I mean, come on! Talk about taking the easy road. What ever happened to getting your hands dirty? Or at least some creative thinking? In that respect, this serial killer was a definite disappointment.

And yet last night’s episode of Criminal Minds was an interesting development in the story of Hotch and The Reaper. It was a bit subtle, and I wouldn’t be surprised if people missed it, but I thought it was a strong move by the show to have The Reaper insinuate himself into an investigation into the current serial killer, at least enough to lead Hotch and Prentiss to spend all of their time tracking down a potential lead that never was.

This episode reached back in time to three cases that live in the annals of Criminal Minds history. The first is clearly that of The Reaper, an ongoing investigation that for now has forced Hotch out of the drivers seat at the BAU. The second was a throwback to season one of the show, and the case of “The Fox,” also known as Karl Arnold, the killer that Hotch and Prentiss went to visit in prison. Arnold was pertinent to the investigation both as a result of his own crimes, as well as because it seemed that the current killer was sending him communications through the mail. Read the rest of this entry »

I’ll take “people we got an earful from this week” for two hundred!

I was going back and forth through the quotes submitted by our writers this week, and I couldn’t quite understand why the haul seemed so light. Then it dawned on me: ABC didn’t air its new Wednesday night comedy lineup this week. Can you believe how quickly those three shows (sorry Hank!) have entered our pop-culture? Yowza.

30 Rock

“Alright hosers: I want all 12 of us fighting for every meter on all three downs. And we’re gonna make this a Boxing Day the Prime Minister will never forget.” – Danny, in his Canadian football movie

“I feel about as useless as a mom’s college degree.” – Kenneth, on his problem with Danny Read the rest of this entry »

I know I’m not the intended demographic, but what’s with all the vampires, and blood drinking? I just watched Castle’s Halloween episode last night, and it’s a bit much.

Anyway, I wanted to drop in and check on how Morgan was doing as Unit Chief. All seems to be going okay, save for an awkward moment in LA when Hotch alerted the liaison police officer, someone they’d worked with in the past, that Morgan was now in charge. Oh, and Morgan’s new formality with Garcia (no more “Baby Girl” … thank goodness!).

But otherwise I was a bit disappointed at how indiscernible the shift seems to be. Maybe that’s a good thing, because it means the team continues to click on all cylinders. But is also means that there’s no longer any significance to this extreme move, and also that there’s no progression in either Hotch’s story, or development in Morgan’s. Read the rest of this entry »

While I’m loathe to step on any toes, and I enjoyed JJ’s guest clack on the subject, I wanted to take the opportunity to share my thoughts on the recent personnel developments on Criminal Minds. Plus I didn’t actually get around to last week’s episode until last night, so for me it’s kind of new….

Anyway, here’s my take: this was a brilliant move. Don’t get me wrong, I am and always will be a Hotch fan, and I prefer him at the forefront of things. At the same time, Morgan is one of the strongest characters on a show filled with them (I can’t forget Reid), and without the opportunity to fly high for a moment or two, we’d lose out on some great Shemar Moore acting. And that would be a crime. Read the rest of this entry »

A combination of baseball and pre-sweeps repeats made for a bit of an odd week. Repeats don’t mean there aren’t numbers of note however. We had Jay Leno’s first shot against CSI: Miami and NY repeats, and a look at what running repeats on Friday does for FOX. That is, nothing good for Dollhouse season 3. Also interesting this week — The Mentalist finally topped CSI in viewers and the demo, and even a repeat Gibbs appearance is worth 16 million viewers. Read the rest of this entry »

We do often get caught up in the big numbers from the big networks. It is, after all, hard to overlook the fact that NCIS is still growing its audience in the 7th season. There are still some very interesting stories happening on the little network, CW. When it was announced that Vampire Diaries would be paired with Supernatural, while Smallville was shuffled off to Friday, many people expected that was the end.

The show wouldn’t be able to come back from a year grinding away on Friday nights. After a few weeks looking at the numbers though, that’s not the case at all. Clark and the gang can celebrate good times, despite taking a hit from the move. In fact, this week Smallville topped new episodes of One Tree Hill, Gossip Girl, 90210, and Melrose Place. It’s far from done. Elsewhere, we had our first sizable crop of repeats this week, which brought some interesting results. Read the rest of this entry »

I find myself in an unexpected predicament these days. Or you could call it a perfect storm. But however you want to label it, I’m stuck.

The new fall season has taken me by surprise with a number of additions to the old TiVo season pass list. That on top of my shows that made it past the grim reaper last season, times cable series that tend to be good more often than network offerings … as a result, there are a couple of series that are stacking up on my DVR. Fast. Read the rest of this entry »