A co-worker started singing this show’s praises to me completely out of the blue, saying I must watch it and I will love it.
I know I could just watch an episode or two, but I thought I’d ask here first if I should even bother doing that.
Thanks for any input.
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I have a hard time recommending shows, since I can never tell who will like what.
But last year I was visiting my mom, and she loves this show; I ended up watching 2 or 3 of them, and enjoyed it enough that I’m going through them all from the beginning. The ones I saw were well into the series. I am now up to 4 or five, and I would say that if you like House at all…that is to say, slightly formulaic but interesting anyway…you might like it. I can’t compare it to any other crime shows, as the only ones I’ve ever actively watched were…um…Hill Street Blues <cough> and Saving Grace.
Mandy Patinkin is always a bonus, and I adore the geek genius guy. But I’m a female with a soft spot for geek geniuses, so your mileage may vary.
I love the character of House, but I find it entirely unwatchable due to the absolutely laughable (and predictable) story lines.
Criminal Minds: Good writing/dialogue? This is key for me.
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Well, I like the eye candy.
The stories are okay. I found the back stories of the main characters somewhat interesting.
The boy genius is fun. Mandy Patinkin is always good to watch. I hear he quit the show because it is often violent and depressing. Anyway, I was entertained, but not addicted to it.
You’ll probably be disappointed then. The stories hang together well, the theme and characterization are solid, and the production is fine, but despite that, the writing is run of the mill. It’s a good workmanlike show, but the dialogue and storyline are not that clever. It’s an okay time-waster, but it’s not West Wing. It’s comparable to NCIS, which we’ve established as the low bar for watchability in our household.
I watched one or two seasons before getting bored by it. But then I’m the person who started the thread about how frustrated I am with the stupidity on the show 24, so you can take what I say with that in mind.
I enjoy it. The plots are a lot less predictable than, say, Bones or Castle. Rarely do the heroes go through the obvious bad guy- red herring - surprise twist bad guy routine that is so entrenched in most procedurals. The heroes don’t always save the day, either, which keeps you in some actual suspense.
I haven’t watched much, but I don’t think it can keep up with Bones or even Lie to Me. I didn’t count that I had watched them before, because I didn’t think of them, but…Bones and Lie to Me are better, and if you like those, this will likely fall a little short.
Not stopping me watching, though; the later episodes I happened to see at first were all about character development, specifically geek guy’s family, and THAT was hella interesting. Haven’t seen anything in the first half-season to match it, though.
It’s a CBS crime procedural. Barely distinguishable from NCIS, or the CSIs, except that instead of Magical TV Forensics, they use Magical TV Psychological Profiling.
They also devote more time to portraying the actions of the criminals. This generally involves a lot of shots of shrieking, battered women. To me, it looks like torture-porn for the network TV crowd.
I found it abysmally depressing. The geeky genius dude was tolerable, but Mandy’s sour-puss demeanor was totally off-putting (was he chewing lemons through the entire production schedule?). The episodes with Joe Mantegna were more tolerable, but it was still pretty dry stuff. Pass.
I think you should give it a whirl. Not that I think it’s particularly brilliant – I would say that I’m pretty much where Kyrie is as far as appraising its charms – but there are a shit-ton of episodes out there, so if you do happen to enjoy it, you’ll be able to enjoy it for a good long while. You can pretty much dive right in wherever you like; I’ll throw “Somebody’s Watching” out as a good one because it focuses a lot on Geek Boy, the crimes are not overly squick-inducing and the hot chick quotient is high.
Except NCIS is generally a light hearted popcorn time waster and CM is (to use someone else’s description) unremittingly grim. The wife and I stopped watching it sometime last season because the show would ruin our evening, it was interesting but a big downer. It’s like SVU, yay another rapist/serial killer/insane torture fanatic who finally gets caught/killed and we get to look forward to another (even more brutal) one next week.
Not that you shouldn’t watch it, but you may find yourself tired of it after a while.
I liked the first 2 seasons. I think Mandy was brilliant in his role. After that it’s pretty much downhill.
This is what I suspected - and was afraid of. I’m not really in need of a time-killer. The responses here have not changed my gut feeling about the show, that it is not a must-see. For reference, the only recent dramas that I would place in this category are Lost, The Wire, Breaking Bad, and The Walking Dead. Maybe The West Wing as well.
But I will check out an episode or two just out of curiosity.
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ETA: Recent acclaimed dramas that I have abandoned after a few episodes: Deadwood, Dexter, Mad Men. Current drama that is pissing me off: The Killing.
I plan on giving Dexter and Mad Men another chance, though.
I’m late, but I wanted to say that many of the episodes draw out the “women being physically and mentally tortured” scenes to gratuitous length. I stopped watching because of that.
You might want to watch something with a prominent laugh track, or perhaps a lot of explosions, then.
But seriously, CM is fine for what it is–a formulaic procedural with minimal character development. That might sound overwhelmingly pessimistic, but there’s value in such shows–you can catch a random episode without feeling like you’re out of the loop.
I prefer it to NCIS because I find Mark Harmon’s character to be utterly odious. A boss who whacks his employees upside the head, and is generally an unpleasant human being? No thanks.
It’s lurid, exploitative and revels in twisted violence while pretending to condemn it. I find it insanely depressing. That said it’s competently produced and acted and the actors are good-looking, in a bland vacuous way.
Raginghormonal, I did not know that about Mandy Patinkin. If that’s true, good for him.
This is true. I still often watch it because I like the characters and . . . well, Shemar Moore.
Care to explain this remark?
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It’s mostly run-of-the-mill, but occasionally there is an outstanding episode.
Jane Lynch was in three episodes as geeky agent Reid’s mentally ill mother. She is not to be missed.
