fairy tales for centuries. Yes, in this show, all those stories are true. Obviously this is a shock and a very strange thing to learn about yourself. As soon as his aunt dies, he inherits her “powers” to see the villains in the everyday people he encounters. You see, the bad guys live amongst us and are basically shape shifters. To us normal folk, they look like regular people, but when their emotions run high, to a Grimm, they can see their true features. Sometimes they’re wolves or mice or snakes or bees or bears or whatever other animal the writers can think of.
So already the show is kind of ridiculous.
But it’s fantasy and so you go with it. It’s kind of intriguing.
But it’s not.
But I keep watching.
The acting is so terrible. It reminds me very much of Prison Break. It doesn’t help that the Big Bad Wolf is played by Silas Weir Mitchell who was one of my favorite characters in Prison Break. This Big Bad Wolf is a good guy though. He’s reformed. He ends up helping Burkhardt solve the crimes committed in this town by these fairy tale monsters, which is apparently all the crimes.
Of course, being that this show is about what it is about, the bad guys this detective is up against are always going to turn out to be the fairy tale monsters. I mean, if they didn’t, it would just be another cop show. And knowing this, I should just go with that and not roll my eyes every time someone’s face shape shifts into some creature. But it just seems a little far fetched that every bad guy is a strange creature and it’s also seems completely unfair that as soon as Burkhardt sees them change, he automatically knows they are guilty and works around the system to bust them. I mean, isn’t that kind of racial profiling? Just because someone can turn into a bear doesn’t mean they are murderers - although, that seems to be the case with this show.
And I know that, as a television show, they are only showing us the cases he works on that involve the creatures, and I’m sure – day to day – he experiences regular crimes committed by regular people and the writers don’t show us this for the same reason they don’t show people going to the bathroom – it’s not part of the story they are telling.
Still, every episode begins with a crime being committed. Burkhardt and his partner Hank, who is there only to state the obvious and make really inappropriate jokes and Sgt. Wu (also formerly of Prison Break) who is always the first guy on the scene and also makes really inappropriate jokes about dead people, show up and investigate what is usually a pretty basic case of murder. As a viewer, you just sit and wait for him to find the first suspect who will inevitably shape shift into something else and Burkhardt will get this strange look on his face and then he’ll do everything he can to find a way to show that the suspect is guilty without giving away the fairy tale background of the whole situation.
It’s ridiculous.
But I keep watching.
It’s now become something I watch when I am super bored, usually a Sunday night when I am trying to unwind before having to go back to work on Monday. It is pretty gruesome, though, and since I’m easily grossed out, it can make for a rough night of sleep afterwards.
If you’re not watching it, don’t start. It’s really not worth it.
But if you are really desperate for something to watch some night, I guess I would say go for it. You will be disappointed, yet, somehow entertained.
1 comment:
'Grimm' is actually one of the VERY few non-premium cable, network shows I watch. I'm pretty hard to satisfy when it comes to movies, television dramas and sitcoms. I learned in the last few years to stop taking tv shows too seriously, and to have fun watching them and to go with "it."
'Grimm' is a fun show imho. One of the main things I enjoy about the show is that it is a serial drama, which is hard to find on network shows anymore. I like that besides the "monster of the week" storytelling, there is also a larger arc that evolves week after week, season after season.
I myself also enjoy the mythology of the whole story also.
As far as the acting and writing....I don't really think it's too bad myself, considering most network shows are written and geared towards the lowest common denominator "getting it" and being able to "follow it" week by week.
Anyway, I think you were too harsh in your initial judgment of it, and should give it another look now that they are into their fourth season.
BTW, I agree with your accessment of Sgt. Wu. He's always the first uniformed cop on the scene, or answering the phone at the precinct, transporting prisoners, doing research for the detectives, etc, etc, ect. I don't know if it's supposed to be an inside joke or evidence of lazy writing? Just strikes me as kinda weird though.
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