I must admit to having a real fondness for Grimm. It is a mess, and its makers seem to find it impossible to make the hero interesting. But it is the peripherals that matter here. The series is partly the creation of David Greenwalt, who brought us Angel, which gives you a fair sense of what the show is like. Its sort of angel mixed with some fairy-tale horror.

Of course, fairy-tale horror is so hot right now. In movies, there is  Snow White and the Huntsman and, in television, there is Grimm and Once Upon a Time. I am guessing that this is some sort of post-Twilight attempt to develop horror properties that have a strong female angle, but it also makes for a nice change of gear. In fact, Grimm‘s use of the pacific northwestern woods, and of sets that visually remind one of fairy-tales, actually makes the series look pretty good and quite atmospheric.

The problem with the show is, as I have indicated, its hero, Nick Burkhardt, a cop who discovers that he is descended from a family of Grimms. But what are Grimms? They weren’t just a couple of brothers who collected folk-tales but a group of monster hunters that are endowed with superpowers and a monster-killing destiny! The problem is that I am both confused about both their powers and their destiny.

At first, it seems that their destiny is to battle evil, but then Nick quickly works out that there are a whole series of species of ‘monsters’ and many of them are benign or, at least, feature individuals that are able to suppress their urges and live in harmony with humans. So it turns out that Nick is actually a nice Grimm and that most Grimms in the past were pretty much racist vigilantes – or worse! May even seem to have done the bidding of the key force of evil in the series, The Varrat, a kind of aristocratic, fascistic association for evil that I am still trying to understand. But they are bad (or at least some of them are!)

But if Nick’s destiny seems confused, his superpowers are even more weird. In short, they seem to boil down to two key abilities: the ability to see monsters for what they really are (all other humans are simply too unimaginative to be able to process reality); and the ability to fight brilliantly with weapons that he has never used before. Oh, and he has a really impressive library, which he stores in a trailer (kind of like a super academic!) But the trailer also contains an impressive arsenal of strange weapons (which isn’t like a super academic, or none that I know anyhow).

The trouble is that Nick just isn’t very interesting. He doesn’t seem to have any ‘story’. By series two, even his girlfriend has forgotten who he is! Okay, so that’s supposed to be the result of magic but I think that it is also a sign that the makers have spotted the problem.

None of which does anything to dampen my enthusiasm for the show. If Nick is a little boring (and I feel mean saying this when the actor that plays him is trying so hard to do something with his impossible role), the series is chock full of great characters; and I find myself watching each episode with a thrill, while thinking of all the great spin-off shows that they could create.

Of course, leader of the pack is Monroe, a friendly werewolf, who is one of Nick’s numerous sidekicks, and the coolest cat (canine) on television. He is funny and engaging; has an interior struggle; and I can’t wait for the forthcoming Werewolf of Portland, a fantasy project that I have invented in my own head.

I must admit to also being quite excited about the spin-off with Rosalee, Monroe’s partner, where she battles evil from her store of magic and potions – unfortunately, Monroe and Rosalee would have to split up for this and that would be a shame as they are a lovely couple. Their nervous romance is one of the key pleasures of the series.

Another great series would feature Nick’s police captain, Sean Renard, who is a member of one of the royal families of Europe (the evil, monster ones) and probably a member of the Varrat (but I am not sure). He’s great. I love him. And I still don’t know if he is good or evil. But, frankly, I don’t care.

I could also imagine a pretty good series with Nick’s girlfriend (so long as she can dump Nick). In the first series, she was incredibly boring and her only real function was to represent that ‘ordinary’ life of happy domesticity that was now lost to Nick. So basically she was kept ignorant of everything happening elsewhere in the show. However, by the end of series one, she was brutally pulled into the main plot and, as series two progressed, she becomes more and more interesting – as she forgot about Nick entirely and developed a narrative of her own.

Even Nick’s partner-in-crime (or crime-fighting), Hank, is more appealing than Nick. He’s human but learning to cope with a reality in which monsters exist, even if he can’t quite see them with the clarity that Nick can. I can’t quite see how he could become the centre of his own spin-off but he is still more interesting than Nick.