The Good
I could watch Mandy Patinkin act all day.
The Bad
At times this show seemed to be like too much of a procedural.
Criminal Minds: The Complete Second Season gives us 23 episodes of this crack Behavioral Analysis Unit trying to profile some very bad people and send them to jail. Led by Jason Gideon (Mandy Patinkin), he tries to help his unit in every way possible and impossible. Also on the team are characters like Aaron Hotchner (Thomas Gibson), Emily Prentiss (Paget Brewster) and Derek Morgan (Shemar Moore) among others. During this Second Season we see all manner of situations befall them and somehow this team always manages to put things together in 45 minutes less.
Some of the stand out episodes on this release were “P911” which finds the team walking smack-dab into an online pornography ring. “North Mammon” has the BAU trying to profile some very sick people who have kidnapped and tortured three college women. “No Way Out” has Gideon up against a serial killer who is not only good at his work, but is also able to match wits with Gideon. Lastly, “Honor Among Thieves” finds Emily bringing her problems to the BAU when a family friend has her husband abducted by Russian mobsters.
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Features
“Profilers, Profiled” and “Real Life Criminal Minds
In the “Profilers, Profiled” section, they open with saying that they wanted Criminal Minds to give a reward to the people watching. This section then went through the characters on the show, describing them to us and explaining a little about each one’s creation. “Real Life Criminal Minds sits down and talks with real life profilers. They say that what they do isn’t magic, but how they’re able to do what they do comes from watching and examining behavior.
“The Physical Evidence”
Deleted Scenes
The Deleted Scenes that they put on here are all pretty good quality. They offer up explanations for why they are were taken out, then we are treated to the actual scene. One was taken out because its storyline got messed up in terms of how it was being told, and apparently it was really hard to cut because of how much it fleshed out the characters in it. I always like when I get a little bit more information about the deleted scenes, instead of just random sections strung together without even a title card or anything.
“Meet Kristen Vangsness”
Gag Reel
I cannot explain but for some reason I always end up watching these things. Here we see Mandy Patinkin messing around which is actually odd because he always seems so serious. We then see other actors messing up their lines, having problems with working on props and just about everything else. I think the reason why these are so fun to watch is because the subject matter of the show itself is so serious.
Video
Widescreen Version Enhanced for 16:9 TVs. The look of this show was pretty darn strong. There aren’t colors employed that really dominate but overall it seems like there was a pretty smooth compression to DVD. I liked that this show doesn’t get lost in itself with excessive flashbacks or other visual traits that many of today’s procedurals employ. These episodes even looked cleaned up but I don’t think these shows were so old that they needed that.
Audio
Dolby Digital: English 5.1 Surround. The audio on this show was also how I expected it would be. They didn’t do much to bump up the sound and there wasn’t anything about the score that was overly memorable. However, by just having the soundtrack underscore what was happening on screen, I feel that that worked in this show’s favor. I never felt like I was being beaten over the head or being forced to focus on things so I would understand the story.
Package
The front half of this slipcase cover has the cast of this show standing together but we don’t see a full shot of any of their faces or bodies. Below them is a some artwork that seems like it was created in blood. The back cover shows us the same group from the waist up, it gives us a description of this show, a Special Features listing and some system specs. All 6 discs in this collection are stored in three slim cases each of which gives us some more pictures from the cast (and from various episodes), episode descriptions and where to find the Special Features.
Final Word
While I think that Criminal Minds is a good show, I must admit that it feels a little stale to me. I think I either get too many procedurals to review or there are too procedurals on TV, but this show just seems like it all of the others shows. It really isn’t the fault of the show per se, it just has the inglorious distinction of coming out behind a crop of other procedurals. I just reached a point when watching Criminal Minds: The Complete Second Season that I knew everything that was going to happen before it happened. I wasn’t ever really surprised because I never felt that the characters had anything to lose.
Like I stated, Criminal Minds isn’t a bad show so much as it feels a tad too familiar. I know that there are legions of fans who love it and probably deserves all the attention it is getting. At some point, maybe I will go back and revisit this review but for right now this is how I feel.
Criminal Minds was released .
