Calling out the creators (a Criminal Minds rant)
I’m a big fan of Andrea Joy Cook and in concerns of her treatment regarding the show, one thing that grates me is this mentality that I keep on coming across. It’s the notion that the creators of Criminal Minds are these innocent saints that always love A.J. and her character, and fought hard for her, but in the end, the EVIL CBS won out. What? What?! Okay clearly people need a reminder on the history of A.J. Cook’s character Jennifer Jareau, and how she was treated like on this show. Let’s begin.
The series Criminal Minds debuts on the fall of 2005 and it’s a hit. Then by the second episode, there’s a last minute character they decided to add to the cast; Jennifer “JJ” Jareau played by one of my favourite actors A.J. Cook. Any chance you think being a last minute character will foreshadow how the creators is going to treat her? We’ll have to find out. I should also mention I haven’t seen this series in months, so feel free to correct me if my memory is a bit hazy.
So she makes her debut and she introduces herself then disappears for the rest of the episode. Hey maybe they want to use her for the next episode perhaps? So the next few episodes we see her briefly in the beginning and maybe an extra scene later in the episode. JJ’s screen presence is so non existent you have to actually keep an eye out for her or you might miss her. I wish I was joking. When I was watching my first few episodes of this show (before I really became a big A.J. fan), I only knew A.J. was on the show via the credits. I don’t even know where she was in the actual episodes.
Then we get to mid season and ‘Riding the Lightning’ arrives. What’s this? JJ is actually being used? You don’t say? Anyways she and Hotch interrogates the killer on death row and she shows quite a lot of potential as a character. This must mean they’re going to start using her! By next episode she… returns back to her normal duties of handing out files and disappearing for most of the episode. Damn false hope. Anyways this continues on until the season is done. The only other JJ scene I recall is making some remark about a former colleague’s tie. Her scenes are just that memorable.
Season two comes and we’re following the same crappy trend like before. At this point I’m watching A.J. in other series and films because it seems apparent anyone can use A.J. better than the creators of Criminal Minds. Then in comes ‘North Mammon’, a story on JJ’s background. What??? Anyways it gave enough focus on JJ that I can’t complain. We saw some profiling skills from her and even Hotch complimenting her on it. Can this mean JJ will help in profiling the investigations and, you know, actually appear like one of the team? No we don’t because JJ returns back to her normal routine. I am really not liking this pattern. Though it should be pointed out that the creators have given her an upgrade. She has gone from averaging about two (brief) scenes an episode back in season one to averaging about 5 minutes of screentime now. Though that 5 minutes is mostly used for longer briefings, longer scenes in front of a camera and any filler in the police station that would involve JJ being as far away from the actual investigation as possible. Baby steps I guess?
Now we come to ‘The Big Game’ and it’s the first time the creators has actually allowed JJ to tag along to question people. Or at least this is the earliest episode I could remember of her doing so. They’re in luck, Dawson Van Der Creek is the killer. Guess we could see how well she handles herself in the field. Well she gets attacked by three man eating dogs and kills them all with only three shots, in the dark no less. Quite impressive for first time action (on screen that is). To add, this episode also shows some of JJ dealing with the trauma of when things don’t turn out so well. This is stuff we normally see from the other cast members every other episode, but JJ isn’t a normal cast member.
Then after the Crazy Dawson arc is over, it seems like JJ has been set up as field agent material, so we can finally get JJ on the field. Yay! Of course you’re giving the creators way too much credit if you think that’s what they’re going to do. No we just return back to what was happening before. Continuing on seeing a character with a lot of potential constantly get wasted and shoved in the background. So we continue on with season two. JJ is still mostly MIA from the investigations and the rest of the team in general. Then we come to ‘No Way Out Part 2: Evilution of Frank’ and hey we’re seeing some JJ the field agent again. Then the episode comes to an end and so does the season. Ugghhhh…
Season three arrives and now comes the worst part, I have long finished watching through all of A.J.’s other projects, or at least all the ones I can find. To this day, I still don’t know what was the better choice to make: to go for who knows how long without a new project from A.J. or continue watching that constant reminder of a show how much the jerks in the creative room likes to piss on one of my favourite actors. As frustrated as I was with this show, there was still a small part of me that was optimistic it might get better. Boy was I wrong.
So we begin season three and per usual JJ is designated behind a desk or cooped up in a police station. Staying as far away from the investigation as possible. I think she’s talking more to families of the victims and comforting them. Yeah that’s an excellent way to put that profiling skills and field training to use. We continue on. Blah blah blah this is not Sparta blah blah blah. At some point they make mention how important JJ’s job is and how valuable she is to the team. It might have been her scenes with Hotch in “Birthright” although I’m not positive. Say do you people know what hypocrisy is? In this case saying JJ is valuable to the team, yet she might as well be a secretary with the way the creators are using her is an excellent example of hypocrisy. You know I find it incredibly depressing the team would rather to send a guy who has already been kidnapped, failed to properly pass his shooting test and doesn’t wear matching socks because he tripped and hurt his ankle, out to chase unsubs. See she’s so valuable to the team, that they prefer to have her stay in police stations and have someone like that come with them to chase unsubs instead. What an excellent way to prove your point creators… ugh I hate you guys.
We then get a memorable moment from JJ since… I don’t even remember, of her shooting down an unsub that infiltrated the BAU in the episode ‘Penelope’. She was absent through the majority of the episode, but whatever, that’s still a step up from what I normally get.
Now we come to ‘In Heat’. The first JJ episode since ‘North Mammon’, and all it took was for A.J. to get pregnant in real life. I don’t even know what to say to the idea it takes a real life occurrence for this woman to get some decent attention. Well they explained her pregnancy and not surprisingly the episode sucks. Moving on. There was ‘The Crossing’ where we get more involvement from JJ as she was the one who insist they take the case and we actually see her back in the field again with the rest of the team. It’s nothing memorable and we get this kind of stuff from the rest of the team all the time, but this is JJ we’re talking about. That’s all I could remember from this season.
We’re in season four now and JJ’s in several episodes at the beginning before stepping out for maternity leave. Nothing worth mentioning. At this point I’m watching A.J.’s other films and series again (even the bad ones) to remember how it’s like to see her not get neglected to such insulting levels. We then get a small scene of the birth of JJ’s son somewhere down the road. And since the scene is about JJ, of course the creators feel the obligation to make the scene about someone else. In this case Reid and Garcia and how they’re becoming godparents.
JJ’s replacement Jordan Todd has just finished her run and we get a more substantive arc about this character than we ever gotten about JJ. In fact besides recurring guest stars, general guest stars can say they have more substantial story arcs than JJ ever did. Plus cops of the week played not only by lead guest stars, but secondary guest stars too can all say they have more involvement in the cases than JJ does. On top of that, I’m noticing JJ’s best episodes came during the period in between Elle’s departure and Emily’s arrival when she was the only female with the team. This really speaks for itself in regards to how the creators been treating the character so far.
Anyways we get JJ back in ‘Cold Comfort’ and the next episode we learn about JJ’s motivations for joining the BAU. So of course the scene has to be made into a moment about someone else, in this case Rossi. At this point in the series, the creators start a new trend for JJ. Rather than portraying her as a character with a lot of potential who gets shoved into the back, we get her as someone whose only character traits now is motherhood and family who gets shoved into the back. Clearly the creators have decided they don’t have to develop this character anymore now that she’s a mom. We can’t really blame them, can we? I mean being a parent will obviously change one’s personality to being concerned with family related things. Oh wait! Didn’t Hotch become a parent earlier in the series? Okay scratch that, it’s just the creators being jerks like usual. So we continue on with the rest of the season. The team solves cases while JJ’s typically off in her own world, and season four comes to an end.
Now comes good news and bad news for me. The good news is that A.J.’s film ‘Misconceptions’ is finally out on DVD. However that small happy moment must have set off some sort of special sense for the creators because they felt they must have been giving JJ too much attention in the past years and feel the need to scale her back some more. I already hated the creators beforehand, but now I guess they felt my hate levels must not have been high enough.
Season five comes and dear god is JJ bordering on her season one treatment. We come to ‘The Performer’ where JJ knocks out one of the unsubs near the end. Hey that’s a memorable moment. We could add that to the list of other JJ moments which I could probably count with one hand. Then I hear news we’re going to be getting a new “JJ episode”. I was very excited because I can’t wait to get out of this horrendous lack of JJ.
We get to the “JJ episode” ‘Risky Business’. Alright it seems like we’re finally going to have some focus back on JJ and we are… for the first few minutes. Then JJ gets shoved into her usually place of the background, ah I mean police station and the team can finally begin the case. Everyone on the team, including Garcia, all gets some nice screentime and involvement in the case, all except JJ of course. Now this wouldn’t be so bad IF IT WASN’T BEING BILLED AS A JJ EPISODE! Then when that epic fail of an episode was almost over and the team was back on the plane, the creators probably then remembered “Oh yeah, this was suppose to be a JJ episode. Okay just throw out whatever we were planning to add to the character before the episode comes to an end.” So we learn some small extra detail about JJ, and of course all of JJ’s vital moments must always be about someone else, so they turned the scene into Hotch learning to cope with Haley’s death. The creators just gave me the middle finger, didn’t they? Or maybe JJ is so neglected now that this garbage is what actually qualifies as a JJ episode. Either way if there were any doubts the creators were pissing on A.J., this just confirms that she’s officially their toilet.
We arrive at ‘Mosley Lane’ where… wait a minute, what? JJ actually has some good screentime and focus? Are we sure someone didn’t get the billing wrong and this was actually the JJ episode? Well the Gube was special director of this episode, maybe he requested a script that uses JJ more? Maybe they picked up a rejected script and decided to film it? I’ll never know, but whoever were the people behind this, I thank you. Especially since it’s only three episodes after that filth known as ‘Risky Business’ and I need something to forget about that horrid episode.
Sadly ‘Mosley Lane’ was the deviation of season five and we now return back to JJ bordering on her season one treatment again for the rest of the season. The irony here is that I think she actually had more memorable scenes in season one. I, ugh, uh, ah… you’re going to have to give me a minute here…
Then we get the news that A.J. Cook’s contract hasn’t been renewed. I’m not the least bit surprised. I was actually wondering when they were just going to get rid of the character altogether. Though my feelings at this point was both majorly relieved and majorly pissed off. Relieved for obvious reasons and pissed off because I’m looking back at JJ’s run and see that… the creators just completed wasted her. Thanks a lot for that @$$holes. I didn’t have to endure half a decade just to know how much you guys like to piss on one of my favourite actors. Her run on Tru Calling did her more justice, and that character was intended to just be a supporting character and the best friend.
The explanation first released was due to financial reasons, then later followed up by creative reasons. The latter made more sense. There was outrage and originally I was anxious to see people rip the creators a new one for mistreating the character. I did not get that. Instead it was nothing but CBS this, CBS that, CBS is sexist, CBS I hate you, etc. When it concerned the creators, shockingly (though considering how disappointing this franchise has been, maybe it’s not so shocking) people were defending them. Making them out to be victims of the EVIL CBS too and that they were these white knights that cared and fought for JJ, but lost. What?! What?!!! Were we watching the same show? If they cared for JJ, then they could have fooled me.
As the months went on, the fanwank towards the creators just escalated. People were acting as if there was some sort of war between the Criminal Minds creators and CBS. Even going as far as making ridiculous claims like the show had great feminism, had great female characters, had great quality, etc and all blame can be pointed solely to CBS for ruining all of that. That CBS were essentially taking control of the show and wanted to ruin it because they’re that EVIL, and the creators were just victims in all of this. Bulls**t! I’ve never seen ass kissing to such epic degrees. And I’m pretty certain both the creators and CBS were laughing at all the people lining up to kiss their asses.
You know I’m going to actually entertain the thought CBS did do this, then I have one simple question: Why are they keeping the creators around if they took control of the show? Are they paying the creators to sit around and play with their thumbs? Or are they paying the creators to bang on the creative room door going “I want my show back”? Does CBS find some sort of pleasure in this? Well it’s costing CBS money to pointlessly keep the creators around, so I wouldn’t mind having a job like that.
I bet the creators were the ones who pitched the idea to get rid of A.J. My reasons? Lets see here 1) they never cared for A.J. from the start 2) they were clearly getting bored with her character 3) they couldn’t even give A.J. a single word of support (yeah they clearly love her) and 4) the official explanation for getting rid of the character was due to creative ones. Oh by the way, before anyone here tries and claims the EVIL CBS were the ones controlling everything against the creators wishes, I’m going to cut you off right here. You want an excellent example of studio execs trying to change things against the creators’ wishes? Look no further Fox’s CEO Tom Rothman. That guy is infamous for getting involved in productions against the writers and directors wishes. Usually trying to make films more family friendly. His most famous meddling was probably in regards to Wolverine 3: The Last Stand. Where he ordered the film to get rushed out to beat Superman Returns’ theatrical opening as well as take out James Marsden from the film to spite both the actor and former Wolverine director Bryan Singer. And we all know how much Rothman was able to keep his affairs under wraps. Oh wait, no he didn’t. Many people came out with the story and several directors even reported their dislike when it came to working with Fox.
This was the exact opposite reaction we saw from the creators of Criminal Minds and CBS as if… they were on the same page. Furthermore if I remember correctly, this was also around the time when it was reported the creators’ new toy the spinoff was given more money to sign on Janeane Garofalo. Yes clearly those two are feuding.
Anyways moving on, A.J. gets two more episodes and not surprisingly the creators play to the fandom’s creators = good/CBS = evil mentality. I was really foaming at the mouth when I saw A.J.’s farewell and how it was total fanservice. Now with A.J. gone we see how much truth there is to that creative reason, and boy did the creators take full advantage of that open space. First using it as an excuse to put fan favourite Garcia as the focus of the show and now using it for their new toy and cast member Rachel Nichols. I love Rachel btw, so leave her out of this. Of course they would throw out the occasional “we love JJ” moments just to cater to the image the fans so helpfully provided them. However it wasn’t until when it broke out that Paget had the option to stay on the show and they were trying to have Rachel as a regular (cause they’re so feuding that CBS would give the creators the money to do this), but preferred A.J. off the show (cause they love her so much I guess) was when I snapped.
It wasn’t because I wanted A.J. back on the show that has me so irate, but because how much these creators likes treating her like sh!t that has my blood boiling. So now I’m calling out these pieces of sh!ts for who they are. As well as informing all the idiots out there still fellating them and kisses their asses. The creators don’t love JJ. They never gave a crap about her. They’re happy that she’s gone. Her final two episodes were nothing more than them covering their own asses. They’re bigger @$$holes than CBS because CBS could only piss on A.J. once while these guys been doing it for five years.
UPDATE: Oh what’s this? http://tvguide.ca/Special_Features/Midseason+2011/TCA+Winter+2011/Articles/110114_CBS_Executive_Session.htm
It’s being confirmed that A.J.’s release was due to creative reasons and it’s implied to the significance of A.J.’s role? Wait so let me get this straight? The creative reasons explanation that was present shortly after A.J.’s release was true? It wasn’t because CBS is EVIL, and sexist and wanted to save money and whatever other reasons the fandom has been going on about for over half a year now? By the way, if you people look at Rachel Nichols’ profile, you’ll see that she’s been in more high profile projects than AJ, which means she’ll be more expensive to cast. So of course the EVIL CBS’s plan to save money would involve getting rid of probably their least paid cast member and replacing her with a more expensive actor. Just like how it also saves them money to keep the creators around even though the EVIL CBS took control of show. Make sense right?
I also love this part “The spinoff gave us an opportunity to look back at the structure of the original.” By ‘us’, does she mean CBS and the creators of Criminal Minds? Well she does later say this “Across the board, there are discussions about cast members changing; it happens more often than always gets reported. It’s the creative evolution of any show.” Sure sounds like she’s talking about the creators. Speaking of the spinoff, wasn’t that episode and the whole spinoff series stated to be a pet project by Ed Bernero and Chris Mundy? Two important creators from the original series. Their names are in the writing credits. Also didn’t those two practically ditched the original series to go focus on the spinoff?
Then the importance of JJ’s role, would that mean the creators thought JJ wasn’t an important character enough to keep around? Where did this came from? The creators have been showing how much they love this character since the start of the series by constantly neglecting her. Furthermore lets look at the episode ‘What Happens at Home…’. The same episode that introduces Ashley Seaver, the new member of the team that replaced JJ on the show. Now who would have the important task of writing the episode that introduces this character? Nina Tassler? Ed Bernero! Coincidence?
So let me get this straight. Is Nina Tassler implying the creators of the series, the people who determines what happens to the characters and the direction of the series, are really the ones who are determining what happens to the characters and the direction of the series? Also I have my own theory here. Can it be possible that the creators of the series are the masterminds behind all of this and the EVIL CBS are just the ones pushing the buttons to make it happen since they’re the network and all? You know like how every other show works like? Who to have thunk of such concepts?
On a final note, I even looked back at old articles to know where this whole “blame everything bad on CBS” crap came from, and I found this: http://insidetv.ew.com/2010/06/14/criminal-minds-drops-a-j-cook/
“Sources confirm that PRODUCERS have opted not to pick up A.J. Cook’s contract option for next season.”
Producers people. You know who they are? They’re not Nina Tassler or anyone from the network, they’re people like Ed Bernero and Chris Mundy. Furthermore here’s the only article I was able to find that even supports the idea the EVIL CBS are the ones doing all of this: http://www.deadline.com/2010/06/cbs-criminal-minds-trims-cast/
Only the original report that says it was all done for financial reasons, you know back when things weren’t very clear, suggests CBS might be behind this. And if you think it was for financial reasons, then look back up at how much sense it makes to fire A.J. and replace her with Rachel to save money. Also networks decide what happens to a show, they do not make the decision what happens to characters in a show. I repeat, networks do not make the decision what happens to characters in a show.