Grimm was definitely presented as a fantasy loosely set in a police/crime drama.
NBC may have requested a police-based show and it’s original synopsis suggested as much, but the network clearly accepted what G & K offered as sufficient because the only feature remotely suggesting police cases was the procedural format.
The central character became a Grimm and solved his first Wesen case outside established laws and codes in the pilot episode. The story wasn’t about a cop gone bad or even rogue, it was that a child would have died a gruesome death had Nick not embraced the Grimm way.
I think Adriano has it right: “The way I see it, the crimes are only excuses to take Nick to the Wesen of the week. All times Nick and Hank are called to investigate a crime, suddenly all clues lead to the offender, that 100% of the time was some kind of Wesen.”
The show would have worked just as well, and perhaps better, had Nick been ‘drafted’ by an HW type organization after solving his first Wesen case as a Grimm, left the police force but retained Hank & Wu as inside contacts alerting him to strange cases that couldn’t be resolved through standard police channels.
NBC would have the equivalent of it’s requested cop/crime drama while not having the central character trample the rule of ‘human’ law, because he would have realized he couldn’t be a cop and a Grimm without constantly compromising both.
Edited to add:
Thanks, Jsgrimm45, this is one of the most interesting discussions I’ve seen on the forum. I kept anticipating it morphing into a someone vs. someone debate, and was pleasantly surprised when it didn’t. I wish we'd had more of this this type discussion on the forum.
NBC may have requested a police-based show and it’s original synopsis suggested as much, but the network clearly accepted what G & K offered as sufficient because the only feature remotely suggesting police cases was the procedural format.
The central character became a Grimm and solved his first Wesen case outside established laws and codes in the pilot episode. The story wasn’t about a cop gone bad or even rogue, it was that a child would have died a gruesome death had Nick not embraced the Grimm way.
I think Adriano has it right: “The way I see it, the crimes are only excuses to take Nick to the Wesen of the week. All times Nick and Hank are called to investigate a crime, suddenly all clues lead to the offender, that 100% of the time was some kind of Wesen.”
The show would have worked just as well, and perhaps better, had Nick been ‘drafted’ by an HW type organization after solving his first Wesen case as a Grimm, left the police force but retained Hank & Wu as inside contacts alerting him to strange cases that couldn’t be resolved through standard police channels.
NBC would have the equivalent of it’s requested cop/crime drama while not having the central character trample the rule of ‘human’ law, because he would have realized he couldn’t be a cop and a Grimm without constantly compromising both.
Edited to add:
Thanks, Jsgrimm45, this is one of the most interesting discussions I’ve seen on the forum. I kept anticipating it morphing into a someone vs. someone debate, and was pleasantly surprised when it didn’t. I wish we'd had more of this this type discussion on the forum.
"If my devils are to leave me, I am afraid my angels will take flight as well." Rainer Maria Rilke