Adult viewers and fairytale monsters for new US crime drama series, Grimm

GRIMM would have to have the loopiest premise of any new TV series and it seems lead actor David Giuntoli agrees.

grimm

GRIMM would have to have the loopiest premise of any new TV series and it seems lead actor David Giuntoli agrees.

The 31-year-old plays homicide detective Nick Burkhardt, who discovers he is a descendent of a line of Grimms, criminal profilers who hunt down supernatural baddies.

Burkhardt realises his destiny is to save ordinary people from the sinister fairytale monsters who have infiltrated the real world.

Grimm is a sort of mash-up between Law and Order, Twilight and Supernatural.

Every episode is based on a Grimm Brothers story or some other well known fairytale - Bluebeard, the Three Little Pigs, Jack and the Beanstalk, the Three Bears.

It's no surprise Grimm comes from David Greenwalt and Jim Kouf, whose credits include Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel.

Those shows were aimed at teens. Grimm is unashamedly adult - and violent.

"I loved that the concept was so unbelievably strange," Giuntoli says.

"It is very gruesome but I knew from the pedigree of the creators (Greenwalt and Kouf) that it would get picked up."

Burkhardt is haunted by fevered dreams. He has to hide his calling from fianc aace Juliette (Bitsie Tulloch) and homicide partner Hank (Russell Griffin).

"I always felt that this guy (Burkhardt) probably thinks he's going insane. He is in a state of shock" Giuntoli says.

Grimm is set in Portland, Oregon, and Giuntoli says the city casts a powerful spell over the storylines.

"A mile away from the city centre, you're in a rain forest, no kidding," he says.

"The original Grimm fairytales were set in the Black Forest in Germany and this is such a perfect match. There are ferns and it is constantly drizzling.

"It is a wonderfully eerie setting for us. If you saw a gnome run by in the woods in Portland you wouldn't think twice."

Grimm, Fox 8, tonight, 8.35pm