Watched every episode of all seasons.
Think Starsky & Hutch meets Buffy the vampire slayer (just no vampires - anywhere - and Huggy Bear isn't a bear, he's a dog - of some kind).
The format is a Detective can see monster forms of people that no-one else can. Each episode features part of a story arc mixed in with that weeks adventure mystery (which may or may not be linked to the story arc).
So, the negatives first.
The Juliette/Eve character doesn't work. She does, a little, initially. but then she becomes, as a character, quite annoying, for some reason. Then they change her character completely, which is just so weird!
S1 & 2 are pretty good.
Then something starts to go wrong in S3 and bottoms out in S4.
S5 starts to pull it back, S6 gets better, but doesn't get back before S7 kills the franchise.
If I was guessing I would say that the budget was getting tight by S3 and the producers were hoping it would trade from it's initial success.
There are some elements that just don't work and annoy (can a DC3 really fly around half the world?). And they start to get tight on filming budget in S3 as can be seen by the Royal Castle moving to a FX version!!
Also, they do seem to, quite literally, loose the plot! Several times!
The Royals are never properly explained and then they just drop that whole story arc in S6 and do something else.
And what's with the conveyor belt of Royal Princes? Why do they keep changing?!
Finally, the mixture of story arc and episode adventure mystery theme starts to disconnect by S3 and gets really bad in S4. It is possible to skip through the arc linking segments and watch the adventure mystery part without loosing any understanding of that episodes plot!
And then you find that the whole thing is just a little too formulaic - and they know it as they start to joke about it!
But, the positives......
Actually, the whole idea is really quite good.
Lifting Grimms fairy tales and putting them in a modern context.
Some of the episodes are very clever with this. The spin on the 3 little pigs is very clever!
The episodes are each good little adventures and the early episodes where the lead character can't explain what's happening are especially good.
The rocking adventure and thriller of S6 & 7 are different to S1 &2, but really enjoyable.
All in all, I actually really enjoyed watching the program and can recommend - just keep your finger on the fast forward button!
Review of Grimm
