NBC's Grimm vs ABC's Once Upon A Time

I didn't see a thread for this So apparently we've got Two new Darker and Edgier shows about Fairy Tale creatures in modern society. NBC's Grimm which is about a "Homicide detective learns that he is a descendent of a group of hunters known as "Grimms", who fight to keep humanity safe from the supernatural creatures of the world." It's done by Kim Kouf and Buffy/Angel co-creator David Greenwalt.

The second, Once Upon A Time is about a female bail bondsman who meets up with her child she gave up for adoption 10 years ago, as they travel to a New England town called Storybrooke, Maine. It stars fairy tale characters who were taken from stories and trapped here after Snow White's Evil Stepmother destroyed her Happily Ever After. This show is done by Lost series creator Edward Kitsis and Adam Horowitz.

Both shows look really cool and are opening on nearly the exact same date: Grimm (Oct 21) and Once Upon A Time (Oct 23).

Once upon a time there was a poster with far too many opinions. One day, he heard of a couple of new shows, and said something along the lines of:

Grimm looks a little bit... ambivalent to its central commitment, which is very, very silly. DARK AND AMBIGUOUS FAIRYTALES is kinda missing the point there. Fairytales are dark and ambiguous and silly. I don't see how mixing the genre coding of over heated L&R:SVU:NTSF:SD:SUV:: with fairy tale genre coding, which many writers get wrong(think Neil Gaiman's work for a good example and Supernatural's attempts at British horror for a bad example) will work. The other one looks ridiculously campy. Which is cool, but also silly.

...he said, judging without seeing a thing. The silly, silly man. He would still watch them anyway, and would like to not ruin anyone else's opinion of the shows. He just thought they both encroached on interesting elements of post-modern genre-busting, and expressed his uncomfortable relationship with the subject.

Grimm seems like Buffy and Supernatural had an orgy with the Brother Grimm, and Once Upon a Time looks like someone really wanted to make an adaptation of Fables and couldn't get the rights. I'll probably check both of them out, even if the Grimm trailer basically told us everything that's going to happen in the Pilot. -_-

Not going to lie, Once Upon A Time looks interesting. Camp, sure, but interesting.

Grimm just looks like it's trying too hard to be edgy.

So far they both strike me as ripoffs of Fables and also in Grimm case also Special Unit 2. Admittedly actual exposure to them may change my mind

edited 12th Sep '11 10:36:31 AM by tricksterson

After seeing Grimm's trailer/pilot-condensed-into-4-minutes, I can't say I'm too interested. I'll give it a shot, but I agree with in that it's trying too hard.

Once Upon A Time, on the other hand, looks immensely fun. It's probably asking too much budget-wise that I hope we see a decent amount of the fairy tale era that we got glimpses of in the trailer.

edited 12th Sep '11 11:13:05 AM by piccorotto

The wolf character in Grimm seems really interesting to me, and I'd like to see more of him. The main character doesn't appear to have much thought put into him, but that could change. I'll DVR this show.

Once Upon a Time looks very much like Fables. But when "From the writers of LOST" appeared on the screen I recoiled in horror. I don't think I'll be checking out that show.

Once Upon A Time looks like Pushing Daisies without the humor. And wasn't humor supposed to be the main reason why people liked Pushing Daisies?

Meanwhile, I haven't seen anything on Grimm (not surprising, since it's NBC and they like to bury anything that isn't a franchise or with a connection to Saturday Night Live) but I noticed that Richard Marvin is doing the music (he did the music for Six Feet Under and In Treatment). That would probably make it the better choice.

The humor is the main reason I liked it.

Honestly, the similarities to Fables wouldn't bug me all that much if it wasn't for the fact that ABC optioned a pilot for Fables a couple of years ago, and that NBC was working on one back in 2005.

Reminds me a bit of the Babylon 5/DS 9 thing.

Okay, fimally checked out the trailers. So Grimm is more like a transgendered Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Both actually look like they might have potential but only seeing the first couple of episodes will really tell.

Anyone checked the official websites recently? I couldn't seem to find any recent clips of either shows on the tube yet

both shall be watched...I'll judge them later

I read a review on The Hollywood Reporter for the pilots and they said Once Upon A Time was better (they said the lead in Grimm was terrible and that the pilot was a retread of Angel). Also, Grimm is being given the Friday Night Death Slot.

You had me at Storybrook.

The Queen/Mayoress chick is one hot tamale. I'll tune in once for her.

I need to check Grimm out, but I just finished 'once upon a time' and liked it. I only worry about it being cancelled for budgetary reasons.

My review of the Once Upon a Time Pilot

Pacing's not really a problem, I thought Fyrewyre but the expositionary dialogue is painful and occasionally unneeded. If you've got a Pilot, something that has a larger budget and more time put towards it than most, if not all of the episodes of a show's run, with significant pacing problems, then you're cooked. I didn't think it was that bad here.

Henry is a problem, I agree. He and Ginnifer Goodwin have negative chemistry. Their dialogue is the most blatant, and while she's sending off good exasperated chemistry his way, he's just an energy suck on screen.

My main problem is one of limited gene pool. The show clearly owes something to Fables, (the comic strip) and that's a good thing, it's what the show should be doing to stay fresh and be interesting, but it's owing a lot more to the Disney canon of animated movies. The opening sequence is a mish-mash of the opening to Sleeping Beauty and the closing of Snow White, and the dwarves are definitely meant to be the Disney versions. (Though one is inexplicably Asian.)

If it wants to not seem goofy, and it's not succeeding, the characters need more bight, more inventiveness. Rumplestilkskin is probably the most effective, largely due to performance which is equal parts Hannibal Lectre and Gollum. But really, "No More Happy Endings." Trashy dialogue is trashy dialogue.

"Good just can't lose." "Yeah it can."

And am I the only one seeing this as some weird reaction to the recession crisis?

I'm gonna stick with it, but *grumble* *grumble*

edited 23rd Oct '11 9:08:45 PM by Nicknacks

ABC must have little faith in it since they waited until October to premiere it. Unless this is only going to be a 13-episode series due to budget (the same thing with Terra Nova, which Fox is not doing a back nine order due to the show going overbudget).

I agree about the dialogue. Camp is camp, sure; but your brain doesn't know that. All it hears it hackneyed soap opera quotes like, "You have no idea what I'm capable of."

Once Upon a Time: Confusing and campy in the bad Soap Opera way. I WANT MY FUCKING FAIRY TALES, BITCH.

I made it to the bit with the hot queen and her inexplicably modern-looking husband before getting completely frustrated with "I can tell when people are LYIIIIIIIING and that makes me CYNICAL AND EDGY" chick.

Lady, when a fucking KID shows up on your doorstep, I'd think you'd worry more about being a decent person than whether he's LYYYYYYYYYING or not. Especially the kid that you gave up for adoption. Like, I don't know, taking him to the police so he doesn't get hurt?

She threatened to do that and he threatened to claim he was kidnapped. (And who are they going to believe? A 28 year old woman or a kid?)

I know, but the way she did it was completely wrong. It felt more like she was dealing with an annoying adult than her biological son suddenly coming back into her life.

I can see why she'd be sceptical. Kids lie a lot, and he seemed to think that his storybook was real. Which is slightly insane, but acceptable, because kids make things up and get things wrong.

And, for the record, I'm thinking that the police would believe her. What kidnapper steals a kid and then takes him to the police? Plus, she has an alibi.