Grimm, Season 4

I still watch "Grimm". I still care about what happens with it. I am finding it more frustrating this season. I'm going to go over the frustrations first.

I can relate this back to 2011, actually. Back when I was picking up the three new shows that I am still watching, I was also letting go of another show that I had watched for a long time:

http://sporkful.blogspot.com/2012/05/requiem-for-svu.html

At the time "Law & Order: SVU" was driving me crazy. The desire to amp up everything led to an over-reliance on gimmicks, and suddenly everyone had become worse cops, which was not only annoying but struck me as disrespectful to both the cast and real-life police.

Now, there are plenty of reasons to have issues with respecting the real-life police, but we have been accustomed to think of Nick, Hank, and Wu as good. They are good at what they do - skilled and competent - and good in that they want to do the right thing and care about those around them.

That is why it is disturbing to see them breaking into a house without a warrant in episode 17, Hibernaculum. At that point they haven't located the taxicab yet, which would establish that the suspect is there. A common last name and the presence of other cars makes them think they have the right place, but it seems kind of iffy for probable cause. They then disturb the other hibernators, do not explain why they are there, and this unprofessional contact nearly gets everyone killed. For all we know, if they had explained that they were pursuing a murderer, the others might have turned the suspect over. Then, after letting the suspect freeze to death, which they had to have known would happen, they decide to leave the car, and the broken window, and the dead body, because it would all be too hard to explain. That's showing them as callous and incompetent, and they haven't been that before.

That was just one episode, but there have been a few where they had to irreparably alter or kill the newly-introduced Wesen because its traits were such that there was some risk or issue that could not be resolved in any other way. In the case of the arsonist, they did not know it would kill him, and preventing him from combusting was necessary. That episode alone could have been an interesting diversion, but then the widow shoots the high voltage Wesen, and it wasn't really necessary at that time, and they brush it off. And they "kill" the female half of the Hermaphrodite Wesen, and they give lip service to the moral question, but it is only lip service. I guess it was nice that they asked the frog girl for permission and warned her it could be bad.

I'm sure that is being at least partially driven by the desire to create ever newer and stranger storylines, but the stories don't need to be strange as much as they need to be good.

One thing I have noticed this season is that they are doing more effects with night lighting, getting things to look cool. It does look good, but if it's not combined with substance it's hollow. The first time they did it, I was wowed, but it has already lost its appeal, especially because it now acts as an omen that they have gone shallow.

There was another thing that bothered me. It could be minor, but it will depend on what they do with it.

Wu still being fairly newly initiated, he asked Captain Renard what percentage of crimes in Portland were Wesen-related, and the captain replied "All of them."

One thing we have really been brought to see is how normal Wesen can be. Yes, some are criminals, but lots aren't. So is the captain now saying that only Wesen are criminals? That's surely not right. The other likely meaning could be that Portland is unusually full of Wesen, with very few non-Wesen. That is possible, but it seems likely that more people would know about it if that were the case.

So I'm still watching, but there are some hindrances on my enjoyment, and based on the message boards, it's not just me. I'll write about the things that keep me watching tomorrow.