Bookish TV: Babies and Bees - Reviews of Grimm and Once Upon a Time

Title: Grimm
Airs: Fridays at 9 on NBC
Stars: David Giuntoli, Russell Hornsby, Silas Weir Mitchell

"Beeware" (first aired November 11, 2011)

Plot: After a flash mob results in the gruesome death of a Portland lawyer, Nick and Hank find themselves engaged in an investigation involving bees, corporate intrigue, and an old enemy. Soon, Nick discovers that he may be in more danger than he realized.

Review: I'm not quite sure how NBC decides on which scenes to show in the previews for the next episode of Grimm, but there were several scenes in Friday's episode that had been used as previews for episode two, which makes me insanely confused. But this is supposed to be a review of an episode, not of NBC's practices, so whatever.

"Beeware," the latest episode of NBC's new series, is loosely inspired by "The Queen Bee," a Brothers Grimm tale that I had no idea existed until I was writing this review and was trying to figure out what was up with all the bees. I have an irrational fear of bugs in general, but bees are up at the top of the list of bugs that make me cringe. Anyway, a woman ends up dead after a flash mob does the "YMCA" on a city bus and the cause of death is an overdose of bee venom. Nick and Hank are sent to investigate and find a connection between the woman's law firm and an abandoned paper mill. Nick also discovers that two members of the flash mob aren't what they seem to be; they are, in fact, melafers, or bee-people. I won't give the rest of the episode away, but basically they're involved in a plot that Nick uncovers and that involves the hexenbeast that tried to kill his aunt in the first episode.

All in all, I'd say that this wasn't a bad episode. It was suspenseful and had some great Eddie Monroe moments (I'm not ashamed to admit that he's one of the main reasons why I watch the show) and the hints at a dark and dangerous future for Nick had me dying to see the next episode. There was some great tension between Nick and his boss, the nefarious Captain Renard (which means "fox" in French and will probably have some significance later on in the series), that made me wonder how Nick can't see that his boss is part of some sort of shadowy organization, but Nick's still kind of wet behind the ears in the Grimm-ing department, so I'll forgive him for that.

One thing that I'm still finding hard to believe is that three episodes in there still hasn't been much character development where Nick is concerned. I think that it's great that they've combined fantasy with a cop drama and created something new, but I want to care about the main character. His thinly-veiled anger at the hexenbeast was a good step in the right direction, but he could use more of a personality. I also hope that the show starts giving Hank and Eddie more to do than just whatever Nick asks of them. It's like he has two sidekicks (both of whom are more interesting than he is) and he just interchanges them when he has need of their skills.

I feel like the first two episodes were better, but "Beeware" wasn't terrible and it helped to introduce whatever's lurking around the corner for Nick in the next few weeks. I'm looking forward to more of this show, but I'm hoping that eventually I come to see Nick as more than just a pretty-boy cop.

Title: Once Upon a Time
Airs: Sundays at 8 on ABC
Stars: Ginnifer Goodwin, Jennifer Morrison, Lana Parilla

"The Price of Gold" (first aired November 13, 2011)

Plot: When a young pregnant girl assaults Mr. Gold and tries to flee town, he comes to Emma for help in locating her in order to make sure that she keeps up her end of a deal the two of them made. But when Emma discovers the truth about their deal, she cares more about finding and helping the girl than about anything else. In fairy land, Cinderella makes a deal with Rumpelstiltskin that she'll come to regret and we find out just how he ended up in that prison in the first place.

Review: I wanted to like Grimm more than Once Upon a Time (although I have no idea why), but this show has far surpassed it in my mind. The characters are multi-faceted and interesting, the plots are well-paced and relevant, and the structure of the show (the switching between stories and the playing around with time) is unique and fun. This has quickly become my new favorite show and "The Price of Gold" is a good example of why.

Introducing the new character of Cinderella, "The Price of Gold" also delves more deeply into Rumpelstiltskin's past and Mr. Gold's present. I've gushed about Robert Carlyle on here enough that it won't come as a surprise that these two have become my favorite characters on the show, but even without them, this would have been a great episode.

Changing the story of the girl who wore glass slippers and modernizing it to deal with the difficult and often controversial issues of teen pregnancy and single motherhood, Once Upon a Time has given new life to a tale that I always felt taught the regrettable lesson that all a girl needs to be happy is be pretty and find a man to marry. It builds on the show's already strong female cast and allows Emma's character a chance to grow (something Grimm hasn't yet managed to do with it's main character).

The show is visually beautiful and "The Price of Gold" was no exception. The costumes, sets, and scenery are so well-chosen and they're used to enhance an already great show. All the pretty sets and fun lighting in the world couldn't save a bad show, but Once Upon a Time has a great writing staff and a great cast that has really grown into their characters over the last few episodes. Gone is the poor acting from the first episode as well as the poor dialogue. Everything about the show has improved tenfold in the last few weeks and I can only assume it will get better as time goes on.

I loved how they combined the stories of Cinderella and Rumpelstiltskin and I also really liked her friendship with Snow White. In the real world (Storybrooke), Cinderella becomes just another statistic, a marked difference from her life as a princess and a stark reminder of the dangers of glamorizing the life of privilege portrayed in the stories of our youth. Emma's strength, which is derived from her past as an orphan and a teen mother, as well as from her life as a bail-bondsperson, makes her reaction to Ashley's predicament more genuine and poignant and, ultimately, more satisfying to watch.

This was such a good episode, perhaps their best yet, and it has given me even more incentive to continue watching.

-Gabe

Worlds Apart: Reviews of Once Upon a Time ("Pilot," "The Thing You Love Most," "Snow Falls")

Title: Once Upon a Time
Airs: Sundays at 8 on ABC
Starring: Ginnifer Goodwin, Jennifer Morrison, Lana Parilla

The other day I reviewed the new NBC show Grimm. I had mentioned that the reason I watched it in the first place was because I had heard that Robert Carlyle was going to be in a show about fairy tales and that I had thought it was that one. When I finally got around to looking it up on IMDb, I realized that it was the wrong show, but by that time, I was already addicted to it. I've just now gotten around to watching the show he's actually on, ABC's Once Upon a Time, and, despite an initial reaction of "Eh...it's not that great," I've come to like this show as well.

Here's my thoughts on the first three episodes of Once Upon a Time.

Warning: Possible spoilers ahead.

"Pilot" (first aired October 23, 2011)

Plot: Emma Swan gets a surprise visitor on her 28th birthday--the son she gave up for adoption ten years ago.  He convinces her to drive him from Boston to his home in Storybrooke, Maine, which he swears is under a curse that has left the town frozen in time. The culprit? His adoptive mother, the mayor. The curse has supposedly wiped clean the memories of everyone in town, who once lived in a magical land as characters we know from fairy tales. Now they are stuck in our world as punishment for what the evil queen feels was done to her by Snow White. Emma is, understandably, confused, but feels somehow drawn to the town and so decides to stay. But only for a week.

Review: The episode begins with a flashback to the fairy land that the characters used to live in and the first thing I thought was "My god, the acting is horrible." When things went into the "real world," however, I couldn't help but notice that the actors were actually pretty good. I got sucked into the plot fairly early on and began to enjoy myself. Still, the writing seemed somewhat..."iffy," I guess is the word I'm looking for.

The idea behind the show is interesting and Jennifer Morrison really brings everything together. She's a strong character, a good actress, and, unlike Nick Burkhardt in Grimm, she's someone that you're instantly drawn to. Maybe it's because she proves herself to be a pretty kick-ass woman within the first few minutes of being on-screen. Or maybe she's just a better-written character. Either way, she's one of the main reasons why I decided to continue watching the other episodes.

There are other reasons, though. Her son, Henry (played by Jared Gilmore), is a precocious kid who's fun to watch and both Goodwin and Parilla are much better actresses when they're in the "real world" than when they're in fairy land. The costumes are gorgeous and the special effects are decidedly better than those on Grimm, although they're still not on the cutting edge or anything (which I actually don't mind). I also found that these characters are really fleshed out and I was glad to see that even in the first episode we get a taste of who many of them are.

My reason for watching the show in the first place, Carlyle's Rumpelstiltskin, only shows up briefly in this episode, but it's a side of him that I've never seen before (and I've watched a lot of his work). He's creepy, cackle-ly, and vile--and absolutely amazing. It took me a few moments to get used to seeing him in all that make-up but I soon almost forgot that it was him. He becomes Rumpelstiltskin so well that you stop seeing the actor and just start seeing the character, which is what an actor is supposed to do, really.

All-in-all, I really liked this show, even if the first episode was a little...eh. The second one, however, was what really got me into Once Upon a Time.

"The Thing You Love Most" (first aired October 30, 2011)

Plot: Emma has decided to stay in Storybrooke, which angers Henry's mother, Regina, enough to threaten her. Soon the threats turn to action and both women find themselves locked in a battle of wits that may hurt Henry more than it could hurt either of them. In fairy land, the evil Queen must make a difficult choice: lose the thing she loves most or lose her chance at getting back at Snow White and, perhaps, at being happy? Plus, Regina discovers that someone else in town may know about the curse...and that this information could cost her.

Review: "The Thing You Love Most" was scores better than the pilot episode, especially when it came to the acting in fairy land. The actors seem to have settled in to their characters more and there's less melodramatic (crappy) acting all around.

The plot was fast-paced and it helped to move both the story and the characters forward. I love serialized shows, especially when they allow their characters to grow right from the start. Some shows start out kind of slow and then pick up later, but I found that, while that was true of the first episode, the second basically exploded out into a paradoxically vibrant and shadowy future.

I'm looking forward to seeing where all of this leads, especially where it takes Emma and Regina. They are both really great characters and aren't your typical female heroine/villain duo. It's so nice to see a fantasy show where none of the women are constantly bursting out of their costumes and where they spend more time doing things than sitting around whining. You know what I'm talking about, so don't deny it. Where Grimm seems to have stronger secondary characters than it has a strong main character, Once Upon a Time has strong characters to go around.

At this point, I can't say that I like either show over the other. There's a lot to like about both, although I think that Grimm has a stronger writing staff. Some of the writing in Once Upon a Time is still a little weak, but the plots seem to be pretty good and the switching between both worlds creates a unique dynamic that allows for more character development.

"Snow Falls" (first aired November 6, 2011)

Plot: Henry is convinced that the John Doe lying in the hospital that Mary Margaret volunteers at is Prince Charming and that she is his Snow White. He also thinks that hearing their story will wake the John Doe up. Emma, hoping to dissuade Henry from believing something so outlandish, convinces Mary Margaret to read the story of Snow White and Prince Charming to him, thereby proving to Henry that the curse isn't real. Except...it works. John Doe wakes up and goes missing, leaving Emma, Mary Margaret, and Sheriff Graham to go look for him. In fairy land, we discover how Snow White first met her prince...and it isn't what you'd think.

Review: With each passing episode this show gets better. I've now seen all three of them and I am very impressed with Once Upon a Time. The writing and the acting has gotten progressively better since the first episode and I've already come to really care about these characters. As unreal as the world they live in is, they themselves are very deep and realistic characters with hopes, dreams, and fears.

One thing that I have to wonder about, however, is what happened to Mary Margaret? In fairy land as Snow White she was a very strong woman who could take care of herself. She was feisty and fun and it seems that she's become a shadow of the person she used to be. Obviously, that's part of the curse that was put on Storybrooke, but I can't help thinking that perhaps it has to do with the fact that she doesn't have her prince in her life. I'd hate to think that her personality changed simply because of a man, even if it was the one she loved. I tend to be fairly critical of female characters, mostly because they're usually written as bland and obsessed with finding a man. None of the women in this show have given me that vibe yet, but Mary Margaret is inching towards it, which would be regrettable.

A big highlight of this episode was guest star David Anders as Dr. Whale (what the hell is up with that name, by the way?). I enjoyed his work in Alias and Heroes and I hope that his character isn't a one time thing. It's always weird, however, for me to hear him with his normal American accent because he plays British characters so well.

I like the fact that this show is playing around with time. While the Storybrooke narrative takes place in the current day and age, everything that happened in fairy land occurred in the past and the writers are using that to their advantage. They build the characters on multiple levels, which gives them greater depth and makes them far more interesting.

I've decided that I really like this show and will continue to watch it. Which brings me to a grand total of two shows that I'll sit myself in front of a TV for.

Expect a weekly review of both Once Upon a Time and Grimm, probably in the same post. I'll have some sort of rating system put together in the next few weeks, so I'll eventually be able to give the episodes grades. Regardless, both shows come highly recommended from me.

-Gabe

Red Riding Hood and Goldilocks Walk into a Bar: Reviews of Grimm ("Pilot" and "Bears Will Be Bears")

Title: Grimm
Airs: Fridays at 9 on NBC
Starring: David Giuntoli, Russell Hornsby, Silas Weir Mitchell

Contrary to what you might believe given the post I wrote back in March about some of my favorite shows, I don't actually watch television much. Or, really, at all. There are some shows that I got into while they were on television (the now-gone Alias, Jericho, and Stargate Universe and the still-running Big Bang Theory), but normally the shows that I get into are already cancelled and I just watch them on DVD (Battlestar Galactica, Stargate SG-1, Stargate Atlantis, The 4400). It saves me the trouble of having to wait a full week to see the next episode and, more importantly, it ensures that I don't have to be bombarded by mind-numbing and increasingly idiotic advertisements. I'm really picky when it comes to which shows I'll even give half a chance to and, as you can probably tell, the ones I end up liking tend to be sci-fi related.

When I heard that Robert Carlyle (The Fully Monty, Trainspotting, Stargate Universe) was going to be in a new television show I was curious to see what it would be like. I'm a huge fan of his work and I had heard that it was a fairy-tale related show, which piqued my interest. So, when someone mentioned that the show Grimm was going to be debuting the Friday before Halloween, I thought, "Hey, that must be the show, right?" It wasn't. Turns out that he's on ABC's Once Upon A Time, which I didn't realize until after I watched the second episode of Grimm. While I haven't seen the ABC take on fairy tales yet, I got hooked on NBC's within the first half of Grimm's pilot episode.

Given that this is a book blog and Grimm is a bookish television show, I've decided that I'll be reviewing the show on a weekly basis. It may not get posted the next day but it'll generally be sometime before the next episode airs. Today, you get a two-for-one deal because I didn't think about it until I was rewatching the episodes on Sunday night (thank you, NBC.com!).

Without further ado, here's my thoughts on the first two episodes of Grimm.

Warning: possible spoilers ahead.

"Pilot" (first aired October 28, 2011)

Plot: On the same day that his Aunt Marie (Kate Burton) comes for an unexpected visit, Nick Burkhardt (David Giuntoli) starts seeing people in a whole new light--literally. He's one of the last of the Grimm family and it's his gift (or curse) to see the creatures that haunt the folk tales and fairy stories of old. The brutal murder of a college student and the disappearance of a little girl (both wearing red hoodies) lead him to Eddie Monroe (Silas Weir Mitchell), a big bad wolf who's not so big and bad. Nick and Eddie work together to try and find the killer before he claims his next victim.

Review: I had gotten sick of police shows a long time ago. It doesn't matter if they get dressed up with fancy lighting or glitzy locales, they're all basically the same show rehashed over and over again. Grimm is nothing like these shows. It's not just that the criminals are supernatural beings; Grimm is a serial rather than a procedural and it has interesting characters and a good sense of humor in addition to its creepy atmosphere and fun twists on old stories.

This retelling of "Little Red Riding Hood" used its material well while still doing something new and fun. The juxtaposition of an age-old tale in a modern world reminds me a lot of The 10th Kingdom (a mini-series that was on NBC over a decade ago) but it's a lot scarier and a lot grittier. The episode started with a murder and continued to get more intense from there. The pace was good, with no real lulls in the action, and with an interesting way of using exposition. In the scene where Marie first starts to tell Nick about his family they get attacked by a creature called a Reaper. Definitely preferable to people just sitting around talking.

The characters, though, were what brought me back in front of the TV the next week, especially Mitchell's character, Eddie. Afterward, I had a short discussion on Twitter with someone who had said that the humor was a bit much for a show like Grimm and could be toned down, but I disagree. I think the humor, especially Eddie's, is what really sets this show apart from other cop shows, where everyone's so depressed and no one smiles. The partnership between Nick and Hank (Hornsby) is also fun to watch, although it's pretty similar to other cop partnerships out there. I much prefer the begrudging friendship that develops between Nick and Eddie. Eddie's reluctance to help Nick stems from the fact that his parents used to tell him stories about the Grimms and they "scared the hell" out of him and because (as we find out in the second episode) his family has a history of run-ins with the Grimms that never ended well. They're both fish out of water, really, and I like the idea of watching these characters develop as the season goes on.

I can't really find anything major to complain about for this episode. While the special effects aren't spectacular, they aren't horribly bad either, and everything else worked really well. The writing was good, the acting was good, and the story was engaging. I don't have a rating system for films or television shows worked out just yet, but the pilot episode of Grimm would most likely get the top grade.

_______

"Bears Will Be Bears" (first aired November 4, 2011)

Plot: A young couple, Gilda and Rocky, break into the home of an affluent family only to get more than they bargained for when Rocky gets attacked and Gilda barely gets away. Nick and Hank search for him while Eddie gets stuck standing guard over Nick's dying aunt--a woman whose family has a history of killing Eddie's  ancestors.

Review: Each episode of Grimm starts out with a quote that helps the audience guess which story will be incorporated into the plot that evening. This time it was "Goldilocks and the Three Bears" and it was just as interesting a retelling as the first episode's version of "Red Riding Hood" had been. The regular characters from last week were back but they were joined by not only Gilda and Rocky but by the Rabe family...who aren't all that they seem.

This episode was great but I liked it better the second time around than I did the first. A lot of people who were talking about it on Twitter afterwards said that it was even better than the pilot, but I needed a rewatch to fully appreciate it, I think. There was a lot that went into "Bears Will Be Bears," which continued the thread of last week's episode while introducing a new case into the mix. Much like a lot of the other shows that I've loved, Grimm isn't episodic, which I like because I feel serialized shows are able to get more in-depth and are more likely to draw you in the following week because of a cliff-hanger or some other hook. This episode ended with one just like the first did and I'm already anxious to see Friday's episode.

I like Nick's character, but he's sort of a blank slate. We don't know a whole lot about him just yet (or his, to me, suspicious girlfriend), so I'm looking forward to being able to fill in the gaps. We find out a little more about Eddie and a little more about Hank, both of whom have become my two favorite characters (in that order). If they'd just build Nick up a bit more than these two he could be a really strong character but so far I think he pales in comparison to them...even though the show is about him.

Again, the special effects aren't fantastic, but I'm okay with that. I don't need the best CGI to enjoy something. If you compare, say, the original Star Wars trilogy to the crappy new Star Wars films, the originals were so much better because they focused more on creating amazing characters and exciting plots than they did creating a bunch of awe-inspiring special effects. I would take compelling show over technologically-advanced show any day.

And Grimm is compelling. You're always wondering what will happen next and very often you're surprised by what you find. Even though I swore I would never get addicted to a TV show again, Grimm has become my once-a-week fix. All it really needs is to develop the main character more and to keep Eddie's humor at its current level. I could tell that the second episode had toned him down a bit and, while I'm okay with that, any more toned down and he won't be the character I've already grown attached to.

Again, I don't have a rating system figured out yet (it's coming), but if I did, "Bears Will Be Bears" would be pretty high up the scale.

For those who haven't watched the show but are curious about it, you can watch the first two episodes on NBC's Grimm site. It's enough of a miracle that I'm watching a television show, but that I'm this enthralled with it means they've gotta be doing something right.

-Gabe