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annavereEvery Sunday, I get together with my mother and we watch episodes of alternating TV shows she decided to purchase on DVD. The roster has included Criminal Minds, which I have been very nervous about watching, because this show is infamous for being packed with dark and twisted serial killers - but I didn't want to try and influence her opinion of the show, and the discussions about the episodes have been enjoyable, so I hung in there and decided I would stick with it until we got to an episode with no catharsis.
I was not expecting that to be episode seven. I thought it would take at least until season two for serial escalation to really get going, but they really slammed the accelerator to the floor quite fast.
Up to that point, the show was mostly a suspense procedural with slightly darker than average cases, but with a heroic cast of characters determined to bring killers to justice. The focus was on the team using their wits to crack cases. The tone was that of a thriller, with a race against time to successfully save the current target, and some pretty exciting standoffs with the criminals. It was like a grittier NCIS, and I was fine with it.
Anyway, it hit the skids with episode seven. No catharsis. Way too much focus on the horrible crime, and its victims, and the sheer horror. Damn, I've got real life for horror and despair, I do not need to tune in every other week to get punched in the face for caring. Our conversation afterward was mostly to the tune of "that was well made, but it was horrible, and now we both feel bad." Then episode eight kept going down the same path toward being an incredibly gnarly show full of non-stop serial killer torture, and (with the trust broken by episode seven) my mother asked to bail rather than stick with to the close of the episode. I was more than happy to agree. She was astonished that a show airing on CBS in 2005 would be this nihilistic, and then she did some research and discovered it only gets worse.
So we're done with that show! More time to spend on better things! That bundle of DVDs is sailing out the door, frisbee-style!
I was not expecting that to be episode seven. I thought it would take at least until season two for serial escalation to really get going, but they really slammed the accelerator to the floor quite fast.
Up to that point, the show was mostly a suspense procedural with slightly darker than average cases, but with a heroic cast of characters determined to bring killers to justice. The focus was on the team using their wits to crack cases. The tone was that of a thriller, with a race against time to successfully save the current target, and some pretty exciting standoffs with the criminals. It was like a grittier NCIS, and I was fine with it.
Anyway, it hit the skids with episode seven. No catharsis. Way too much focus on the horrible crime, and its victims, and the sheer horror. Damn, I've got real life for horror and despair, I do not need to tune in every other week to get punched in the face for caring. Our conversation afterward was mostly to the tune of "that was well made, but it was horrible, and now we both feel bad." Then episode eight kept going down the same path toward being an incredibly gnarly show full of non-stop serial killer torture, and (with the trust broken by episode seven) my mother asked to bail rather than stick with to the close of the episode. I was more than happy to agree. She was astonished that a show airing on CBS in 2005 would be this nihilistic, and then she did some research and discovered it only gets worse.
So we're done with that show! More time to spend on better things! That bundle of DVDs is sailing out the door, frisbee-style!
