Saturday, November 05, 2011

grimm thoughts

The face of tv this year? I can only hope...
So on the one hand, I'm thrilled that fairy tales are once again the hit parade in pop culture. And that it's obvious to fairy-tale tv location scouts that the Pacific Northwest is the perfect place (outside of the Black Forest) in which to film a series based on the characters conjured in the Brothers Grimm.

But I have to admit, I'm not 100% sold on this new series, and I'm trying to figure out why. Let's start with the elements that are working well IMHO:

Nice special effects--the shape-shifting faces that only the "insiders" can see.
Setting--as previously mentioned: towering firs, ferns, gingerbready houses--the lush, dark environs surrounding our fair city.
Conceit--here's where I'm a little less convinced, but on the whole, I think it's pretty clever to evoke a sort of "ancestry" wherein a descendant of the Brothers Grimm is faced with saving the world from the descendants of the monsters in the fairy tales. I even really like the "Big Bad Wolf" storyline, featuring the reformed (or recovering) villain, played by Silas Mitchell--who promises to be an ongoing comedy-relief aspect of the show.

But what annoys me about the series (and TV generally) comes down to, well, the writing. Our hero, Nick (David Giuntoli), is, well, to be blunt, kind of a pussy. Now, Giuntoli is sorta cute in that Ken doll way, and for younger gals he probably even holds a little sex appeal, but with lines like last night's deathbed: "You can't die, you're all I have," I can't help but say, Really? That's all you got?

By all accounts though, it seems that fairy tales are this year's tv viewer obsession (have not yet watched ABC's Once Upon a Time, but I'd better get on the stick!). And having just completed my own fairy tale book, I'd be foolish to be anything other than thrilled.

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