Grimm

Definitely like Grimm better than Once Upon a Time. The trailer gives you a good feel for the first episode-but especially in light of my post on the cultural misuse/misunderstanding of the phrase "fairy tale," I find this line very ironic: "This isn't a fairy tale. The stories are all true." Umm...don't you therefore mean, "this is a fairy tale, but maybe you need to readjust your thinking about them"?


It seems that every episode will feature a different fairy tale-it's fun to guess what the next one is. Confession: I had never read the Grimm tale "The Queen Bee" (or even heard about it) until tonight when I watched episode three. But it was kind of fun-much like the main character, I got out my ancient family tome (or, the Barnes and Noble edition I have of the Complete Grimm Fairy Tales) to search through and research what I was witnessing. And I'm glad they didn't just stick to well-known fairy tales-I enjoy learning new tales. Although I'm doubting the source of inspiration, since this time the storyline has nothing to do with the fairy tale -but according to Yahoo answers, no one else has a better answer...
But it just occured to me-the inspiration for the second episode was Goldilocks, which was NOT a Grimm fairy tale. (Read more on Goldilocks here).
But, for anyone who's curious, the tale "The Queen Bee" is an animal helper tale-the kind where the hero shows compassion on various animals and later they help him accomplish a series of impossible tasks. In this case, an anthill helped him find one thousand pearls, some ducks retrieved a key from the bottom of a lake, and the queen bee of a hive he saved sniffed honey off the breath of the youngest princess, enabling him to marry her. Full text can be read here.