Grimm: Three Weeks In – Dork Review

A few weeks ago, I did a preview piece on Grimm, the beast-crunching US show that tries to marry a combination of fairytales, Buffy The Vampire Slayer and daytime police drama together to produce some monstrous hybrid.

So, now that we’ve all seen the first three episodes, how are they doing? Have they added the darkness or humour that I hoped?

Reading Books & Ripping Arms

I somewhat laid into the pilot, back then, for being clunky and laden down with exposition, and expressed a hope that future episodes would give us more of a flavour of what the damn series is actually like, rather than having to trudge through Detective Nick’s slow discovery process.

Well, after two “proper” episodes, we’re getting a clearer picture of this world. To be honest, the fairytale stuff is a bit of a red herring – they’re just monsters – but it does give the writers expectations to play with, which lets them bend us one way or another whilst setting up their mysteries.

And, yes, if you wanted a show to teach your kids the Buffy lesson that you beat the monsters by hitting the books and doing research, here it is. Although don’t show Grimm to the younger kids, there’s quite a lot of arm-ripping.

The Good, The Bad And The Plain

So, the good news: the episodes have more shape now. The bad news: it’s still not a desperately interesting shape and, to be honest, this remains a fairly standard police drama that just happens to feature monsters.

Don’t get me wrong, there’s definite competence to it, most of the actors are good enough, some of the mysteries have intriguing resolutions, there’s even some token attempts to seem “modern” with the flashmob stuff in episode three. This is not exactly a “bad” TV show, just a very plain one.

So… yes, fans of standard-issue crime procedurals, especially with supernatural angles welded on, will find something to like in Grimm. Similarly, anyone who really needs their YA monster fix since Buffy finished. For the rest of us, it’s okay if there’s nothing else on.

Nick Bryan

Nick learned to read and write at an early age. This has developed into an unhealthy need to either write stories or consume them for later dissection. He reviews film and TV on Dork Adore and The Digital Fix, lives in London and enjoys a nice white beer.