I am lucky enough to be close to someone who works ‘in the biz’ and was recently treated to an advance taste of nbc’s new show GRIMM.
I’m not huge on network television. And while I’ve blogged about the elevation in the quality of writing that goes into all tv – network included – post Soprano’s, I still tend to turn my nose up at network stuff until proven wrong.
Grimm is an interesting idea, and it works. I won’t say all of my reservations that come tied to a network show were quelled by the pilot, but I will say I’m intrigued.
And I’ll watch some more.
The idea is police detective Nick Burckhardt begins seeing some weird stuff – flashes of people’s true faces a la Jacob’s Ladder*- about the same time a case where a college student is literally ripped to pieces while jogging in the woods next to campus falls into his lap. The crime scene suggests an animal attack, but not all the pieces add up…
In true Murphy’s Law** fashion, also at the same time Det. Nick’s dying aunt shows up and drops quite the bomb on him – he’s not like everyone else. His parents didn’t die in an accident they were killed, and of course, old Nick isn’t exactly who he thinks he is.
Or what he thinks he is.
I won’t go into too much more detail, that would take the fun out of things. What I will say, and what is definitely definitely definitely pulling the weight of the PROs column here is the set design.
FREAKIN’ AWESOME!!!
The forests are twisted, knotty and ominous. The cottage the case eventually leads Nick and partner Hank Griffin (well played by Russell Hornsby) to is straight out of Grimm’s Fairytales and even the night time suburban streets where Nick and his Aunt encounter some… problems has just the right amount of uneveness to add to the scene.
With a pretty decent premise and good acting pulled together with the kind of visuals that, so far, are deserving of being mentioned in the same breath as Pushing Up Daisies, Grimm might just be the start of something good.
But then of course that raises the odds of it being canceled up past the 60% margin.
……………….
* But not as freaky as Jacob’s Ladder. There isn’t much that is as freaky as Jacob’s Ladder
**