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New is not a word I’d use to describe Grimm, the fairy-tale infused pseudo-procedural that debuted Friday with a disconnected, disjointed episode. The premise of fairy-tale-era beasties hiding in the modern world isn’t the problem, but the execution, from the writing on, is hopelessly messy from the first few moments.
Let me lay some golden eggs on you. Over-saturated color-correction is not “style”, lack of focus is not “brisk pacing”, and above all, plot is not story. Learn the difference, please, before you produce television.
 
Grimm digs into the same landscape mined by Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Supernatural, but where those fan favorites craft stories about our human needs, wants and foibles that just happen to have monsters in them, Grimm promises to parade its own branded version of our cultural heritage – but fails to produce a coherent tale.
The problems are almost too numerous to mention, but the weakest link is the central cop-out-of-water. He’s mostly a blank, excepting his inexplicably too-much-or-nothing emotional intensity. The wit groans where Buffy would zing. For a show on a national network, the brightness and color-correction are noticeably poor – and that’s before considering the choice to make every tree and weed electrically lush green and all the interior lighting a garish crayon-orange.
The serious trouble with Grimm is simply the lack of story. Things happen, sure, but event is not story. The first few minutes find the hero seeing shockingly inhuman faces on normal people and failing to react in any way - as if he’s numb to something that the show tells us must be brand new to him. Also making its debut in the first few moments – an engagement ring – which may be the easiest way to explain exactly how Grimm goes wrong: the scene implies our hero is planning to propose that night, but why he doesn’t and how that affects him and his relationship are left completely off-screen.
The only bright spot of the show is the Grimm version of the werewolf. The first scene between the hero and the goofy, good wolf is the closest the script ever comes to the zip and charm that shows like Buffy and Supernatural have in spades. It’s also the only scene that clearly has a story worth a scene – a confused hero needs advice and help from a reluctant ally. The rest of the show skids along as if it’s the Cliff Notes of itself, or worse, as if it’s running scared of its own premise, terrified of taking the time to tell the story it’s pretending to tell.
In the end, the idea of the show may take some flack from audience members who can’t find their way into the show, but the real trouble here isn’t that idea, but how that idea was produced – a mish-mash of half-made moments that presents like a storyboard cut for time – and results in a show that is all color – and no soul.
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