My latest TV show addiction

I'm not afraid to admit it, I love my TV shows. Fortunately I have three jobs that keep me very busy, so I don't have much time during the week to blob and watch them. But, one of my favourite things to do is to block off a couple of hours when I have the time and the week's just been too much, and watch a series marathon of whatever I'm really into at that moment.

Right now, that series is Criminal Minds.  Each 40 minute episode is so gripping and well written, it's hard not to stay glued to the TV. The series is about a group of profilers from the FBI's Behavioral Analysis Unit in Quantico, Virginia. The group travel around the country in attempt to crack each case, and "go inside" the mind of the killer, rapist or kidnapper. What makes this show so different to all other criminal system procedural dramas (such as CSI, etc), is that it focuses on the criminal instead of the actual crime itself.

Breakdown of the show:

In this crime series, a crack team of FBI profiles fly from Quantico to the focal point of the criminal activity of various serial killers. There they investigate the evidence from the crime scenes, compose a profile and try to prevent the next fatal strike. Top brain is academic Jason Gideon, with his more by-the-book operational right hand man Aaron "Hotch" Hotchner. The still juvenile Dr. Spencer Reid is an erudite on everything except real life, Penelope Garcia a brilliant computer whiz who gets access to any database etc. As they are mobile, cooperation with local police and FBI agents is important but often poses jurisdictional and other problems, as do some witnesses and suspects. Written by KGF Vissers

 

Based in Quantico, Virginia, the Behavioral Analysis Unit (BAU) is a subsection of the FBI. Called in by local police departments to assist in solving crimes of a serial and/or extremely violent nature where the perpetrator is unknown (referred to by the Unit as the unknown subject or unsub for short), the BAU use the controversial scientific art of profiling to track and apprehend the unsub. Profiling entails coming up with basic characteristics of the unsub and the victims (referred to as the victimology), using evidence from the case and matching that information to historic precedents and psychological analyses as a means to solve the case. Because of the nature of the work conducted by the BAU - the work being time consuming and psychologically demanding - its members are fiercely loyal to the Unit and to its other members. Also because of the work's overall demanding nature, not many members of the BAU have been able to maintain a happy or stable family life