Fairy tales go back hundreds of years, even thousands if you look at Aesop and his fables. Hans Christian Andersen was a major name due to his creation of works like “The Princess and the Pea” and “The Ugly Duckling,” but the genre wouldn’t be where it’s at now without the Brothers Grimm. German siblings Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm changed history in the 19th century. They are the men behind Cinderella, Show White, Little Red Riding Hood, Sleeping Beauty, Hansel and Gretel, and so many more.
Hollywood has tried to capture their magic on screen for decades, from popular animated Disney films, live-action fare, and even TV series. While we’re all aware of those big Disney hits especially (who didn’t grow up watching Cinderella and Snow White?), the greatest love letter to The Brothers Grimm is the 2000 NBC miniseries The 10th Kingdom. The five-episode epic, better than anything that came before or after it, found the perfect way to combine their timeless stories into one adventure, with part of it even set in our modern world. It also aimed to do more than just be a collection of greatest hits. Yes, you’ll find Snow White, Cinderella, evil queens, and troll kings all in one series, but you’ll also find something much deeper as well, for The 10th Kingdom isn’t just about putting as many famous characters on screen as possible for no reason. Instead, they are used as themes and obstacles, while the focus stays on a very human story.
Some Fairy Tales Shows Have Been More Successful Than Others
In the last decade, fairy tale-set shows have become more popular thanks to the hit ABC show Once Upon a Time, which ran from 2011 to 2018. The clever premise has our favorite fairytale icons transported to our modern world. The twist? They can’t remember who they are. From Once Upon a Time came a much less successful spinoff, Once Upon a Time in Wonderland — which, as you can guess from the title, focuses on Alice in Wonderland. A few years ago, there was the little-seen CBS All Access series Tell Me a Story, which again set fairy tales in the modern age.
There have also been some rather strange takes on the Brothers Grimm. In the 1980s there was the short-lived The Charmings, which had Prince Charming and Snow White getting married, then transported to California, where their lives take on a sitcom-like feel. The last decade also saw the NBC series Grimm taking the popularity of fairy tales and cop dramas and spitting out a show with a police detective who discovers he’s a Grimm. None of these shows is better than The 10th Kingdom. Yes, Once Upon a Time might be the most popular, but anything they did, The 10th Kingdom did it first.
‘The 10th Kingdom’ Is the Perfect Tribute to the Brothers Grimm
The 10th Kingdom was written by Simon Moore. It wasn’t his first foray into the realm of fantastical miniseries. A few years earlier he penned the Ted Danson starring Gulliver’s Travels, which aired on NBC. He even won an Emmy for his work. In 2000 came The 10th Kingdom, which aired in five two-hour slots throughout February and March. In a pre-9/11 world (The 10th Kingdom shows the World Trade Center frequently, including in its logo), motherless and single Virginia (Kimberly Williams) lives in New York City with her father, Tony, played by John Larroquette of Night Court fame. Virginia is a lonely woman, but her world is turned upside down when Prince Wendell (Daniel Lapaine), who has been turned into a dog by the evil Queen Christine (Dianne Wiest), flees through a magic mirror and is transported into our modern world, known as the 10th Kingdom. It’s there that he runs into Virginia. She and her father get themselves wrapped up in Wendell’s woes, all while being chased by Wolf (Scott Cohen), who has been tasked by the queen to bring Wendell back.
Virginia and Tony end up going through the mirror and entering the other nine kingdoms. What follows is a quest adventure akin to Lord of the Rings or The Wizard of Oz. There are even trolls, with Ed O’Neill, then coming off his run on Married With Children, as the Troll King. The 10th Kingdom deftly transports our heroes from one Brothers Grimm world to the next. They encounter not just Rutger Hauer‘s Huntsman, but the ancestors of Little Bo Beep, the ghost of Snow White, and Ann-Margaret as a Cinderella who isn’t so happy about aging. This isn’t just a display of big names for nostalgic value though. For example, when Virginia is paired up against a descendant of Little Bo Beep, Sally Peep (Lucy Punch), she has to compete in a talent show. It’s cute that The 10th Kingdom has her sing a variation of “We Will Rock You” to the townspeople’s delight, but it also works in showing us a Virginia coming out of her shell as she grows more confident through her adventure.
A Serious Story Lies Beneath the Fantasy in ‘The 10th Kingdom’
Much of The 10th Kingdom is lighthearted fun, focusing on the horny Wolf falling in love with Virginia. He might care deeply for her, but it also drives him crazy to keep his hands off her. Whenever he gets excited, his tail pops out, a reference to… well, you know. When he finally gets his chance to take Virginia on a date, Wendell tells Tony, “Kiss your daughter’s virginity goodbye. He’ll have her on your back before you can say, ‘happily ever after.'” That’s some pretty risqué stuff for network television.
The 10th Kingdom has adventure, it has romance, it has laughs — but like with so many fairy tales, there’s also something darker lurking underneath. Virginia’s life is consumed by the fact that her mother disappeared when she was very young. She’s gone inward because of it, never doing much with her life, never letting herself fall in love or give herself to any man. She is built by that loss. Moving through the nine kingdoms has given her a chance to overcome and grow stronger as a confident woman. She even finds love with Wolf. He might be a horndog, but he’s also a hero who will do anything to protect Virginia. Still, at the end of the day, she’s a little girl crying to her father about how much she misses her mother.
The twist comes in the reveal that the Evil Queen is Virginia’s mother. The 10th Kingdom goes very dark in showing us a Christine in our world from decades past. She was a very troubled and disturbed woman, so much so that she even once tried to drown her young daughter in the bathtub. When she flees after, she is taken in by the Swamp Witch, crossing through the mirror and becoming a woman consumed by power who has forgotten that her daughter even exists.
The end of The 10th Kingdom sees the Evil Queen defeated and Wendell back in his human body and on the throne. In the one time that Wolf and Virginia get it on, she becomes pregnant and is now shown expecting their child. The Evil Queen dies in the end, but before she succumbs, Virginia is able to find peace. The 10th Kingdom is a Brothers Grimm adventure with so much of what they created thrown at the wall. Most of it sticks, not just because of that adventure and the romance, but because the underlying serious messages of their stories are the perfect setting to tell a new story about mental illness, rejection, and abandonment. Just as so many of the Brothers Grimm stories involve the protagonist overcoming in the end, finding their happiness, and slaying the evil, Virginia is able to slay the pain and loneliness inside her and find happiness — not with a big bad wolf, but a wolf who is her happily ever after.
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