Midseason Report Card: ‘Criminal Minds’ season 11 wins with Aisha Tyler, Garcia’s story
“Criminal Minds” is a show that for the most part, brings home the bacon with its individual storylines. However, it is what lies in between that can make each season fluctuate from “okay” to “great.” After 11 seasons, the temptation is probably even harder to have the show ultimately rest a little bit on its laurels.
Luckily, we are here to say that for the most part, this is the best start to a season in years! You’ve had a more serialized feel with the Dirty Dozen, and some characters are getting some much-deserved air time. For a little bit more on that, read our latest Midseason Report Card entry below.
What worked – Aisha Tyler. She was a great fit for the cast, and even when AJ Cook came back from maternity leave, she still had great chemistry with the other actors. You could tell that she was the sort of person that the cast really liked to have around, and that’s why we feel like the show would be smart to try to bring her back as much as possible, even if she is busy doing a dozen other things at the same time.
Meanwhile, Garcia’s story in hacking the Dark Net, and in turn feeling the wrath of the Dirty Dozen, was a great chance for her to get some good material. She doesn’t always have that, and her having to hide out at work led to a great moment where Hotch cracked a rare smile for her as they had a little meal together in her makeshift home. As a whole, the Dirty Dozen are some of the most compelling adversaries we’ve seen on the show yet.
What didn’t – Matthew Gray Gubler’s absence for the latter part of the fall has been very obvious, and without him around, it really felt like the show was missing something there. Luckily, he’s coming back early next year.
Also, can we give Morgan more of a story soon? Characters ebb and flow, and unfortunately in the fall he had a lot of time on the sidelines. The only other critique that we have right now is that some of the story-of-the-week plots could have been a little more surprising and well-constructed.
Overall – Our critiques are mostly minor ones and for the most part we have liked this season so far. Grade: B+.
mary
December 12, 2015 @ 7:18 pm
I couldn’t disagree more! Dull, predictable, generic and lacking in suspense. No-one cares about the Dirty Dozen arc and I am personally so over Garcia who has become a parody of the quirky character she used to be, Aisha Tyler started well but has been over-used since to the detriment of the original cast.. To top it all, the lack of Reid in the last 3 episodes has highlighted just how important his character is to the show. Again and again they persist with showing us the unsub from the start, again and again main characters like Hotch, Reid and Rossi get sidelined or just disappear half way through the episode. We had such high hopes for this season but the first half has been a massive disappointment. Let us hope that the Reid centric episode when it returns on Jan 13th is a good one and that the Morgan arc starting 11.16 gives us some suspense.