Criminal Minds (TV Series) Night Lights (2019) User Reviews

Neither A Hit, Nor A Miss: A Decent Effort for Season 14.

[Washi_Washi · 7/10 · 26 January 2021]

Criminal Minds has long been a favorite. A common criticism with the show however, has been the drop in quality of the later seasons (8 onward, in my opinion).

While the show has (even in the later seasons) displayed a delicate nuance in balancing the elements of psychological horror with the portrayal of the crimes - particularly the experience of the victims, "Night Lights" has had an odd sense of upset to it. The torture the victims go through is laid out excruciatingly for us to see, and it left a sense of... almost distaste in my mouth, to see the extent to which a TV show on cable television took it. Granted: there have been equally (if not more) horrible crimes with harrowing experiences of their own in the show's history. I suppose I might hold it a testament to the acting skills that this episode had me uncomfortable going towards the middle.

Having said that, I didn't feel the plot to be all that weak. I wouldn't call this one of Criminal Minds' best, but it is decent. This unsub was written to be a little messy but I appreciated that the episode left an empty feeling at its conclusion. It felt evocative of the kind of frustration I associate with Law and Order: Special Victims Unit - bleak reality.

On the lighter front of the episode, I'm glad that Garcia and Alvez's interactions have gotten fonder. I felt their relationship took a while to settle and I'm glad it's found even ground. Reid was a welcome sight (having been absent for most of the show), but the show does his character an injustice by reverting to the boy genius plot device in solving the case. Nonetheless, I loved that we got a nugget of the signature Gubler charm.

Duck tape? Really?

[freermottram · 7/10 · 8 April 2021]

I love Criminal Minds. But sometimes they just get it wrong. This is one if the worst.

It was a good idea. But really. Victims are taped to a table with 1 strand of duck tape. 1 stand! You can see that during the filming it wasn't staying put. Watch it and check out the shots where we see their heads taped to the table. The actors have to stay really still because the tape is coming away from the flat table on either side. You can see it puckering.

That really should have been the trigger for the director to call it.

The victims don't even attempt to struggle. Well of course not: doing so would have destroyed the tape illusion.

I guarantee that when the director called "cut" the actors just sat up, breaking the tape.

The plot didn't even rely on duck tape. Maybe somebody paid for it? Mr and Mrs Duck?

Hmmm.

Night Lights

[bobcobb301 · 5/10 · 10 January 2019]

Another quite bizarre episode of Criminal Minds.

This may have been a somewhat unique killer they gave us, but his motivation didn't make sense (does it ever) and it felt even boring at times.

Lights out

[TheLittleSongbird · 5/10 · 1 December 2020]

'Criminal Minds' was one of my most watched and re-watched shows for quite some time and it is still a show that is come back to every now and then. Despite it being very hit and miss for a while now. Season 14 was not too bad a season, certainly a million times better than the mostly quite weak Seasons 11 (which only had like 5 good episodes) and 15 (which only had 2 good ones), but very inconsistent. Some very good episodes, especially "300" and "The Tall Man".

But some disappointing ones, even they though are better than the worst of Seasons 9 and 11 and the whole of Season 15. "Night Lights" to me was one of the disappointing ones. Not terrible but pretty average when it had big potential to be great. Considering how fabulous the idea was and that it was one of the best and most interesting concepts of the season and in a while for the show. For the show too, the unsub sounded very unique. And they were in a way, but had conventional motives and storytelling surrounding them.

"Night Lights" has enough good things. It started off very well indeed, very intriguing and creepy. The unsub in how they're made up, their actions and their circumstances at first is a unique one which was great and is one of the season's creepiest easily. The victims are rootable though they could have been developed more. The acting throughout from all is very good, cannot fault the regulars and the unsub is unsettlingly played.

It is a well made episode too, not unexpected, especially the truly eerie lighting that makes one scared of the dark for a while after. The music is not constant or melodramatic and has a real sense of atmosphere. Some of the script is thought-provoking.

Sadly, there were some great if not novel ideas very under-explored. The motive didn't make much sense by the end and there were a couple considered possibilities that would have been more plausible. The connections are very thin and not touched upon enough, being introduced quite late with little time left to go. More tension and suspense wouldn't have gone amiss, the climax was easy to figure out, and the episode could have had less taunting of the victims which began in a creepy way but got repetitive and had more of a back-story for the unsub, again in this case good ideas that don't come together.

Despite it being so great to see Reid, "Night Lights" did something unforgivable in underusing him and giving him little time to show off what makes him such a great character. His most memorable moment is when finding one of the more crucial clues, the significance of that being figured out unrealistically fast with such little prior information to go on to come to the conclusions the way they did so that was a waste as well. The side story jarred too much tonally and while it is always nice to have development to at least one character in each episode it didn't gel. The team interaction and the way they work was better in other episodes of the season.

All in all, was underwhelmed by this episode despite loving the concept on paper. 5/10

Completely illogical leaps in logic.

[zachariestp · 1/10 · 10 July 2023]

So many pieces of information which the team "deduces" during the runtime of the show are entirely inane.

"This must be the same killer, both victims had duct tape in the same place." "This victim was a doctor, who used aversion therapy, the killer must be an ex-patient." "This case file is about a child who was afraid of the dark, if the parents of the child continued the therapy after the doctor stopped it and made the child blind, it would have made them become a killer."

None of these assumptions had a modicum of actual reason backing them up. This exposition fueled by speculation is a thinly veiled way for the writers to tell a story, without actually showing it develop organically.