Well I sure liked it. I thought it was pretty good.I was pleased that the focus was on the team and not the unsub.I was also extremely happy that the violence was implied rather than actually shown.
I will take this episode over the last one we got from Bruce Zimmerman anyday.I would definitely watch it again.
I wanted to like it, but to be honest, I had a hard time staying interested. I had a hard time paying attention and my mind started wandering. Maybe I just need to re-watch it when I don't have other distractions-- such as my one-eyed kitten getting her claws stuck in something and having to be rescued. Normally when CM is on I will close my laptop, but I ended up just browsing plumbing forums and looking up specs on shower/tub combos and not really feeling engaged in the show.
Reid looked pretty. Rossi was used well. All of the cast were doing a good job.
But when it came to the guest stars I felt something was missing. The episode was lackluster and the acting from some of the guest stars just didn't work for me. It was just short of actually eliciting emotion.
When I think back to memorable guest appearances, I think of how I felt in "The Fox" when the schizophrenic brother came to the realization that his sister was saying "help me" instead of "go away". That was something I really felt and identified with.
With most of these guest stars, something just didn't hit the right note to elicit emotions. I sort of liked the unsub at first with how he was so nice to his wife, but something just didn't work for me and he was just too reserved and his calmness throughout didn't seem to fit with the crimes he was committing. There was just something off about it.
The cop who claimed to be angry just didn't seem to be angry to me. It was just words and wasn't emoted. I didn't believe the guy was angry.
Also, I sort of didn't like the way they had Reid say so confidently that the girl lied about being raped just from reading the transcript of her report. I know they are supposed to pick up on words and try to tell if someone is lying, but I don't buy that one transcript is enough to really give them that insight. Not all rape victims act the same way and some actually feel somewhat guilty for reporting their attackers-- depending on their relationship with the person and/or they are afraid that they will be blamed or not believed. Sometimes people overstate or understate things to try to cope.
It wasn't a problem with which character made that assumption from the transcript, it was just that they made that conclusion based on one little thing like that.
If it were that easy to detect a lie, the world would be a lot simpler.
But I can't recall any major nitpicks for this one. I think the smell of the decaying head would have made the whole pod capsule stink though. So they would have smelled it as soon as they opened it.
I'll have to watch this one again later and see if I still feel the same way about it.
First the good. I can't say it was a bad episode. The whole team was there and working together, there was a lot of profiling, and the mystery did keep me guessing. Not a lot of gore, but enough for a CM episode. And seeing the Unsub but not knowing what or why worked all right for me.
But I have to agree with Zannej, something was off. The guest actors weren't all that great, a number of times they were off enough to almost jolt me out of the story. (To really experience that effect see Sofia Coppola in Godfather 3) That's rarely happened to me in a CM episode before. But then I realized that the two times I remember were 07x17 "I love you, Tommy Brown" and 08x05 "The Good Earth". All three episodes were directed by John Terlesky, which leads me to think that CM might not be the best showcase for him. Sorry.
Now I need to get on my soap box and talk to Bruce Zimmerman a moment. A false rape claim? Really? Have you been hiding under a rock for the past year?
Seriously, that almost never happens. But you just made it I-don't-know how much harder for real rape victims to speak out because someone is going to say that women lie all the time. After all Criminal Minds did a show about it. Why couldn't she have stood up to him and taken back her power? Why couldn't she have said that it wasn't up to him to punish them for her, that it was her choice?
As a rape victim I'm going to stand here and tell TPTB flat out That. Was. Bad. What you did with Morgan's story was awesome, but this was just bad.
I thought it was a decent episode. It would be very hard to top last week's character driven episode with Morgan. With five episodes left in the season, I'm assuming that the next time The Replicator will be mentioned is during the two-hour season finale. There wasn't any character development within the seven this week, so it came off as a filler episode.
I always have a hard time staying interested in an episode when the unsub is presented early on. I know it allows more time for profiling, but the mystery is defunct from a viewership standpoint. Blake and Hotch thinking of the renovation in the precinct as to how the unsub heard of the cover-up felt like it came from nowhere. Another problem I do have, and this isn't singular to this episode, is that the majority of the police departments are characterized almost as bumbling, incompetent idiots. Inversely, a lot of cops shows do the same thing with the FBI/CIA or any other invading law enforcement agency. I know the main characters are supposed to be the "best", but it gets repetitive after a while.
I appreciated the notion of the "perfect, quaint small town" and how it's a fallacy, but it detracted from the emotional connection that you develop with the victims. Every victim had huge personal flaws in addition to the cover-up. The unsub's wife/victim admitting that she lied about the rape was predictable, and that made me feel disdain for her character also. There wasn't a true victim in the episode, and it's always hard to make me care when presented that way.
RF, I'm sorry about your experience. Thank you for the link. I wonder how many of the "false accusations" were calculated in when the victim had actually been raped but identified the wrong assailant out of either fear or truly believing the person was her attacker. There was a case where women were being raped and strangled in a park just off of a jogging trail. A schizophrenic man was convicted and sentenced to over 20 years in jail because two of the victims picked him out in a black and white photo line-up and one picked him from an actual line-up. There was no physical evidence. The victim had been oxygen deprived. It was later discovered that the actual rapist looked very much like the man who was falsely convicted. Did that quantify a "false report"? It's not like the women were lying. They honestly believed he was the one. But I think cases like that are very rare.
You might be on to something about Terleskey. I'm not sure though. I think in at least some of the episodes the writing was just too bizarre or just trying to do do something that didn't work out. I don't know how much is the fault of the director vs the writer.
I think one of the problems is that the idea of being falsely accused of any crime-- particularly rape-- is a horrifying prospect. It is something people may fear and it often elicits sympathetic emotions. It stirs up drama and that is what TV shows and movies want. So they play it up and exaggerate.
I agree that they made the victims a bit less sympathetic. I also thought they underplayed the fact that the wife was just a teenage girl when she made the accusations. I sort of wish they had made it into a dubious consent situation instead of an outright lie. And I still hold my objection to the claim of it being false based on the verbiage of one single statement to the police.
There was a program on about true crime cases. There was a 12-year-old girl who went missing from catechism and turned up later in another town saying she was kidnapped and raped. The cops didn't think she was displaying the appropriate mannerisms and thought that she remembered far too much detail. They noted that the most emotion she showed was when they called her a liar. They refused to take her to a doctor for an exam. The next day the cops decided to do a followup and the bruises from being bound were now showing up and they started to realize that she had been telling the truth and that they had just been colossal jerks to an actual rape victim. They used the details she gave them to catch the guy. But what if they had not bothered to follow up? How often does that happen with real victims?
This was very clearly a filler episode, so I agree with Anonymous on that.
It's episodes like this that makes me miss the earlier and far better CM writers.
I will admit this was better than the last one Zimmerman wrote.I thought our team was pretty good in it,but something was off with the guest stars.
CBS really screwed this show over causing it to lose some many of it's better writers, not to mention messing with the cast.
They had a hit show on their hands but they just couldn't leave well enough alone.
I read where Shemar said something about some of these writers also being in the middle of negotiations and I've got to say that doesn't sit too well with me.
The thought of any of these writers possible getting a raise,when CM lost so many of it's better writers bc cheapskate CBS wanted them to take a pay cut,angers me beyond mere words.
Respectful opinions, and constructive disagreement is welcomed, but insulting/foul-mouthed, malicious, or just plain disrespectful comments towards anyone are not, and will be removed.
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.
So, so not my favorite .
ReplyDeleteWell I sure liked it. I thought it was pretty good.I was pleased that the focus was on the team and not the unsub.I was also extremely happy that the violence was implied rather than actually shown.
ReplyDeleteI will take this episode over the last one we got from Bruce Zimmerman anyday.I would definitely watch it again.
I wanted to like it, but to be honest, I had a hard time staying interested. I had a hard time paying attention and my mind started wandering. Maybe I just need to re-watch it when I don't have other distractions-- such as my one-eyed kitten getting her claws stuck in something and having to be rescued. Normally when CM is on I will close my laptop, but I ended up just browsing plumbing forums and looking up specs on shower/tub combos and not really feeling engaged in the show.
ReplyDeleteReid looked pretty. Rossi was used well. All of the cast were doing a good job.
But when it came to the guest stars I felt something was missing. The episode was lackluster and the acting from some of the guest stars just didn't work for me. It was just short of actually eliciting emotion.
When I think back to memorable guest appearances, I think of how I felt in "The Fox" when the schizophrenic brother came to the realization that his sister was saying "help me" instead of "go away". That was something I really felt and identified with.
With most of these guest stars, something just didn't hit the right note to elicit emotions. I sort of liked the unsub at first with how he was so nice to his wife, but something just didn't work for me and he was just too reserved and his calmness throughout didn't seem to fit with the crimes he was committing. There was just something off about it.
The cop who claimed to be angry just didn't seem to be angry to me. It was just words and wasn't emoted. I didn't believe the guy was angry.
Also, I sort of didn't like the way they had Reid say so confidently that the girl lied about being raped just from reading the transcript of her report. I know they are supposed to pick up on words and try to tell if someone is lying, but I don't buy that one transcript is enough to really give them that insight. Not all rape victims act the same way and some actually feel somewhat guilty for reporting their attackers-- depending on their relationship with the person and/or they are afraid that they will be blamed or not believed. Sometimes people overstate or understate things to try to cope.
It wasn't a problem with which character made that assumption from the transcript, it was just that they made that conclusion based on one little thing like that.
If it were that easy to detect a lie, the world would be a lot simpler.
But I can't recall any major nitpicks for this one. I think the smell of the decaying head would have made the whole pod capsule stink though. So they would have smelled it as soon as they opened it.
I'll have to watch this one again later and see if I still feel the same way about it.
But for now it gets a yawn.
First the good. I can't say it was a bad episode. The whole team was there and working together, there was a lot of profiling, and the mystery did keep me guessing. Not a lot of gore, but enough for a CM episode. And seeing the Unsub but not knowing what or why worked all right for me.
ReplyDeleteBut I have to agree with Zannej, something was off. The guest actors weren't all that great, a number of times they were off enough to almost jolt me out of the story. (To really experience that effect see Sofia Coppola in Godfather 3) That's rarely happened to me in a CM episode before. But then I realized that the two times I remember were 07x17 "I love you, Tommy Brown" and 08x05 "The Good Earth". All three episodes were directed by John Terlesky, which leads me to think that CM might not be the best showcase for him. Sorry.
Now I need to get on my soap box and talk to Bruce Zimmerman a moment. A false rape claim? Really? Have you been hiding under a rock for the past year?
http://rantagainsttherandom.wordpress.com/2013/03/20/why-i-wont-publish-your-comments-about-false-rape-accusations/
Seriously, that almost never happens. But you just made it I-don't-know how much harder for real rape victims to speak out because someone is going to say that women lie all the time. After all Criminal Minds did a show about it. Why couldn't she have stood up to him and taken back her power? Why couldn't she have said that it wasn't up to him to punish them for her, that it was her choice?
As a rape victim I'm going to stand here and tell TPTB flat out That. Was. Bad. What you did with Morgan's story was awesome, but this was just bad.
/rant, stepping off soap box.
- RF
I thought it was a decent episode. It would be very hard to top last week's character driven episode with Morgan. With five episodes left in the season, I'm assuming that the next time The Replicator will be mentioned is during the two-hour season finale. There wasn't any character development within the seven this week, so it came off as a filler episode.
ReplyDeleteI always have a hard time staying interested in an episode when the unsub is presented early on. I know it allows more time for profiling, but the mystery is defunct from a viewership standpoint. Blake and Hotch thinking of the renovation in the precinct as to how the unsub heard of the cover-up felt like it came from nowhere. Another problem I do have, and this isn't singular to this episode, is that the majority of the police departments are characterized almost as bumbling, incompetent idiots. Inversely, a lot of cops shows do the same thing with the FBI/CIA or any other invading law enforcement agency. I know the main characters are supposed to be the "best", but it gets repetitive after a while.
I appreciated the notion of the "perfect, quaint small town" and how it's a fallacy, but it detracted from the emotional connection that you develop with the victims. Every victim had huge personal flaws in addition to the cover-up. The unsub's wife/victim admitting that she lied about the rape was predictable, and that made me feel disdain for her character also. There wasn't a true victim in the episode, and it's always hard to make me care when presented that way.
RF, I'm sorry about your experience. Thank you for the link. I wonder how many of the "false accusations" were calculated in when the victim had actually been raped but identified the wrong assailant out of either fear or truly believing the person was her attacker. There was a case where women were being raped and strangled in a park just off of a jogging trail. A schizophrenic man was convicted and sentenced to over 20 years in jail because two of the victims picked him out in a black and white photo line-up and one picked him from an actual line-up. There was no physical evidence. The victim had been oxygen deprived. It was later discovered that the actual rapist looked very much like the man who was falsely convicted. Did that quantify a "false report"? It's not like the women were lying. They honestly believed he was the one. But I think cases like that are very rare.
ReplyDeleteYou might be on to something about Terleskey. I'm not sure though. I think in at least some of the episodes the writing was just too bizarre or just trying to do do something that didn't work out. I don't know how much is the fault of the director vs the writer.
I think one of the problems is that the idea of being falsely accused of any crime-- particularly rape-- is a horrifying prospect. It is something people may fear and it often elicits sympathetic emotions. It stirs up drama and that is what TV shows and movies want. So they play it up and exaggerate.
I agree that they made the victims a bit less sympathetic. I also thought they underplayed the fact that the wife was just a teenage girl when she made the accusations. I sort of wish they had made it into a dubious consent situation instead of an outright lie. And I still hold my objection to the claim of it being false based on the verbiage of one single statement to the police.
There was a program on about true crime cases. There was a 12-year-old girl who went missing from catechism and turned up later in another town saying she was kidnapped and raped. The cops didn't think she was displaying the appropriate mannerisms and thought that she remembered far too much detail. They noted that the most emotion she showed was when they called her a liar. They refused to take her to a doctor for an exam. The next day the cops decided to do a followup and the bruises from being bound were now showing up and they started to realize that she had been telling the truth and that they had just been colossal jerks to an actual rape victim. They used the details she gave them to catch the guy. But what if they had not bothered to follow up? How often does that happen with real victims?
This was very clearly a filler episode, so I agree with Anonymous on that.
It's episodes like this that makes me miss the earlier and far better CM writers.
ReplyDeleteI will admit this was better than the last one Zimmerman wrote.I thought our team was pretty good in it,but something was off with the guest stars.
CBS really screwed this show over causing it to lose some many of it's better writers, not to mention messing with the cast.
They had a hit show on their hands but they just couldn't leave well enough alone.
I read where Shemar said something about some of these writers also being in the middle of negotiations and I've got to say that doesn't sit too well with me.
The thought of any of these writers possible getting a raise,when CM lost so many of it's better writers bc cheapskate CBS wanted them to take a pay cut,angers me beyond mere words.