Criminal Minds

Variety writer, John Dempsey, has an interesting article today about networks selling shows to cable so they can play the reruns. Shows that typically do well in the ratings for the networks are getting only small prices per episode compared to a few years ago.

Lost and Heroes are big ratings boosters during the week with new episodes but were sold for only $200,000 per episode. This is compared to at least a million similar shows would have gotten even last year.
One reason for this is that Lost and Heroes are serialized. You have to know what’s going on to like the new episodes…you can’t jump right in. These shows typically don’t do well in reruns. Big shows like Alias, 24, and The Shield are not pulling in big numbers of viewers on cable.

CBS pushed back the cable release of Criminal Minds from 2009 to 2010because they can’t get the price they want, which is mid-to-high six figures.
Dempsey writes, “Scott Koondel, exec VP of CBS TV Distribution, says, however if a cable network showed up with a solid offer for 2009, he wouldn’t hesitate to make the accommodation.”

The reason for the lackluster price for popular shows: too much competition. Dempsey writes:

The cable-network grids are so clogged with these shows that they end up cannibalizing one another.

The Red Sox and Rockies played the first game in the World Series last night. The game aired on Fox, which won the night in viewers. Though the final score was 13-1 (Go Sox), the game was competetive until at least ten o’clock. The Hollywood Reporter says that it was the best first game performance since 2004, when the Red Sox were also playing.
Anyway, this boosted Fox’s ratings last night. Criminal Minds was second, followed by Private Practice. Bionic Woman came in fourth, though quite a bit down from its premiere.
CSI:NY, immediately following CM, was second in the ten o’clock timeslot behind the World Series.

Tonight’s episode is called “Seven Seconds.” A child is taken from a mall. The BAU is called and locks down the area. They interview everyone there to try and find information on the child’s location. In Criminal Minds style, it’s a race to save the child.
I saw the preview for this last week. I don’t know about the episode, but the idea is terrifying. It makes me want to keep my daughter inside forever or tie her to me when we go out. It is really something that can happen to anyone - and kids are so fast. If you turn your back for a second, they can be out of sight. This is my nightmare, so it’ll be a hard show to watch. (I always thought my mother was weird because she HATES to watch shows that have children as victims.) Last week’s episode, “Children of the Dark,” also featured child victims. They’re so defenseless. It’s horrible when adults die, but you can kind of see how they can at least fight back. The little kids had no chance.
So “Seven Seconds” airs tonight at nine on CBS. It looks like a good episode - one of Criminal Minds exciting, tense ones.

Don’t forget to get your entries in to win the new Criminal Minds book, Jump Cut. All you have to do is email me with your favorite episode and why you liked it by October 31.

In a recent interview with the NY Daily News, Joe Mantegna spoke of his arrival on the set of Criminal Minds.

All I can do is just be who I am and just be myself. It needn’t complicate the rest of the cast’s lives any more than it has to because, obviously, there must have been some complications that needed an adjustment. I just felt that I’m there to do my best and fit in.

And of his character vs. Jason Gideon:

I use a sports analogue. Like if a baseball team traded a batter and brought in a new guy, it’s a totally different guy, but he’s still doing the same job batting at a certain number in the lineup. Hopefully, the audience will find that interesting and exciting, and we hope the show will continue to be the success that it is.

And Mantegna feels right at home on his new set. About 50% of the CM crew came from his previous CBS show, Joan of Arcadia.

It’s kind of ironic for me because the day ‘Joan of Arcadia’ finally got word that we weren’t being picked up, I went up to the office to clear out my trailer and I remember they were packing up all these boxes and they all had ‘Criminal Minds’ written on the side. Our two producers at the time both went to ‘Criminal Minds,’ they were the original show-runners there, and they took a big portion of the crew with them, so when I came to the first day [on 'Minds'], it was unbelievable.

Joe Mantegna’s begins his role as David Rossi October 31 at nine on CBS.

In Wednesday’s competetive nine o’clock timeslot, Criminal Minds held its own against Private Practice. While ABC’s new show won the hour, it lost viewers during the second half. Criminal Minds seems to be running strong. CBS was second overall - behind ABC. Kid Nation picked up some viewers and CSI:NY won the ten o’clock slot.

Pictured below are Agent Morgan (Shemar Moore) and Agent Prentiss (Paget Brewster) in “Children of the Dark.” (image courtesy of Stacy at criminalmindsonline.net)

Fast National ratings for Wednesday, October 10, show Criminal Minds as the top show at the nine o’clock hour. CBS won the night - though Kid Nation came in third for the eight o’clock hour. CSI:NY was number one at ten.
Scroll down for a recap of last night’s episode.

Last night, “Scared to Death” aired on CBS. This was Criminal Minds first Mandy-free episode, though his character was mentioned several times. When the show opens, Spencer is sitting at his desk rereading his letter. They quickly move on to other matters - a serial killer in Portland, Oregon. The team travels there to investigate and eventually figure out that the deaths had to do with phobias. From there, they need to figure out who is responsible. Through a lucky spotting of a flier in a laundromat, they are led to Dr. Howard (aka Dr. Goodman), in time to save his latest victim from being buried alive.

I really like Criminal Minds, I write a blog about it. But did anyone else think “Scared to Death” was kind of…boring?
The doctor was torturing these people, recording their responses, while having flashbacks to his mom making him sleep in the dark. Michael O’Keefe as Dr. Howard was kind of creepy, but it seemed like they crammed all of his motives into 45 minutes, and it didn’t quite work. It did cover all the bases; his abusive childhood, his naggy wife, his change in behavior, his treatment of his daughter. But it seemed like they hurried to put this all in so it’d make sense at the end.
Criminal Minds can be very creepy - like in “Revelations” or “North Mammon,” from season two. This one didn’t have the same feeling to it. It also felt like the characters were kind of wooden; they didn’t seem as dynamic as they usually are - with the exception of Spencer and Morgan getting stuck in the elevator…that was pretty funny.

What was interesting, though, was their response to Gideon leaving. Spencer is clearly upset. He talks to Emily at one point and says that Gideon confronted the most violent, dangerous criminals in the world. If he had enough courage to do that, why did he just leave a letter? Emily tells him to read it again and figure out why the letter was written to him. Out of all the people he left behind, why did he only bother to explain to Spencer?
Morgan also brings him up. On the flight home, he says that the team is doing just fine without Gideon.
Besides Gideon leaving, the only personal note was when Hotch tells Morgan that Haley has left, and he didn’t know if she was coming back.

“Scared to Death” was all right. It wasn’t one of their best episodes, but it was still entertaining. I’m looking forward to Joe Mantegna’s debut (on October 31 - Halloween) to bring some tension to the team and move some action along.

In the second week of the new television season, CBS is leading the other networks in primetime. CSI was the most-watched show, with 20.97 million viewers. CSI:Miami, NCIS, and Criminal Minds were in the top ten, according to the Associated Press. Criminal Minds brought in 14.56 million viewers.
CBS averaged 11.41 million viewers for the week. ABC was second at 10.78 million, followed by NBC (9.24) and Fox (7.01).
Frazier Moore of the AP writes:

With nearly all the new fall shows on the air, viewers last week had a powerful response: We still like the old shows.
Maybe old habits are just hard to break. Or maybe viewers haven’t yet stumbled on the freshman crop.

So far, CM seems to be a solid show for CBS. In its third season, it delivers consistently entertaining episodes. And all the publicity surrounding Mandy Patinkin’s departure and Joe Mantegna’s arrival doesn’t seem to have hurt.

Tonight’s episode, “Scared to Death,” has Hotch and his BAU profilers tracking down a serial killer. Not just your average ordinary killer - he may a psychiatrist. The team thinks that hte doctor finds out what his victims fear most and uses that fear to kill them. The victims have all recently moved to Portland and have not developed strong ties to the area. (Michael O’Keefe plays Dr. Stan Howard.)
“Scared to Death” will air on CBS at nine tonight and will be Criminal Minds’ first Gideon-free episode.

Without a Trace and Numb3rs are two more CBS procedurals. Like Criminal Minds, they chug along in their time slots, doing well, but not, for the most part, shows that are greatly talked about. Are they worth watching?

Without a Trace follows the NY Missing Persons Squad of the FBI. They use advanced profiling techniques to reconstruct the missing person’s last day. They investigate every aspect of the victim to try and figure out where they are - if they’ve been abducted, murdered, committed suicide, or run away. The team, led by Anthony LaPaglia, needs every second to find the missing person. As the show continues, more and more details of the characters’ lives come out. CBS seems to make a point of saying that about each of their procedural shows - the characters’ lives are an intregal part of the show. I’m not a regular watcher of this show - possibly because I go to bed ridiculously early most nights.
Thursday night, Without a Trace featured a case in which an 18 year old girl and her father are missing. The father’s job is to clean up crime scenes, and they wonder if this has something to do with their disappearance.
As the episode continued, you could see some of the personality of the victims coming through, which doesn’t always happen. The show was interesting, and the characters were as well. The only part that was kind of odd for me was when a suspect is plied with soda and coffee. During his trip to the bathroom, the head guy, Anthony LaPaglia, meets him and does a little interrogating there. He puts his head in the toilet and flushes a few times. He terrifies the young suspect into a confession. I wondered would an FBI agent put someone’s head in the toilet? Maybe I’d like to believe that wouldn’t really happen. Other than that, I liked Without a Trace. There was even one scene, when an agent had to inform a mother that her child was murdered, that gave me chillls. This never happens, but something about the scene was very striking to me.

Numb3rs is CBS’s third FBI procedural. In this one, Rob Morrow plays Don Eppes, and FBI agent in LA. He recruits his younger brother, Charlie (David Krumholtz) to help solve the more complex crimes. Charlies’s contribution is his brilliant mathematical mind. This show about a mathematician solving crimes for the FBI seemed weird to me, but then I found out it is based on actual events. Anyway, Charlie and his CalSci coworkers work their magic, while the other team members use more traditional methods. The cases in this show are interesting, and the math angle does make it unique. It’s actually entertaining to see Charlie solve complex mathematical equations (yes, it really is!). The characters are also interesting - and even though Charlie is often lost in his own world of numbers, he actually has a girlfriend. The brothers’ relationship to each other, as well as to their father (Judd Hirsch) seems pretty realistic.
In the recent episode, the team is trying to solve the murder of a young woman who is found dead at the home of a movie star. The show has some twists and turns (such as that the victim had plastic surgery performed so she and another woman would look like identical twins. This gave the woman an edge in their call girl careers). I like this show - math is hot.
Texas Instruments even teamed up with CBS to promote math. Their website, We All Use Math Everyday, offers teaching tools and suggestions as to how to use Numb3rs episodes in the classroom, as well as showing students and parents who relevant math is to everyday life. Very cool.

After watching all of CBS’s crime procedurals, it’s still the characters that make a show worth watching. All of the shows might have similar crimes but their approach to them makes them unique - or not. Why do I like Cold Case, Criminal Minds, and Numb3rs, but not CSI:NY or NCIS? It’s the characters and the way they tell their stories.
For more info on your favorite crime shows, check out Crime Drama TV.

Frankie Muniz, of Malcolm in the Middle fame is set to appear on an episode of Criminal Minds to air on November 28, sweeps week. The episode will feature Muniz as a famous comic book artist who becomes involved in the team’s investigation of a serial killer. Zap 2 It writes in an October 4 article, “First Dawson now Malcolm? Oh “Criminal Minds,” why must you keep toying with our favorite child stars?”
James Van Der Beek (Dawson) appeared on two episodes of CM in season two. Those were my two favorite episodes! The former Dawson’s Creek star was in “The Big Game” and “Revelations,” in which he was a religious fanatic with multiple personalities who killed people and used a webcam so he could put videos of their deaths on the net and then kidnapped Reid and pumped him full of drugs after his other personality tortured him. (I know that’s not properly written but it’s as succinct as I can get.)

Pushing Daisies is always described as “quirky” by reviewers. It debuted last night on ABC and was indeed quirky. And popular. The show about Ned, a pie maker who can raise the dead with a touch, was first among viewers 18-49 for the eight o’clock hour on Wednesday.

In Wednesday’s highly competetive nine o’clock hour, Media Life Magazine reports that while Private Practice won the timeslot with the 18-49 group, Criminal Minds was first in overall viewers - 12.8 million. (The 18-49 year old age bracket is the most sought-after. Advertisers put their money where those people watch as they have more expendable income.)

Media Life also noted that digital recording also scews numbers a bit.
As a reminder, the increase in digital video recorders this year in Nielsen’s sample could have a big impact on ratings. Some shows may see their declines lessen when those results are out, which will be several weeks.

So people may be watching the show but not at the time it airs.

Channel Canada reports that Criminal Minds was the show to beat at nine o’clock.
Criminal Minds

nearly tripled the audience of Bones nationally, was the most-watched non-sports program of the night in Toronto/Hamilton and Vancouver; was nearly three times stronger in Toronto and more than double the speed in Vancouver of Bionic Woman on NBC.

CSI:NY, immediately following CM, was Canada’s second most-watched show on Wednesday night.

Today, I’m going to look at three more of CBS procedurals - Cold Case, CSI:Miami, and NCIS.

I like Cold Case. Why Cold Case and not CSI:NY? I don’t know. The really pale detective kind of intrigues me. Kathryn Morris plays Detective Lily Rush, who works in the cold case department. I don’t watch this all the time but more frequently than any other crime show besides Criminal Minds and CSI. I like how they use flashbacks in the show, as well as music from the time period the crime occured in. It’s kind of interesting that when they’re speaking to witnesses, they show them older, and then show them as they were when they were younger. The crimes in this show are not particularly different than any other show but since they are all cold cases, it makes it a bit more original. On the season premiere Sunday, the team investigates the 1998 murder of a fifteen year old girl. She was known to be promisicuous in high school and so joined as club called Heart Wait, which was an abstinence club. The show was pretty interesting. At the end of last season, the main character, Lily, was shot. They barely mentioned it in the new episode - it came up very briefly twice, so I think it may become a bigger issue later on. Cold Case also depicts the detective’s personal lives, which makes it more interesting.

CSI:Miami was spawned after the incredible success of the original CSI. Starring David Caruso as Horatio Caine, the Miami team also uses amazing technology to track down criminals, but they tend to focus on one crime per episode, instead of the typical two on the other CSI’s. Miami is the most watched U.S. series in the world. It’s Monday night’s highest rated show, and one of the most watched in America. Wikipedia has a run-down of the characters. I like this one better than NY but not as much as Vegas. I don’t know why! I love David Caruso, so that might be it. Emily Proctor is also a good actress and was a cutie on West Wing.
I just read in a blog on a hockey website (not sure what that has to do with CSI but whatever), “I watch CSI and CSI:NY but i can’t stand Miami. i think it’s David Caruso… i’m not sure. i think i heard it has the best ratings of the 3, though. ”
David Caruso must be a love him or hate him type of guy. The season opens with some suprising news for Horatio - he’s a father. Surprise - you have a teenager! And he is a suspect in the murder of a parole officer. CSI Files has a good synopsis of the episode. I’m behind on the back stories of the characters, but I could be persuaded to be a Miami fan.

NCIS(Navel Criminal Investigative Service)follows a team who investigates criminal activity in the Navy or Marine Corps. I’ve seen this once or twice. Like CSI:NY, not bad, but I have no urge to watch it really. Mark Harmon plays NCIS Special Agent Leroy Jethro Gibbs, who leads the team and seems kind of grouchy. I do have to say that I don’t know the characters or their stories so I don’t care about this show at all, regardless of the quality.
I watched the new episode on Tuesday. It was pretty good. I liked the story, but the characters made me lose interest half way through the show. Mark Harmon is the alpha dog, and the other two male team members constantly try to one-up each other. It doesn’t seem like friendly competition - it’s just mean. The quirky weird lab girl, Abbie, seems a little forced - like she really has to act for it, and the female team member, Ziva, is a former Moussad agent (sort of Israel’s version of the CIA). Her accent is a bit inconsistent. They all treat Mark Harmon - Gibbs - as a god and try to impress him, fearing his disapproval and glowing when they win his approval. That was kind of strange to me. Anyway, the story was interesting. I just didn’t like how the characters interacted - but that could be because I don’t really know them.

Characters for me are so important to the show. If I don’t like them, I won’t watch it, no matter how interesting the cases they investigate are. In the crowded field of crime procedurals, they have to have strong people to carry the story.

Do Numb3rs and Without a Trace have these strong people? I’ll talk about them next time.
One of the best procedurals is on tonight. Catch CSI at nine on CBS.

If you want some good Criminal Minds spoilers, check out Buddy TV. If you don’t want to know anything until you see it, don’t read any further.
Later in the season, Garcia is in a diner and helps someone unfreeze his laptop. They go on a date, which apparently doesn’t go well. He shoots her. Yes, that’s right, he shoots Garcia. He leaves her and that’s where the episode ends.
In the next episode, emergency teams try to save her, as we see flashbacks to different points in her life. (In two, she’s a child with her parents. In another, she is at a funeral with two caskets, which may be her parents.)
No, no more stars are leaving the show, so Penelope lives.
Nicholas Brendan -aka Zander from Buffy - will play Kevin, who the team hires to help crack Garcia’s system. They hope that something she was working on will give them a clue to her shooting. He finds something “shocking” and drama ensues. At the end, a possible love match between the two techies is hinted at. Nicholas Brendan will appear on the one episode definately and may appear more if his character is well-received by viewers.

Sounds exciting. This show keeps the surprises coming. Garcia goes on her date November 14, and Nicholas Brendan makes his CM debut on November 21.

Hotch is gone, Prentiss is gone, Gideon is gone. The team goes to Milwaukee. Hotch comes back. Prentiss comes back. They arrest the serial killer using his son as bait. Gideon’s still gone. And Haley’s gone. Just a quick recap for “In Name and Blood.” This episode wrapped up some loose ends from last week and also gave us some new loose ends. Hotch and Prentiss are back with the team. Section Chief Erin Strauss travels with the team to Milwaukee to work the case. While there, she actually sees what the BAU does. She can’t do it. She insults the local detective, takes control when she shouldn’t, and then finally, breaks down at a crime scene when she steps on a victim’s hair. Having seen the reality of their job, she relents. Hotch is back but cannot move up in the chain of command. This is a big deal as he wanted to become FBI director.
Spencer worries about Gideon and finally goes to check on him at his cabin hide-away. Inside, he finds empty shelves and a gun, badge, and letter on Gideon’s desk. He tries to explain to Spencer why he’s leaving - not committing suicide as was implied last week. At the end, we see him traveling alone, trying to find hope again.
The new loose end - when Hotch gets back from Milwaukee, Haley is gone. Earlier in the episode, the phone rings. When Hotch picks up, the caller hangs up. Seconds later, Haley’s cell rings. She ignores it. When she leaves the room, she grabs her purse. Hmmmmm.

I thought this was a good episode - the big huge deal that was Mandy Patinkin’s leaving the show was quietly dealt with. The case the team was working on was interesting, and you can feel the itchy, tense feeling when they’re racing to find the unsub before his victim dies. Also interesting was that Hotch mentioned - fleetingly - that one of his team members has a possibly serious drug addiction. Hmmmmm again. Spencer seems to be functioning pretty well for someone addicted to heroin, but I guess I wouldn’t really know. Maybe this comes up in future episodes.