The Fantasy, Fairy Tale Series Rumble: Grimm vs Once Upon a Time

Modern re-imaginings of classic fairy tales have been a hip thing for some time now. These stories keep cropping up, they’re universal and they resonant with today’s audiences as much as when first written. Didn’t hurt Disney made a few movies based off the more popular fables; Snow White, Cinderella, Pinnochio, etc.

So it comes as no surprise the television networks are hoping to make these classic tales their next big hit. Two new shows are vying for your attention as the modern fairy tale: NBC’s Grimm and ABC’s Once Upon a Time. When I first saw the advertisements, I cringed. See, for a while there were rumors the totally incredible, completely awesome, critically acclaimed comic book series, Fables was being adapted for television. Fables is easily the best translation of fairy tales from innocent childhood stories to compelling dramas where the characters mature and evolve (Okay, when these stories were first written they weren’t all that innocent, but most of our impressions of them are.). Fables is fantastic, go read it. But the Fables TV series never happened, and it appeared the networks were like, “Well, shit. We’d been hoping to pick up this great fantasy series. We’ll just make our own.” And because, to me, these shows seemed like a hasty after thought the whole idea was dumb.

Then I got over myself. Star Trek isn’t the only show about people in space, some times it’s not even the best, so whose to say there couldn’t be another equally good and well made modern re-telling of classic fairy tales. I’d been hearing good things about both shows and decided to give them a chance. I watched the pilot episodes of each series (Thank you, Hulu!) and realized 1) They’re not Fables-ripoffs and 2) They’re not very similar to each other, either. Also, there’s one I definitely liked better than the other.

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