MONDAY'S TV
Eager to capitalize on near-record viewership for the Olympics - even though the Olympic audience and the regular TV-viewing audience are not the same - NBC is starting its fall season early, beginning tonight, and CTV and Global have little choice but to do the same.
And so Grimm, a loosely adapted, updated-to-modern-times retelling of the classic Grimm Brothers' Fairy Tales, returns for a second season of spooky spills, thrills and chills.
The story picks up with Portland police detective Nick Burkhardt (David Giuntoli) facing the sudden return of his mother (guest star Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio), with her promise of more revelations about his family ancestry.
Meanwhile, back at the precinct, Captain Renard (Sasha Roiz) is juggling the job with unexpected family issues, such as the return of his estranged brother (guest star James Frain).
In May's season finale, Burhardt confessed his secret calling to his fiancée Juliette (Bitsie Tulloch), hinting that he's not exactly of this world ("I can see things that other people can't") and warning that both their lives were in immediate danger.
Complications ensued - the biggest complication being that Juliette ended up in a mysteriously induced coma, Sleeping Beauty-like, but with Grimm overtones.
In the season opener, Burkhardt's sidekick Monroe (Silas Weir Mitchell) works tirelessly to revive her, while Burkhardt goes on the run from a shadowy international conspiracy, mom in tow.
Grimm is frightfully silly, despite overheated early reviews likening it to The X-Files or Kolchak: The Night Stalker. Grimm has its moments, though. It spins fairy-tale myths through the prism of a police procedural, and the concept is easy to follow, if not so easy to swallow.
On repeat viewing - Grimm's first season has just been issued on DVD - it's easier to appreciate the craftsmanship and attention to detail, and easy to overlook the wacky stories.
Grimm has a language all its own. On what other TV show, for example, would you learn that a klaustreich is some kind of alley-cat creature? Or how about Dragon's Tongue - the name of a secret organization formed in 1901 with connections to the Japanese Imperial Army that has resurfaced lately with ties to the Yakuza?
For all its flaws - the goofy stories, the pedestrian background music - Grimm has a number of factors working in its favour. The special effects are decent for the most part: They make the implausible seem real, and the scares are delivered with the panache one might expect from a mid-range network TV drama. In the end, things have a way of balancing themselves out.
Grimm is not American Horror Story, not by a long shot. Think of it instead as a mildly entertaining TV diversion for a hot summer's night.
10 p.m., CTV, NBC
