Maybe that’s for the best, you know, considering all of the potential for mutilation.THE INTERNATIONAL RESPONSE TEAM INVESTIGATES CASES IN NEPAL AND RUSSIA, ON BACK-TO-BACK EPISODES OF “CRIMINAL MINDS: BEYOND BORDERS,” WEDNESDAY, MAY 17 No doubt plenty of people will be able to ease into the show’s groove thanks to its workmanlike adherence to the franchise’s established and efficient structure, but anyone unmoved by procedural formula won’t find much excuse to go beyond their already established borders. It’s hard to take a peaceful Gary Sinise monologue seriously when it’s superseded by what can be boiled down to an episodic reboot of the mid-aughts slasher trash Turistas.ĭuring the early minutes of the show’s pilot, Clara wonders “Why do humans always find new ways of hurting one another?” There’s not really a non-cynical answer to that wooden question (in the show’s world or in our own), but considering the real world, perhaps the most cynical one is that it creates as good a reason as any to introduce a new block of potential-hit programming for the juggernaut network that Criminal Minds: Beyond Borders has found itself on. But the standard execution of the show as a whole does nothing to make it feel unique or special or worthy of being the bastion of tolerance it so earnestly tries to be by the kumbaya proverbs plastered across the screen upon entry into each new territory. Some of that is recovered in the tricky bureaucracy that the team has to walk in each new country, with specific guidelines handed out by Clara at the beginning of each episode (she is, unfortunately, the human version of a travel itinerary more than a character). But what creator Erica Messer doesn’t completely balance successfully is the anti-argument: that, you know, not every instance of traveling abroad will result in a self-mutilating foreigner chasing you through the woods. When the villain of the fourth episode stands in front of a tied-down, innocent Swedish twenty-something, obsessing over the look of his blue eyes, it’s hard not to scoot closer to the edge of your seat when he grabs a spoon. If you’re one of them, that’s great if you aren’t, well, at least CBS has one genre show on the air.Īs set-ups for moments of surprising tension, Criminal Minds: Beyond Borders has the classic case of awkward “entertainment value” covering potentially xenophobic property. But there’s simply nothing else to the show: it is, unapologetically, a no-frills, assembly line crime show that knows what its viewers want. Anyone familiar with this kind of cop show procedural formula will undoubtedly find easy pickings in the line-up of likable leads offered beyond the borders of Criminal Minds’ America-locked OG series.
The difference here is moreso in location (Thailand and India in the two episodes sent for review, but suspect green screen suggests a CBS lot in Southern California) than team dynamics.
#Criminal minds beyond borders season finale series
Criminal Minds: Beyond Borders brings back the world-traveling team first introduced in the parent series and gives them their own cavalcade of off-putting psychopaths to chase down.
After ten seasons of success with the crime thriller Criminal Minds (and one not-so-successful spinoff, subtitled Suspect Behavior), the network has decided to section off a new segment of its FBI profiling world.
CBS has its procedural game down to a science.
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