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| | Criminal Minds - Is it me? (plus related rant)Twice, people have given me long answers for questions I didn't even ask. First, in a discussion about the Criminal Minds novel, I asked how it benefited the readers unfamiliar with the show to give them false information about the character. I received an answer that the reason there wasn't a lot of character stuff was that the writer wanted to write the plot and didn't want a lot of details that new readers would find confusing since they didn't know the characters. Um, how does that answer my question? How does "why didn't they get the details right" turn into "why didn't they put in more details?"
Also people were complaining that there was too much romance in the last episode. And, even I felt they could have done without the Garcia/Kevin scenes. But, people were going on that the episode jumped the shark (a phrase that needs to be retired or used the way it was intended - a point where you look back and see that it's the episode where the show took an irreversible downhill slide, not just a really bad episode) and that if this is the direction the show was taking they were out of there. I said who says there won't still be episodes where the cases are given the primary focus? Who says this episode is how all future episodes are going to be? Then, I was told that, no, you can't have an episode with lots of romance and an interesting case that people can get into. I never said there could be. I asked why couldn't there be episodes that weren't like this one?
Now my rant and then differences of opinion as what counts as "character 'development'" in the episodes. I find it very annoying when someone completely dismisses my concerns. Don't tell me that it doesn't matter that the writer of Jump Cut attributed false reasons to the tension between Reid and Prentiss. Maybe it doesn't to you, but don't try to convince me that it shouldn't bother me. And, the most ludicrous justification for the mistakes is "he knows the characters as well as you do so if he made mistakes, he made them for a reason." And, if the show made every episode a "can't miss" episode (which amounts to any episode that gives any new detail about the characters)they would have a reason for doing that, but she wouldn't like it.
Also, people seem to have a very different idea of what counts as character 'development'. I put development in quotes because people seem to take that to mean changes in the characters or their lives or new info. That's not necessarily the case, although development is more precise than saying that the character "stuff" is as vital, (to me) as the cases. Someone said you can either have it be mainly about the cases or mainly about the characters. And, I believe her definition (why do I always assume these people are female?) for being about the characters were personal stories, or where we see them off work. And, she said those only take up a few minutes in the episodes they're in. True. But, what about an episode like Sex, Birth, Death? (I didn't use that as an example, because I wasn't sure if they felt the subplot of Nathan Harris over took the case. I used LDSK, a very good balance of both case and character) We had the case about someone killing prostitutes in DC. The episode got into the political ramifications of crime happening there, the fact that the unsub could work in politics as feel impotent in his life (and impotency was one of the things mentioned in the profile), how prostitutes are easy targets, how the unsub wanted to be stopped. But, it also had the story of Nathan Harris, a kidwho could become an unsub, and his fears and wanting help before it ever got that far (and since a lot of the profile pointed to him, the focus on him was also connected to the case). And, as for character stuff? We got Reid identifying with Nathan, feeling responsible for him, saving his life, worrying that by saving him, he unleashed a future killer. Not to mention scenes that related to the friendship between him and Garcia. Plus, there was character development for Hotch. we saw Hotch dealing with three issues when it came down to being told by a congresswoman not to publicize that the murders were happening. His desire to catch the unsub and keep the women safe, his ambition (he was told that leading the FBI had as much to do with politics as law enforcement) and whether the BAU would even be able to work the case at all if he didn't comply (he was also told that the team would be taken off the case if he didn't work it quietly). We saw him struggle with those things, take his frustrations out on Prentiss. And, for even more character stuff, we found that Prentiss was capable of standing up for herself, even if she was the new kid, that she could make it quite clear that she felt that he was out of line while remaining completely respectful, and that she hated politics. So, I don't know why people feel that character stuff can only be used in a few episodes or the cases are always going to suffer.
| | | Posted 5/3/2008 10:01 PM - 0 comments
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