Week One of Sky Plus

The joys of the Sky Plus box means that I no longer have to miss my favourite shows because of inconveniences like work and sleep! Whole new worlds of viewing have opened up to me – except typically there doesn’t seem to be that much on at the moment.

Nonetheless I recorded (is that the right word – captured perhaps?) an episode of Psych that I hadn’t seen before. It involved alien abduction, tanning salons and speed dating. A fairly typical plot then!

I also recorded an episode of Criminal Minds which turned out to the season finale of season 2 which I’d seen nothing of, so I deleted that without watching it in the hope that I will be able to watch the full season at some point. A similar fate befell an episode of Intelligence, which I’d seen the first ever episode of, but that wasn’t enough to allow me to follow what was happening in this one.

I hope to be able to store up some more viewing for those long winter nights, but I’m not going to resort to Colombo just yet.

Resolution Update

At the start of the year, I made several resolutions relating to this blog. It has gone way past the date in the year when most people give up on their resultions, so I thought I'd revisit them to see how I've done.

1. To update this blog more - I'm doing pretty well on this front. I've made double-figure posts each month so far and well on target for a bumper April.
   
2. To watch more detective shows - not so sure about this one. I have tried to mix things up a bit and watch a greater range of shows, but still room for improvement!
   
3. To discover at least one new show that I like - this has been achieved with Criminal Minds, I loved the first series and am keenly awaiting my next installment of it.
   
4. To work my way through the Remington Steele box set (22 episodes is looking pretty daunting right now) - very poor showing on this one, I'm afraid. I think I've watched about 8 episodes at the most.

I wish I was a profiler

Thanks to a serious bout of cold, I was off work yesterday which gave me time to finish watching the first series of Criminal Minds.

Some episodes weren't as good as others, but on the whole I was gripped by it. Annoyingly, the series ended with the first part of a two-parter, so now I'm impatient to find out what happens next.

And know I'm totally in awe of profilers. I've come across them in other shows (Profiler obviously!) but here they most impressive. Of course it is fiction but still it must have some basis in reality and now I wish I'd become a profiler. These people are seriously intelligent. Their job and this show answer the question of 'why' which is what interests me most

In honour of Criminal Minds' structure of ending the show with a quotation, I've started a new blog feature, unimaginatively entitled 'Quote of the Week'.

Style File: FBI

In the course of their investigations, FBI agents are smartly dressed, but if they are "going into a situation", they will wear special FBI clothing. At least they do on the television, and I'm assuming that the television doesn't lie about this.

There are t-shirt, baseball caps, jackets and protective vests, all branded with the simple white letters F B I. I've seen them in several shows -Prison Break, Criminal Minds and Sue Thomas FBI spring to mind immediately. The item of clothing is usually navy blue (or is it a special shade of FBI blue?) with white lettering.

It does concern me that these items would be very easy to recreate so in the interests of research, I did a quick internet search and indeed on Ebay, there are FBI t-shirts available to buy, although they are in black, so they wouldn't fool me. There was also a sweet FBI jacket for a dog, with the letters standing for Food and Bones Investigation. Cute, but I don't approve of dressing dogs.

Glossary of Terms: Un-Sub

Definition: Short for Unknown Subject. Meaning the person who is being profiled.
Usage: Most episodes of Criminal Minds.
Related Terms: Perp (short for perpetrator) as used in Law & Order series

All aboard with Criminal Minds

I've watched about 10 episodes of Criminal Minds now. Its quite good. If it were to be placed on a scale of detective shows, it would obviously be below The Wire and Homicide, but definitely above CSI.

The standout episode for me so far was 'Derailed" which guest-starred Chris Bauer (Frank Sabotka from Season 2 of The Wire) as a paranoid schizophrenic who takes the passengers on a train hostage. Elle, one of the regular profiling team, happens to be on the same train, and the rest of the team have to work to save her and the other passengers. At the start of the episode, we were given a small insight into the minds of each of the other characters, which comes to have some bearing on what unfolds later.

Chris Bauer was excellent as ever, and there was a risky move of having a person there representing the voice in his head, which could have been terrible but it worked. Some comments on IMDB about this episode complain that there were unresolved things in the episode to do with the other passengers, but that didn't matter to me as I don't need everything neatly rounded off. There are also complaints about the inaccuracies of drivers licenses, car number plates and train/flight timetables in the episode, but really life is far too short to worry about such things!

Starting out with Criminal Minds

Still mourning the finishing of the latest Homicide (is it wrong to feel a sense of loss over a DVD set?), I was almost consoled last night when I found the complete first series of Criminal Minds was available on our On Demand channel.

I have attempted to watch Criminal Minds when it was shown on Channel 5 on a Saturday night, but, as is so often the case, I’d always fallen asleep. Also joining a series part way through meant I struggled to grasp the different characters in the team, so it was much appreciated to have the chance to see the first series from the beginning. I now know that Gideon is returning from sick leave, traumatised by some past experience and that the rest of the time are learning to trust him. I know know that one of them came from the bomb department, another from sex crimes and one is a child genius.

I enjoyed the first episode so much, I watched two more, the third one being one I’d previously dozed off during and it made much more sense now. Its not as good as Homicide (what is?) but I’m hoping I can convince the OH of its merits and watch another batch tonight. Afterall, we will not, under any circumstances, be watching Ashes to Ashes again tonight.

Last Week's Viewing

I had a very busy week last week, which included going to a fashion show, going away for work and on Saturday actually socialising with my friends all day. So this didn't leave much time for watching television and I didn't really watch anything until Sunday, when I tried to make up for lost time.

Saturday: I got home at 11 so watched the last bit of SVU then the start of Criminal Minds, where predictably I fell asleep, woke up 15 minutes before the end, dozed off again and woke up five minutes after it had finished.

Sunday: A bumper viewing day, but it didn't start until later. I had wanted to watch the episode of Columbo which involved a production of Macbeth, but the OH was watching sport so I had to wait until later.

I watched a quick episode of Charlie's Angels wihch involved female racing drivers, then a Perry Mason: The Case of the Poisoned Pen. This episode involved the death of a murder mystery writer and the other suspects were all other murder mystery writers. How postmodern! It was fairly predictable and the formulaic structure annoyed me a bit.

Then the OH and I watched two episodes of SVU that we'd recorded the other week. The first episode was very good - Olivia had found her half brother, fathered by the man who raped her mother. But then he was a suspect in a stalking case, raising the question of whether he has inherited this from their father. Meanwhile the captain questions whether Olivia and Elliot should remain partners. Honestly, I wish they'd just have sex with each other to get it over with!


The second episode wasn’t so interesting and annoyingly we’d missed one in between so have no idea if the brother situation was explored further or if that was it. Olivia and Elliot were still partners though although showing no signs of having consummated the relationship. This episode involved underage drinking, something that in the UK would more likely be a case for social services rather than the police. All of the teenagers involved were irritating and I’m glad I didn’t go to an American High School as its nothing like Sweet Valley High these days.

Next up was an episode of Criminal Intent, apparently the sixth ever episode, which seemed a strange landmark to announce. You could tell it was an early episode though as everyone is wary of Goran’s bizarre behaviour rather than accepting his genius. It involved priests, foster care and homeless shelters, and was suitably bleak.

Then I rounded the day off with Medium. The OH watched it with me for the first time, but seemed to struggle with the conventions of showing flashbacks and visions. He found the family life subplot boring and suggested the programme should be renamed ‘Tedium’. I enjoyed the episode despite his distractions although next week I think I’ll watch it on my own.

This Weekend's (Thwarted) Viewing

I attempted to watch Criminal Minds last night for the first time. Unfortunately it was on a bit late and I annoyingly fell asleep before it concluded. What I did see wasn't too bad - three bombs had gone off and the team were trying to find a link between the victims and looking at the explosive devices to find the culprit. The section with the bomb expert looking at how the devices were made was particularly interesting, as he explained how each bomb maker has a signature and what you can deduce about their character. Fascinating stuff, but the plot device used to allow him to explain this to the audience (because in real life he'd probably do this in silence) he was explaining his ideas to what appeared to be an intern! An intern in the FBI! Does that happen? It seemed rather a clunky way of doing it and as it is the first time I've seen this show, I don't know if they always have a dumb person to explain stuff to.

Law & Order SVU was also on two channels pretty much simultaneously last night and I'd already seen both episodes. What are the chances of that? Actually probably quite high, especially since Five are saving their new series for weekdays only. I had also already seen today's Perry Mason case.

Even more annoying was that a cable channel we don't get (Living TV) had a Detective special weekend - a friend sent me a Facebook message to alert me to this. I was gutted. Apparently one show posed the question of 'If you were murdered who would you want on the case?' This is a question I will no doubt return to here later.

On a positive note, we now seem to be receive a batch of new channels including one On Demand Channel that has a whole series of Charlies Angels, which I'm hoping my partner will watch with me if only so he can decide if he prefers Jaclyn Smith or Kate Jackson (he's already ruled out Farah).