4 Ways To Fix NBC’s Grimm

3. Commit to the show’s overarching narrative.

A show with a universe as wide-reaching as Grimm is hobbled by its procedural elements. The writers’ current pattern of monster-of-the-week stories spiced with tiny advances in the show’s overarching plot may appeal to some, but it’s not enough for me. Episodes like season one’s “Cat and Mouse” and season two’s “Season of the Hexenbiest” have demonstrated that Grimm can be terrifically entertaining when Nick’s explores the wider Wesen world, more entertaining than when he’s constrained to dealing with Portland police cases.

It’s season three, and we know some cool things about the Grimm universe but not nearly as much as we should. There’s a Royal Wesen Family in Europe that desperately wants to use a key Nick inherited from his dead aunt as a treasure map. Nick’s boss, cool cucumber Captain Renard (Sasha Roiz) was once a part of said Family but has since become estranged. A resistance is brewing in Europe against the totalitarian Wesen police, called the ‘Verrat.’ Oh, and Hitler was a Wesen. Cool. But, really, who cares?

Though tantalizing, the above pieces of information feel like tidbits, probably because that’s what the writers intended them as. Only a few shows can succeed at combining procedural formula with overarching plot (Justified managed it in its first season, Chuck thrived on the combination and the middle period of Fringe also succeeded in striking the balance), and Grimm‘s writers simply aren’t up to even attempting the challenge. Though they tried to plant their feet in both worlds with the show’s original premise, all they’ve managed to do is chug through procedural stories and haphazardly toss in one semi-significant, serialized development every four or five episodes. It’s an unsatisfying blend. If Grimm is ever going to get interesting, it’s going to have to pick serialized storytelling over weekly cases or find a better way to balance the two.