cimorene

I realise the drama for the beginning of CSI was because they had a cliffhanger last time and they were either going to forge forward into Grissom/Sara land or kill her off at a pivotal moment. Jorja's contract was up and they managed to keep secret whether they renewed it, as well. But this show suffered greatly from being basically taken out of a different show and in fact an entirely different genre. CSI is a mystery show with a lot of logic underpinning it in an almost pure Holmesian fashion. Manhunts happen, but endless drama usually doesn't. There was almost no suspense here, even in narrowing down the search for Sara's location, and they gave tons and tons of dialogueless victim cam of her stumbling around the fucking desert and flashback cam of events which were completely devoid of any drama any longer with the bad guy caught and our knowledge that Sara was still alive at the end of them. Bad decisions all around - boring and exasperating. A startling turnaround from last season, when it was at the top of my to-watch list due to the miniature murders.

Meanwhile, Criminal Minds was a lot less exasperating than usual - its storytelling style I find usually cheesy and often pretty dumb with inferior direction. It has a big problem with Victim Cam, too, which just - ugh. I hate Victim Cam with a burning passion.

And of course they had to introduce this stupid Higher Ups Try To Fire Hotch plot right before Mandy Patinkin left the show, which just made me eyeroll a whole lot last season when they introduced it and again now. And they still had way too much victim cam, but in spite of that as well as a fuckton of voiceover (even Mandy Patinkin can't save these voiceovers), this was a highly enjoyable episode. The drama was good! The plot allowed you to keep guessing without feeling like a visitor from a completely different genre! Even the girls from the dorm were pretty interesting. Reid's supermodel clothes were in evidence, JJ and Prentiss were even hotter than usual. There was no Morgan/Garcia, but I didn't even care. (As long as they bring it back later!)

I do think the writers have an amusing and rather unclear attitude to emo/goth/etc. The copycat/suicide chick had a little red devil figurine and - gasp - LOTS OF EYELINER. And oh no, she's a loner who never leaves her room! Was she emo or goth? We really couldn't tell. The little devil figure actually didn't seem to make that much sense as a goth either, but then she went out with a little pentacle necklace on to her DEATH. Oh stereotypes of ignorant middle America, how you look hilarious when blown up onscreen like that.