Criminal Minds

Season Two of Criminal Minds is coming out on DVD tomorrow, October 2. This review appeared in IESB the Movie Reporter:

I must be honest and say that I have never seen “Criminal Minds” until I was asked to review it. I sat down in front of my TV and put the second season DVD on. From the second the first episode started I was hooked. In fact, I sat in front of my TV every chance I could until I finished the entire second season and that only took two days. I then ran to the store and bought the first season.

The featurettes look pretty interesting - I’m always fascinated by the real-life profilers and the cases they work on. I have season two on my Netflix que, so I’m looking forward to seeing the episodes again. Hopefully, season three will expand on the development of the characters’ personal lives.

“Criminal Minds” is a very well written crime series with action and suspense in all the right places. I am a fan of other crime related shows that air on television, but I am very excited to have found something new. Very fast I became a devoted fan. If you are in the mood for one hell of a good ride this could be your lucky day. Strap off the belt, grab a pillow and get ready for the best television experience yet. My hands are up and clapping loud, to commend the brilliance of “Criminal Minds.”

IGN.com recently had a review of the second season DVDs. Hock Teh writes about the prevalance of procedural shows on televsion and how they have to compete for viewers. Criminal Minds does this, he says, by featuring increasingly grusome and violent crimes.

Criminal Minds’s only trick up its sleeve is to showcase really heinous crimes in such a gruesome manner that one really has to question if such horrific scenarios should even be suitable for primetime. As competition heats up for ratings, it seems that some shows are willing to go down the road of using violent crimes and the gritty depiction of violence as its calling card. Criminal Minds, it seems, is one of them. Other than that, everything else about this show is really just a rehash of every other TV crime drama already out there.

Teh also takes exception to the use of quotes by literary giants such as Faulkner, Hemingway, and Conrad. “To me, this seems like a pretty pretentious effort to make the show appear smarter than it really is.”

These criticisms have plauged the show since its debut but are by no means universal. DVDTalk also reviewed the DVD set. The reviewer, Francis Rizzo III, talks about the character development shown in the second season, as well as the interesting crimes the BAU team investigates.
Of the characters, Rizzo writes:

Each member of the main cast gets a chance to suffer, some more than other. One arc that puts Reid (Matt Gray Gubler) in danger, is particularly dark, though unfortunately without the hoped-for payoff, while “Profiler, Profiled” a story that casts Morgan (Shemar Moore) as the suspect, is particularly touching and emotional as he revisits his troubled childhood.

And though certain crimes felt overused to Rizzo, overall the villains and crimes were well-developed in only 44 minutes.
Another advantage Criminal Minds has is that people who have never seen the show can catch up with the DVDs and then hopefully watch the new episodes on tv. They can judge for themselves if it is too grusome (I don’t think so) or unoriginal (I also don’t think so).

The set comes on six disks with 23 episodes, with four episodes offering commentaries. There are also four featurettes on the last disk. “Profilers, Profiled” discusses the second season’s focus on the characters’ lives. “The Physical Evidence” talks about the making of the series. “The Behavioral Science of Criminal Minds” covers the real-world profilers and how the job is done. And finally, you can get to know Kirsten Vangsness a little better in her own six minute featurette.

For more information on your favorite crime shows, check out Crime Drama TV. To see what new on DVD, check out TV on DVD Buzz.