Grimm

[darkemeralds]

I almost blush to admit that I'm enjoying "Grimm", but I'll cop to it (ha ha): a strong parochialism makes me feel I should give second, third, and fourth chances to a show that's not only filmed here in my little town, but set here--which is to say that, unlike Leverage, Grimm goes out of its way to find specifically Portlandy locations, rather than generic city-and-river shots that might, if you squint, pass for Boston.

(Though I hear that Leverage is moving its storyline to Portland next season, so aren't we just the flavor of the month!)

The concept--a special class of humans known as Grimms who can perceive (and presumably do battle with) other special classes of folk who can pass as human but who are the stuff of fairy tales--is pretty fresh, and the actors are solid. The show is shot in some lovely gloomy-light conditions, and the production design is heavy on wood-paneled interiors and rich colors, a nice Portland-meets-Bavaria kind of look that I find appealing. The special effects--human-to-creature-face, swarms of untrainable critters like rats and bees, really gruesome dead bodies--are very good.

What's weird is the writing. The stories are...well, okay. Not bad. There are some great action moments. The overarching storyline is intriguing, with secrets, lies, and backstories aplenty--will Nick's wife find out that he's a Grimm? How long will it take for Angel Monroe to give in to his true nature and start drinking human blood wilding in the woods tearing off people's limbs? Stuff like that. Every episode is leavened with comedy, some of it (like the pig-man coming up out of his mud bath) very funny.

But the dialog. Dear god. It's as if they have two writer's rooms, where the old hands write the stories, then turn them over to the high school interns to put actual words into the characters' mouths. I honestly don't know how the actors manage, but bless 'em, they do their best.

I'll probably keep watching because, besides the hometown connection, Grimm strikes me as having a lot of potential if NBC gives it a chance. Besides, David Giuntoli, the lead, is the next best thing to Sean Maher runnin' around Portland, and that makes me smile.

Comments

[jumpuphigh]

Oooh. Thanks for the review. It's been on my "should I try it?" list for a few weeks now.

[darkemeralds]

It's hard to say--it's wildly uneven--but whether or not you like it, I'll be interested to hear your views. At least the Portland scenery is nice. :D

[jumpuphigh]

I'll keep it on my maybe list a while longer. I'm currently not in need of any more shows but perhaps during one of the down periods, I'll watch a few episodes and check it out. One of the leads was on Craig Ferguson and she amused me so that alone is enough for me to give it a chance.

[silk_knickers]

Your review is spot-on. I've been watching it too, wishing all along that I liked it more than I do. There's so much potential there, but it isn't quite clicking yet. I liked the Pied Piper one and the the Three Little Pigs riff, though, so maybe its starting to find its feet.

[darkemeralds]

Yes! I agree that the Pied Piper and Three Pigs eps showed improvement over the first few. They get some excellent guests--that Hey It's That Guy who played the arson investigator Orson was fantastic, I thought, and the Pied Piper guy did a bang-up job of appearing to play the violin.

In some ways it reminds me of early X-Files--I mean, in that there's a poorly-realized but very interesting central premise being paid for with MOTW episodes, and central actors who are still learning how to be leads. I'll give it a few more chances.

And nice to hear from you!

[donutsweeper]

I've been watching Grimm too, and am rather on the fence about it. It's horribly wooden in places and other bits make no sense, but there's some great parts too... I don't know. For now I'll keep watching it, but I wouldn't be heartbroken if it were canceled either.

[darkemeralds]

Yeah, I'm certainly not fannish about it. The unevenness is just weird for a major network show. Mostly I'm rooting for it because TV shows and movies shooting here bring jobs and make the downtown streets kind of interesting. :D

[sara]

I watched bits of it over C's shoulder earlier this week and basically by the end we'd both decided that if we want to see bits of Oregon on television we get more out of "Oregon Field Guide."

[darkemeralds]

Hee! Well, there is that. But Oregon Field Guide doesn't feature so many picturesque Portland Craftsman house interiors.

[sara]

Nah, for that you want Art Beat.

[darkemeralds]

Ha! Spot on.

[lyr]

I'm quite enjoying Grimm myself. I've always been a sucker for serious takes on fairy tales. I really like it in contrast with the way things were going on SPN, actually; it's good to have a paranormal show that doesn't make me flinch. I like that the answer is not always to kill the non-humans, and that Nick tries deadly force as his last resort. I like that things are usually more complicated than humans=good, not humans=bad. And, of course, I like that I don't immediately know when I see a character of color that I have spotted this week's villain.

[darkemeralds]

Very good points. I agree that they've done well at making the creature-people sympathetic, and at minimizing police violence. Their smartest move was casting Silas Weir Mitchell and giving his character center stage in the pilot episode. From that point forward, we've had insight into the lives of the non-human beings.

Now if they could shape up the scriptwriting interns from the high school...

[ravurian]

So I should give it another chance? I watched the first couple of episodes and then let it slide, though I don't rightly remember why. I think I was already irked by the 'there can be only one (in every eligible family)' idea; and by the fact that heritability goes with seniority in that family (so what if they have a really large and long-lived family? You get an succession of alzheimers-ridden seniors freaking out in nursing homes?) and not in a direct line of descent from parent to child; and then I was irked that the fairy tale creatures - of whom there doesn't seem to be a shortage - didn't just gang together and wipe them out (by which I mean, massacre them, overwhelm them with sheer numbers, rip them apart, and not, for example, enter into long-winded and Machiavellian conspiracies involving becoming their boss). And then I realised that I was trying to work out the logic of the story and was irked at myself. But! I will give the show another shot, because I can occasionally turn off my internal monologue, and I am not always grumpy at everything all of the time, and I trust your instincts :).

I did quite like 'Once Upon A Time', and that's utter tosh, too. Although, I'm many, many episodes behind on that one...

[darkemeralds]

I was marveling at this comment this morning. It occurred to me quite suddenly that my failure to perceive the kind of logical flaws you point out here is related to my lack of sense of direction. I don't know quite how to describe it, but there's a kind of whole-thing awareness--a sense of being confronted with the entire surface of the thing-sphere at once--in both cases.

Penetrating to the parts and connections takes me a very, very long time. I don't easily pick out different instruments in a musical arrangement (it's a whole song), or individual spices in a sauce (it's Sauce, not a set of ingredients) or logical flaws in a narrative.

I suspect the ability to do those things is a key to your prolific story-finding ability, that vast idea factory in your head.

Anyway, everything you say about Grimm is valid, and I'm sure it's all part of my perception that I'm not in the presence of greatness when I watch the show, but it would have taken me studying the damn thing with intent to fic before I'd have seen any of those flaws specifically.

[ravurian]

The thing is, they're all solvable issues, and they don't necessarily need to be resolved so soon in a series, but I do look for indications that the writers are aware of them and may take steps to address them. In, for example, The Fades, I spent much of the second episode with a steadily deepening frown only to find that in the third episode the writers had not only considered most of the things that had made me squint at the TV, but were ready to address them. Not only that, they had extrapolated further and gone deeper, so that answering those questions didn't conclude things entirely, but instead led to more story. I like it when that happens: it feels like a conversation rather than a monologue, like I am being invited to engage with it.

I don't think that this is a failure of perception on your part; not in the slightest. Rather, it's an indication of optimism, which I sort of envy. I'm a critical bugger, lol.

[darkemeralds]

I believe it actually kind of a cognitive limitation, but perhaps that's what optimism is, too.

[darkemeralds]

PS: I wouldn't presume to tell you whether to give it another chance. I'm going to--but again, mostly for the hometown connection rather than from any strong sense that it's actually going to improve much.

[ravurian]

LOL! I was just about to comment to say you didn't give me a yes or no! ruric tells me that it gets better, too, so, on the basis that two out of three of us think it's worth watching more, I shall! Problem solved! :D

[ruric]

I'm quite enjoying Grimm - though yeah - terrifically uneven.

But I am enjoying the Portland locations and the craftsmen houses are lovely *G*

Chris Downey, IIRC, confirmed at Con1 that they will be using Portland as the home base for the Leverage team for next year instead of making it pretend to be Boston. I hope it means we get to see more, as you say, Portland-y locations.

[darkemeralds]

Admitting that it's actually Portland generally means not trying so hard to avoid rain. Which makes me feel a bit sorry for cast and crew shooting on location outdoors. And the non-urban outdoor locations have a strange tendency to look rather like various Stargate planets...

[despina_moon]

Ha! I just started watching it -- a couple of friends really liked it and encouraged me to watch. And I'm hopelessly hooked. It's rough and I'm not loving the acting -- but I'm hopeful the actors will gel before it gets the heave-ho.

[darkemeralds]

I've been surprised at how many people say they're watching it. (Don't know why I should be--I assume NBC has given it a chance because it has some audience...). I don't know if I'd go so far as to call myself "hooked," but I am looking forward to the next ep.

I love your Cthulhu icon.

[writerscramp]

Hee, I had to laugh at your sheepish confession, if only because we're enjoying it, as well, and for the same reasons. Were it not set in Portland, I probably would've dropped it off my list after the first or second episode, but the fact that they really embrace the setting has been enough to make up for its other mediocrities.

It is kind of odd how uneven the writing is. And the acting, frankly. The acting isn't bad, exactly, but I think the lead is stiff (not helped by the dialogue, as you point out) and with the exception of the werewolf guy (well, and occasionally the lead's cop partner), the characters aren't very compelling.

That said, it's fun and fluffy and somewhat entertaining (as long as you check your brain at the door), with some real potential if thing coalesce a little more. And it seems to be doing well enough -- I read not too long ago that it's NBC's #1 new show and regularly beats Fringe (which is unfortunate, since I really like Fringe and would like to see it get another season). They must have some confidence in it since they granted them a full season fairly early on and they tested it out on Thursday night a couple of weeks ago.

[darkemeralds]

It beats Fringe? Wow. I'm kind of stunned by that, since Fringe is actually, you know, good. And all JJ Abrams and everything.

As I mentioned to silk_knickers upthread, Grimm reminds me quite a bit of season 1 X-Files, with the potential, the unpolished acting (both David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson managed to sell deadpan as an acting style), and the sense that a real story arc could open up, given a chance to get past silly MOTW episodes.

Besides the werewolf guy, I think what made me take the show somewhat seriously from the get-go was the compelling character of the dying aunt. Can't say I understood or believed much about the whole random-inheriting-of-Grimmness idea, but her delivery of the Airstream trailer-o-secrets and her subsequent very dark and yet kick-ass death made me think that someone behind the show meant business.

Yeah, I'll give it another chance. But I'd be sorry if it actually kicked Fringe off the air. I LOVE Fringe!

[tehomet]

Thanks for the review. I must give it a try.

[darkemeralds]

I'm always interested in other people's reactions to shows I'm iffy about.