MARTHA THOMASES: Grimm – Once Upon a Time
As I wrote a few weeks ago, this is a great time to enjoy non-realistic fiction. Technology has evolved to the point that, even with no budget, people can tell the most fantastic, unimaginable stories without spending millions of dollars.
As an example, there are two different broadcast network television shows this year based on classic fairy tales. They’re very different, appealing, I suspect, to different audiences. Let’s discuss.
NBC’s Grimm is, in my opinion, the better show. It’s premise is that there is a race of people, Grimms, who hunt down supernaturally evil creatures from folklore, like trolls and ogres and giants. The last Grimm is a young married police detective, Nick Burkhardt, played by David Giuntoli (who looks a lot like Brandon Routh). He is helped in his investigations by a charming werewolf, Silas .
As you might expect from that premise, this series owes a lot of its structure to Buffy, the Vampire Slayer. So you won’t be surprised that the producers worked on Buffy show and the spin-off, Angel, as well as movies. The other two producers have experience in comedy.
The show is paced very much a police procedural, with a crime committed at the beginning of the show that must be solved by the end. The only difference is that the criminals are almost all supernatural, and Burkhardt is the only one who knows. There’s also a continuing story about some kind of conspiracy against the Grimms, one that the chief of police seems to be in on. The relationships among the characters seem real, the town seems like a place where people actually live, and the hero is happily married (at least so far), which is refreshing. Too many shows rely on the sexual attraction between two characters and a “will they or won’t they” dynamic to provide suspense.
By contrast, Once Upon a Time is much more of a soap opera, which is appropriate, given that it’s the lead-in for Desperate Housewives. The premise here is that the fairy tale characters have unknowingly left their dimension because of a spell by the Evil Queen, and now live Storybrooke, with no memory of their true identities.
As with Grimm, every week there is a mystery to solve. The sheriff, Emma Stone, is a former bail bondsman who was brought to Storybrooke by her long-lost son, Henry, who was adopted by Regina, the Mayor. As you might expect from that name, Regina is the evil queen.
Appropriate to a series with a queen, Once Upon a Time is campy fun. There are lots of knowing winks to Disney films, and the comic book rack at the drugstore has only Marvel titles. The child psychologist who works with Henry is, in the fairy tale universe, Jiminiy Cricket. Hilariously, his name on our world is Archie.
Best of all, the mysterious Mr. Gold is played by Robert Carlyle, an actor who can do anything. In Trainspotting, he was a scary psychopath. In The Full Monty, he was adorable. He was a Bond villain. He was Hitler. This show doesn’t give him enough to do.
The Evil Queen is always evil. The good guys are always good. The characters are not as complex as those on Grimm. However, half the time, they get to dress up like royalty.
As I said, I think Grimm works better overall. If you can only watch one, choose that. I can’t imagine why you would have to so limit yourself. Maybe that will be next season’s fantasy series.
SATURDAY: Marc Alan Fishman
And lest we foget – ONCE UPON A TIME seems to be at least 60 percent a rip off of Bill Willingham’s superb FABLES from Vertigo, which ABC optioned for a series, passed on, then magically came up with ONCE on their own. Yeah, right.
Correction – Nick isn´t married. He wanted to propose when he found out about his Grimm legacy so he never did it. They just live together. Also, he is “one of the last Grimms”, not the last one.
But otherwise, I agree, Grimm is a better show from these two.
@Ranter1027: Hmm….FABLES was optioned. Then dropped. And ABC came up with ONCE UPON A TIME….
Can Willingham sue?
I gave up on “Once Upon a Time” after the third episode. The pacing was interminably slow (the premiere episode should’ve been a 2-hour event) and the show was giving me the same unpleasant feeling I got from “Carnivale.” With “Carnivale,” each episode had an interesting 5-minute start and the last 10 minutes would be incredibly intriguing enough to get me to watch the next episode; unfortunately, the middle 40-45 minutes was absolutely boring (there might be an occasional WTF moment during that time but ultimately, it was a time waster). Granted, that final 10 minutes always got me to watch the next episode for two seasons. Fortunately, the network cancelled the show at the end of the second season; it kept me from having to do that dirty work myself–the second season finale just ticked me off that much.
With that bad experience still lingering (even after 6 full years), I was in no mood to give “Once Upon a Time” any more time.
“Grimm,” on the other hand, was a show I didn’t expect a lot from and, while the first episode was a bit slow, the pace quickly picked up and I’ve been keeping up with it since.