Grimm on NBC

GRIMM -- Season: 2 -- Pictured: (l-r) David Giuntoli as Nick Burkhardt, Bitsie Tulloch as Juliette Silverton -- (Photo by: Michael Muller/NBC)

The Basic Plot

NBC’s Grimm, set in contemporary Portland, Oregon, is the story of Nick Burkhardt. Burkhardt is a homicide detective who one day sees a beautiful woman transform momentarily into a witch-like creature. That evening Nick’s Aunt Marie Kessler arrives and tells him that he is one of the last of the Grimms, a long line of hunters whose goal is to stop the spread in the world of dangerous supernatural creatures known as Wesen. Nick’s partner, Hank Griffin, is initially unaware of what Nick sees, but Nick tells him after Hank sees a morphed Wesen revert as he dies. Nick’s girlfriend, Juliette Silverton is also in the dark; Nick tries to tell her right before she becomes comatose from a magic drug. At the police station, Sergeant Wu is also oblivious to Nick’s enhanced abilities, but Nick’s supervisor, Captain Sean Renard stands with one foot in the Human world and one in the Wesen and, while not completely happy with what Nick can do, is for the time being keeping a secret society of Grimm hunters known as the Reapers at bay.

About the Show

NBC has a history of dark, moody shows in its weekend lineups, from the successful shows like “The Profiler” and “The Pretender,” to the ones who didn’t survive, like “The Others.”

Let’s hope “Grimm” doesn’t suffer the fate of the latter.

“Grimm” is a dark fantasy drama series that debuted this season int he dreaded Friday night slot. In live viewership ratings, it’s been faring somewhere between “Smash,” and “The Firm.” Which is to say, not too bad, not too good — kind of the middle bowl of porridge.

But, unlike other shows put in that tough Friday night spot, the show has benefited from a little bit of technology known as DVR, and has become one of the most “DVR-ed” shows on TV. The Nielsen Live + 7 ratings, which count DVR views for seven days after the original air date, show “Grimm” is actually doing quite well, thank you.

In fact, for the week of Jan. 30-Feb. 5, “Grimm” showed the highest percentage of DVR viewer growth in the 18-49 age group with an 86% growth rate from the previous week.

What that translates to is there is something going on with this show, and if you haven’t watched it yet, you might want to rethink that. So let’s get up to speed:

The premise behind the series is that the Grimm fairy tales are real and meant as a warning from a line of monster slayers called Grimms, who have the ability to see the monster side of the creatures when they let their guard down.

To complicate things, one doesn’t even necessarily know that they are a Grimm till their nearest relative is near death or dies, when the latent gift goes active without warning. Enter cop Nick Burkhardt (David Giuntoli) who suddenly finds himself seeing faces randomly morph into all sorts of nasty things.

His terminally ill Aunt Marie tries to give him as much information as possible, but dies before being able to divulge all the secrets of the Grimms contained in her silver travel trailer. Unfortunately, she attracts some very ugly things following her, like Reapers of the Grimms, not to be confused with the ordinary garden variety Grim Reaper reserved for the rest of us.

Fortunately, Nick finds a reformed “big bad wolf” or “Blutbat” (German for “bloodbath”)  who helps fill in a lot of the blanks — and gives us one of the most awesome characters on TV, Monroe (Silas Weir Mitchell.) Not to mention some comic relief in all that heavy atmosphere.

Unlike other shows wrapping up seasons, we’re only about halfway through “Grimm’s” debut season, so it isn’t too late to catch up. And if you feel like you’ve been missing out, don’t forget your cable TV’s view on demand to see past episodes, or catch some of them online at NBC.

Check out my exclusive interviews with Silas Weir Mitchell (Monroe) and Russell Hornsby (Hank.)

The Characters of “Grimm”

The Creatures of “Grimm”