As a massive afficinado of detective/mystery/procedural shows, there are so many great ones out there emcompassing a very wide range. Whether it's the slow-burns, , ones that mixed comedy and drama, anything Agatha Christie (namely 'Poirot'), the light-hearted ones or the gritty ones. Plenty of all around and many classic examples of all too.
Being such a great fan of 'Criminal Minds', if more in the early seasons, 'Criminal Minds: Suspect Behaviour' was watched with great anticipation despite being short-lived. Watched it not using that it was short-lived as an excuse to be fair to the show because it actually sounded interesting. Just because a show is short-lived that doesn't necessarily mean they are bad, and was really genuinely determined to give it a proper chance (some short-lived shows were not) and was actually pretty excited. 'Criminal Minds: Suspect Behaviour' unfortunately never seemed to settle or get going, would have forgiven a slow start, not every show settles straight away and actually that is pretty rare, but 'Criminal Minds: Suspect Behaviour' made the same mistakes over and over in every episode with only a few small glimpses every now and then of improvement in a few areas.
Despite being another one of the better 'Criminal Minds: Suspect Behaviour' episodes, "Devotion" unfortunately for me is not much of an improvement. There are good things though, and they are to do with a degree of improvement in a few aspects in comparison to the previous episodes.
The production values are good but never anything extraordinary, the dark gritty touch being there if not as much as with the original 'Criminal Minds'.
Liked that Garcia had more to do and that there was a little more interaction. The best asset though was the disturbing opening, even if what happens is carried out rather too easily and something of a risk.
"Devotion" does have a lot of problems though. The music is still generic and not very memorable, music you would find on a lot of similar shows. The writing is no improvement on the all over the place standard of the previous episodes, constantly not knowing what to do with itself and filled with poorly written lines delivered like wood. All of it just sounded rushed, on-the-surface with no development whatsoever and often over-the-top. There could have been more profiling, and what there was was pretty pointless and with little distinction.
Engaging the story isn't. Again feeling derivative of similar stories for the original 'Criminal Minds', and other shows, but with no tension, suspense or emotion of any kind could be found. It was again all just so dull and bland, parts were ridiculous and motivations and events are vague which meant that almost everything did not make sense and there were few surprises, other than the reveal of the true identity of the corpse (and even that was not that ingenious). Some of the back and forth lacked clarity too and it's all very well and good hearing main characters' names more and a little more team interaction, but still none of the main characters interest that much. Beth still is a just there character and irritates here, plus she boasts one of the show's worst scenes here where she discusses schizophrenics with Mick. Consisting of a strong contender for winner of stupidest FBI agent utterance ever on television award.
How they work in solving the case shows little spark or interest, and quite awkward and there are no little character moments, which was a constant strength of 'Criminal Minds' even in several lesser episodes. Even worse, a lot of it not only is too reliant on basic observation and convention (nice to have more profiling, but somehow it didn't seem particularly necessary) but it sees some moments where one really questions the team's competence (i.e. when tracking the unsub's movements they don't even think of what should have been the most obvious). The unsub, while a little more memorable than most of 'Criminal Minds: Suspect Behaviour's' unsubs, is not creepy enough to be anywhere near as detestable as the best villains on the original and their development is at best sketchy to feel anything else for them. Plus some of their behaviour and decision making is just strange and lacks any organisation or sense. The ending doesn't thrill and felt rushed to me.
Acting is still weak. Forrest Whittaker overacts at times and sounds like he had too much to drink just before filming, giving the sense that his improved acting in the previous episode "Here is the Fire" was a fluke. Janeane Garofalo has always bothered me, she shows the emotions of a robot, if she was trying to be serious it comes at the expense of personality, and Beth is annoying as a result. Garcia's role is still too convenient and the team seem rather too reliant on her for the answers. Kirsten Vangsness also doesn't have the same spark as she does on 'Criminal Minds'.
Overall, one of the show's better episodes but still not too good. 3/10 Bethany Cox
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