While a fan of the original 'Criminal Minds', neither of its spin offs did anything for me. Especially 'Beyond Borders', while 'Suspect Behaviour' never really got off the ground despite marginally improving very late into the run it never reached offensive or condescending levels like 'Beyond Borders' did. The first four episodes were very, very poor, "The Harmful One" being extremely so.
While not a good episode still, "The Lonely Heart" was a very marginal step up. Likewise with the sixth 'Criminal Minds: Beyond Borders' episode "Love Interrupted". Still not a good episode, but actually it's the case that brings it down. Whereas the show showed signs of getting a little somewhere with character development within the team in the episode, something sorely lacking before. So as one can guess from this review, "Love Interrupted" is one of the show's better episodes up to this point, or at least it was that way to me.
Credit is due, as said already, in finally making an effort in making the team interesting. Still find most of them sketchy (especially Mae and have never been able to stand her) and still don't care for enough of them properly, but the episode did a good job with Simmons in the first time he's properly shone or had anything close to worthwhile. The ending especially. The team interaction is a little more coherent here, though still needing more spark.
Usually credit Alana De La Garza as the show's best actor (by default), but actually found the best performance here to come from Daniel Henney who allows one to feel sympathy towards Simmons.
Didn't care for the case though. Again it is very standard, with not enough to keep one guessing, and lacks suspense or really any real kind of atmosphere. When the unsub's motivations are revealed too, prematurely, it should have been twisted but even most 'Criminal Minds' episodes with quite over-the-top motivations didn't have behaved or methods this extreme considering what it was to drove the unsub to committ the crimes in the first place. It was a pretty "they behaved like that for that?" situation. It did undermine the unsub from having more impact, one of the potentially creepiest unsubs spoiled by that, being revealed too early, featuring too much and by that the victims didn't seem afraid of them enough (personally would have been terrified if in that situation).
Also am not impressed by the writing yet. It doesn't flow particularly naturally and sounds awkward, talks down to the viewer and comes over as insensitive. One example being Garrett's mis-use of "polygamist", he and the writers should have known better than to throw around that word and interpret it as something different to what it actually means as that was just sloppy. The visuals again are choppy and obvious and the music is overbearing and could have done with being used less, it is also at odds with everything. One never really feels like they are in the setting, so much the lack of authenticity. The acting has not really improved all that much, the Hotel Manager's acting was pretty atrocious and her character and the writing for her were just bizarre.
In a nutshell, much better than the first four episodes but weak. 3/10
While not a good episode still, "The Lonely Heart" was a very marginal step up. Likewise with the sixth 'Criminal Minds: Beyond Borders' episode "Love Interrupted". Still not a good episode, but actually it's the case that brings it down. Whereas the show showed signs of getting a little somewhere with character development within the team in the episode, something sorely lacking before. So as one can guess from this review, "Love Interrupted" is one of the show's better episodes up to this point, or at least it was that way to me.
Credit is due, as said already, in finally making an effort in making the team interesting. Still find most of them sketchy (especially Mae and have never been able to stand her) and still don't care for enough of them properly, but the episode did a good job with Simmons in the first time he's properly shone or had anything close to worthwhile. The ending especially. The team interaction is a little more coherent here, though still needing more spark.
Usually credit Alana De La Garza as the show's best actor (by default), but actually found the best performance here to come from Daniel Henney who allows one to feel sympathy towards Simmons.
Didn't care for the case though. Again it is very standard, with not enough to keep one guessing, and lacks suspense or really any real kind of atmosphere. When the unsub's motivations are revealed too, prematurely, it should have been twisted but even most 'Criminal Minds' episodes with quite over-the-top motivations didn't have behaved or methods this extreme considering what it was to drove the unsub to committ the crimes in the first place. It was a pretty "they behaved like that for that?" situation. It did undermine the unsub from having more impact, one of the potentially creepiest unsubs spoiled by that, being revealed too early, featuring too much and by that the victims didn't seem afraid of them enough (personally would have been terrified if in that situation).
Also am not impressed by the writing yet. It doesn't flow particularly naturally and sounds awkward, talks down to the viewer and comes over as insensitive. One example being Garrett's mis-use of "polygamist", he and the writers should have known better than to throw around that word and interpret it as something different to what it actually means as that was just sloppy. The visuals again are choppy and obvious and the music is overbearing and could have done with being used less, it is also at odds with everything. One never really feels like they are in the setting, so much the lack of authenticity. The acting has not really improved all that much, the Hotel Manager's acting was pretty atrocious and her character and the writing for her were just bizarre.
In a nutshell, much better than the first four episodes but weak. 3/10
