Criminal Minds

[rachelmanija]

Have gotten sucked in. Spent entire weekend watching first 4 discs of season 1. Am a little bit in love with entire male cast, except for Jason Gideon whom I enjoy watching but who sort of scares me with his resemblance to various men in mentoring positions I've known who got off a little too much on their own wisdom, compassion, and influence over

Comments

[spectralbovine]

"Some abused kids grow up to be monsters. Some of us grow up to catch monsters."
Ah. Nicely done.

Something else which I don't think is a negative per se - it's part of the tone of the show - but which I think is a little unrealistic is the total lack of gallows humor.
No! There must be gallows humor!

Another friend of mine got hooked on Criminal Minds recently too. Several Buffistas are into it as well. Seems to be more interesting than your usual procedural.

[rachelmanija]

There must be gallows humor!

Something that probably wasn't in the writers' minds, but which comes to mine now, is that organizations which don't allow or discourage gallows humor tend to be much more unhealthy than ones which do, and have a high rate of worker breakdowns, workers leaving, etc. So if the agents are all having breakdowns, maybe that's why!

I wish I could say what we were all laughing hysterically about at the last crisis counselor's meeting because it would be such a perfect example, but confidentiality won't allow. Let's just say that it's the sort of thing you don't laugh about unless you're dealing with tragedy, corpses, etc on a regular basis, and need a release valve.

I think you would prefer Homicide: Life on the Streets, which has tons of gallows humor and is all about the characters. On the other hand, Criminal Minds is the first cop show I've liked since Homicide.

[spectralbovine]

Oh yeah, people have been recommending H:LOTS for a while. I'm daunted by the length of the run, so I likely won't get to it any time soon. Still haven't done The West Wing, which is similarly long.

I work in drug safety. We get reports about cancer patients. They get sick and die all the time. We are all about the gallows humor. A patient's death just means MORE WORK FOR US.

[telophase]

How about this: a few weeks back I listened to a podcast about writing - don't remember which one but I decided I didn't like it - and this particular show was an interview with an author about humor. He told the story of one class he was teaching in which he asked the students to all write down a funny anecdote, which they then took turns reading aloud.

One guy in the class was a firefighter who told an anecdote he and his firefighter buddies found hilarious, about how a charred corpse he was removing from a building basically crumbled to pieces all down his uniform. The entire rest of the class just sat there, going

O.O
>.<
O.O

After private a talk about audience appropriateness and a few more classes, the guy turned into a good humor writer, ISTR.

[ruffwriter]

I love this show. ♥ It really starts to hit its stride in the second season, though. The female characters, especially JJ and one you haven't met yet, reveal their awesome a bit later than the boys, but when they do... oh, man. ♥ ♥ Reid and Hotch are definitely my favorites, though.

I can't really think of any episodes that are horrible. Maybe I'm just forgetting, but for a show that handles a lot of delicate issues, they almost always manage to do so in a way I didn't expect.

[angharadd]

except for Jason Gideon whom I enjoy watching but who sort of scares me with his resemblance to various men in mentoring positions I've known who got off a little too much on their own wisdom, compassion, and influence over others

YES! Thank you for summing up the way I feel about him better then I ever could.

JJ has so far had little of interest to do

I think we start seeing interesting glimpses of her by Season 3, when she develops into one of the most awesome characters on the show, IMHO.

[musesfool]

JJ definitely gets more interesting as the show progresses, as do the other female characters. I agree about the gallows humor - the show could use more of it - but I think they do occasionally have their light moments (mostly around Garcia, occasionally around Reid).

[sartorias]

While you got addicted to that, I got addicted to Big Love. i have never, in all my years of TV watching, seen such a wide range of fascinating female characters. Ever.

[rachelmanija]

Oh, that sounds good!

[ide_cyan]

I love the female characters on Big Love, although it's a show where several of them are living in extremely oppressive situations.

Also, Rachel, I'm not sure about the specifics of your PTSD, but I would mention that the Juniper Creek stuff might possibly be triggery in some regards?

[rachelmanija]

Thanks for the heads'-up. Cult child abuse?

I'm not triggered per se by particular themes or plotlines, though occasionally there will be a visual that happens to resonate unpleasantly with something in my psyche. But since those are completely unpredictable, I don't bother trying to avoid them.