Criminal Minds 4xnearlytheendoftheseason
May. 9th, 2009 06:58 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jadesfireThis was supposed to be a reaction to "Roadkill" but it's ended up being a more general think about how I've responded to S4. But it does have spoilers for "Roadkill", so
I should say at the start that I watch Criminal Minds on my little computer, and that I often wander off in the middle. Yes, I am a bad viewer, no I don't deserve a cookie, it's just that I am easily distracted. So my comprehension of an episode is generally only good if I watch it in the bath.
Needless to say, the bait and switch in this episode confused me utterly, and it's taken me a little while to get my head round it.
Overall, it felt like a solid CM episode. Nothing spectacular, solid team stuff, decent detective work, a little bit of luck, a red herring and a not-quite-happy ending. No, scratch that last one. The very ending actually spoiled the episode for me a little, because I don't come to CM for my warm fuzzies. I come for drama and thinkiness and to be challenged. The happy ending "let's go home, daddy" was a little much for me.
It probably didn't help that I watched all of S1 and half of S2 of NCIS in the 48 hours previous to seeing CM, so I was pretty much on a sugar high and needed the shot of CM-insulin to bring me down. Mostly, this episode gave it to me. I'll just pretend I didn't see the last 10 seconds.
Getting back to the point, Roadkill. Mostly, I liked it, even if I didn't think it was spectacular. But then, that's been my feeling about S4 in general. Or rather, I've felt out of step with fandom in terms of what I love and what's seemed hugely popular. "The Angel Maker" remains a firm favourite, as does "Minimal Loss", and you could say that that's because I'm a big fan of Prentiss, but "Demonology" didn't really move me the way it seems to have blown most people away, so I'm not buying that one. Reading back through the list of episodes, I think my problem with S4 is that although most of the episodes have felt solid, there have been too many that have either underwhelmed me or I've actually disliked (this'll no doubt get me drummed out of the Brownies, but "Memoriam" didn't work for me at all, and not in the way "Elephant's Memory" didn't work). And before anyone points out the obvious, it's not to do with Reid. I adore Reid (he's particularly awesome in "The Angel Maker" and "52 Pickup"), it's just that I like my character development more subtle. I want to figure it out myself, or for the reaction to be to the case (Prentiss in "Children of the Dark" springs to mind), rather than revolving so tightly around the character's personal life. It's a taste thing, I think.
There are plenty of episodes here that I'll revisit ("Brothers in Arms", "Normal", "Zoe's Reprise") but I'm looking for another "Seven Seconds" which remains my all time favourite CM episode. I like tightly structured stories, misdirects and the team working as a team, as well as the emotional punch that that episode gave me. Maybe that's just too high a standard to set, but that's what I'm always looking for. Maybe I also need to do what I did with NCIS and watch the whole season in one go; things generally work better for me when I can watch them in tight sequence and follow the character lines from episode to episode. Unlike Reid, I have a memory like a seive, and given my viewing technique, maybe I'm just not following them as closely as I should.
Getting back to Roadkill, I don't think I actually have much of a reaction except for a firm nod and a "yeah, okay, fine." Oh, except that I *did* like the cop, especially at the end. I liked that Hotch liked him, and the way he refused to accept guilt for what happened to the guy.
Oh, something I did think though! If the guy was in a wheelchair, how did he get/put stuff on all those high shelves in his apartment. The impression was so strongly that he was alone, it was hard to see how he could have done it. Thoughts?
Pondering the episode a few hours after I watched it, I think my main problem with it is my inability to recognise faces. That's not the episode's fault, obviously, but I got so confused about who was who, and who was married to who and who's this guy and is he not the other guy and is he the guy from the office because I don't recognise him, that it probably meant I didn't follow everything as well as I should have. A re-watch is probably called for, this time paying proper attention to identities. Considering it in abstract, and pretending I'd understood it the first time, I like the juxtaposition of the two men. Both eaten by guilt, but I like how CM shows that there are different ways to react to these things. It's a show that has a remarkable skill for making you feel sorry for murderers, but it was actually good to have a reminder that there are other emotional reactions than bashing people's heads in. However tempting it is sometimes.
So yes, this is going on my re-watch list, but it's first view score is only 6/10, let down not only by my brain, but the annoying kid on the car at the end.
I should say at the start that I watch Criminal Minds on my little computer, and that I often wander off in the middle. Yes, I am a bad viewer, no I don't deserve a cookie, it's just that I am easily distracted. So my comprehension of an episode is generally only good if I watch it in the bath.
Needless to say, the bait and switch in this episode confused me utterly, and it's taken me a little while to get my head round it.
Overall, it felt like a solid CM episode. Nothing spectacular, solid team stuff, decent detective work, a little bit of luck, a red herring and a not-quite-happy ending. No, scratch that last one. The very ending actually spoiled the episode for me a little, because I don't come to CM for my warm fuzzies. I come for drama and thinkiness and to be challenged. The happy ending "let's go home, daddy" was a little much for me.
It probably didn't help that I watched all of S1 and half of S2 of NCIS in the 48 hours previous to seeing CM, so I was pretty much on a sugar high and needed the shot of CM-insulin to bring me down. Mostly, this episode gave it to me. I'll just pretend I didn't see the last 10 seconds.
Getting back to the point, Roadkill. Mostly, I liked it, even if I didn't think it was spectacular. But then, that's been my feeling about S4 in general. Or rather, I've felt out of step with fandom in terms of what I love and what's seemed hugely popular. "The Angel Maker" remains a firm favourite, as does "Minimal Loss", and you could say that that's because I'm a big fan of Prentiss, but "Demonology" didn't really move me the way it seems to have blown most people away, so I'm not buying that one. Reading back through the list of episodes, I think my problem with S4 is that although most of the episodes have felt solid, there have been too many that have either underwhelmed me or I've actually disliked (this'll no doubt get me drummed out of the Brownies, but "Memoriam" didn't work for me at all, and not in the way "Elephant's Memory" didn't work). And before anyone points out the obvious, it's not to do with Reid. I adore Reid (he's particularly awesome in "The Angel Maker" and "52 Pickup"), it's just that I like my character development more subtle. I want to figure it out myself, or for the reaction to be to the case (Prentiss in "Children of the Dark" springs to mind), rather than revolving so tightly around the character's personal life. It's a taste thing, I think.
There are plenty of episodes here that I'll revisit ("Brothers in Arms", "Normal", "Zoe's Reprise") but I'm looking for another "Seven Seconds" which remains my all time favourite CM episode. I like tightly structured stories, misdirects and the team working as a team, as well as the emotional punch that that episode gave me. Maybe that's just too high a standard to set, but that's what I'm always looking for. Maybe I also need to do what I did with NCIS and watch the whole season in one go; things generally work better for me when I can watch them in tight sequence and follow the character lines from episode to episode. Unlike Reid, I have a memory like a seive, and given my viewing technique, maybe I'm just not following them as closely as I should.
Getting back to Roadkill, I don't think I actually have much of a reaction except for a firm nod and a "yeah, okay, fine." Oh, except that I *did* like the cop, especially at the end. I liked that Hotch liked him, and the way he refused to accept guilt for what happened to the guy.
Oh, something I did think though! If the guy was in a wheelchair, how did he get/put stuff on all those high shelves in his apartment. The impression was so strongly that he was alone, it was hard to see how he could have done it. Thoughts?
Pondering the episode a few hours after I watched it, I think my main problem with it is my inability to recognise faces. That's not the episode's fault, obviously, but I got so confused about who was who, and who was married to who and who's this guy and is he not the other guy and is he the guy from the office because I don't recognise him, that it probably meant I didn't follow everything as well as I should have. A re-watch is probably called for, this time paying proper attention to identities. Considering it in abstract, and pretending I'd understood it the first time, I like the juxtaposition of the two men. Both eaten by guilt, but I like how CM shows that there are different ways to react to these things. It's a show that has a remarkable skill for making you feel sorry for murderers, but it was actually good to have a reminder that there are other emotional reactions than bashing people's heads in. However tempting it is sometimes.
So yes, this is going on my re-watch list, but it's first view score is only 6/10, let down not only by my brain, but the annoying kid on the car at the end.