Supernatural and Grimm - Fantasy TV Reviews

Both of these shows are pretty lame.  We'll start with Supernatural, the two lead actors featured on the left.  I've seen the entire first season of this show, and I was disappointed.  It was sold to me as kind of an X-Files update, but it turns out to be more of a Buffy Update, without the tongue and cheek humor which made the vampire series and spinoffs so endearing.

I don't know what it is about good looking men, but these two eye candies, can't act for shit.  I suppose I should give them the benefit of the doubt: the writing is dumb, and the direction is half-assed.  Both of these shows start with the same initial premise:

There is an unseen world of goblins and ghouls, and ghosts, and there is an equally unseen world of vigilante ghost and goblin hunters.  Sam and Dean Winchester are two such.  Their mother was killed by a particularly bad ass demon who gets off from setting hot milfs on fire and pasting them to the ceiling.  Dad got into the business of hunting him down, and taught the trade to his two sons.  Lame premise?  You bet.  About the only thing its got going for it is that Nicki Aycox is smoking hot, and quite humorous.

Grimm, which is equally retarded, at least has a literary backing of the world of Grimm's Fairy Tales.  But all this really means is that the writers didn't have to be bothered to create actual demons of their own.  The first two episodes are remakes of Little Red Riding Hood and Goldy-Locks and the Three Bears.  Yup.  Their pilot (the episode they wanted to lead with, their best shot, was Little Red Riding Hood.)  It's a bit understated, which is nice. They never mention the name of the fable, but it's still pretty obvious.  Episode two, has a pretty girl in her twenties, breaking and entering the house of the Bear family (who are rich lawyers). The premise here is slightly different.  The main hero is a cop, whose auntie is dying of cancer and suddenly inherits her power of being able to see demons.  Again, the main cop is superfluously good looking, with a miserable hair cut.

One of the many problems with these shows is their starting premise.  It isn't the need for vengeance (in Grimm, Auntie is dead by Episode 2), although that clearly is a bit simplistic, it's the "unseen world" business that is so hard to take.  In Supernatural these two assholes criss cross the country, searching for their missing father, their mother's and girlfriend's killers, and meanwhile pretending to be FBI agents, DEA agents, Fish and Wildlife officers, etc., all the while using stolen credit cards to pay their bills.  I had to laugh, in one episode, one of their clients runs a hotel.  They stay for a week, kill the demon, and then pay the woman with a stolen credit card.  Why there isn't a coterie of FBI agents after them is beyond me.  (I understand that in subsequent seasons, they begin to address this issue).  In Grimm, it's too early to say.  By episode two, the cop's partner still has no idea how his partner is finding the baddies (and always somehow stumbles away during the crucial moment.)  This could actually be pretty funny if they were willing to make it so.

But the world has to be unseen, because both of these terrible shows take place "today" in "our world."  And that is the problem with the series.  No matter how silly it gets, that world will always need to be "unseen."  That is the essential problem with this particular cliche.  The only way out of this dilemna is for the truth to come out, for the veil to be punched through--and that would change the nature of the show entirely.

Both Buffy and X-Files dealt with this problem in different ways, and with varying amounts of success.  In Buffy, the entire town of Sunnydale was in on it.  There was ample evidence: ineffectual police (whose principal job was to provide blankets and flashing lights) the mayor (who was a giant snake) the principal (devoured by hyenamen) the secret military base (which was stocked with a mad scientist and subsequently imploded.)  But as silly and implausible as Buffy was, the problem was addressed.  There was an entire demon hunting branch of the military, why they so often seemed absent in saving the world and leaving it to Buffy Summers must have been a bureaucratic failure.  And of course, the show was a comedy.  Like any good comedy, it had it's sad moments, but the characters were one and all ludicrous, and the actors did a good job of not taking themselves seriously.  Not so with these three coifed and perfectly manicured speci "men".

X-Files, operated within the system.  They were actual FBI agents, not just fake ones.  The agents discovered stuff, but they were never able to amass physical evidence, or photographic evidence, and the central premise of the show was that the government already knew about the supernatural and was hiding it from the populace.  That is far different from the worlds of Grimm and Supernatural which purport a general, blanket ignorance regarding it.  And though X-Files was far more episodic in nature, it did bring a fairly logical sense to everything that occurred, leaving mysteries unexplained instead of half-ass explanations which leave a lot to be desired.

Another thing that bothers me about these shows is that there is apparently a cottage industry of books on the occult.  Buffy's library was implausible, but it was given credence by the organization that fostered her called The Watchers.  An organization of international might could conceivably track down a variety of old books, and send them with their agents to various hot spots (such as the HellMouth) where they would be of more use.  In the X-Files they had the entire agency to bring to bear when it came to investigatory resources.  There were tons of government reports on crazy shit (which is totally believable-by the way), access to fingerprints, photo experts, DNA experts, you name it!

That's key.  Supernatural, and Grimm, never address this issue adequately (Grimm is at episode two, but I don't hold out much hope).  Grimm at least has a cop hero, and he can use some of these resources, but his occult resources again come from the trailer his auntie leaves in his backyard.  In Supernatural, the boys' father leaves a journal behind that guides them to the first few cases.  But then they're doing "internet" research on ghosts?!? They reference it sometimes, when they've got little or no leads, they say insipid shit like, "I've checked all the usual sources, but I can't find anything on the Mooboodooboo demon!"  These shows rely on faux investigations, and in a way, there structured like mysteries.  Though frankly, there isn't much mystery. But the investigations all rely on completely inane and unbelievable sources, and at the very least Moulder and Scully, quite frequently thought they were dealing with regular crime (as it happens, they were always wrong, but it was a nod in the right direction).  In the last three episodes of Supernatural, the sad, sad episode where the only reason to watch the show (Nicki Aycox) dies, the boys go to visit an "old friend" who happens to be a tattooed motorcycle mechanic who happens to be a demonology expert.  Where did these old friends come from?  I thought they were alone in the world, forced to wander in sullen loneliness!

Anyway, there isn't much point in going on.  I will say that all of these shows would be much improved if there were more blood and gore.  But that might be a ratings thing.  I'll continue to watch them because my life is boring, and I hate shows about the Real World. But man, I need some intelligent programming!