Crime Drama TV

Hokie Spirit Memorial Fund

April 16, 2007, will be remembered as one of the darkest days in the history of the Virginia Tech community and the world beyond.

To remember and honor the victims of those tragic events, the university has established the Hokie Spirit Memorial Fund to aid in the healing process and generate financial support.

The fund will be used to cover expenses including but not limited to:

• Grief counseling
• Memorials
• Communication expenses
• Comfort expenses
• Incidental needs

If you plan to give, please click the link below:

Wow. Not much going on in crime dramas. Veronica Mars doesn’t return until May 1 (Boo CW!) and Numb3rs was a repeat Friday. So I’m going to take a moment to pimp a non-crime drama.

Drive, the show about an illegal cross-country race worth $32 million. The season premiere was last night and I was suitably impressed. Of course, with all the Whedonverse alums - including Captain Tightpants himself, Nathan Fillion, as the lead - and Tim Minear at the helm, it could be the worst piece of crap ever to air on FOX and I’d still watch it.

Of course, I’m wary about its chances for success. FOX is not known for giving shows a chance and ever since they cancelled Firefly, I’ve only watched the channel when absolutely unavoidable. 24, House, and Bones are pretty much all I watch.

Anyway, Drive settles into its normal timeslot at 8 tonight. I recommend giving it a shot.

Here’s a question I pose to those of you who have taken classes or are involved in any area of law enforcement? Has taking the class/having your job made crime shows less enjoyable?

For me, it’s a little bit of both. On one hand, watching CSI since I was 12 helped me pretty much ace the blood spatter section of my forensic science class. On the other, I notice the inconsistencies between TV and real life more. While I’m only mildly educated in the area of the criminal justice system, I have a lot more knowledge about the process of making a TV show and can easily let these inconsistencies go.

But what about the rest of you? Anybody got some law enforcement experience and want to share? I’m really curious about this.

Criminal Minds returns Wednesday! Here’s a little something to tide you over until then.

FOX is already pimping the May 9 season finale of Bones. The gimmick? Solve the murder before Brennan does.

At the website, you are given access to each person’s MySpace page. We’re not told who’s been murdered, but apparently the clues are hidden in the various video clips and comments on their pages.

While I have to admit it’s a really cool idea to do the solve-it-yourself thing with MySpace pages, it feels really reminiscient of the season finale/premiere of Criminal Minds. Except Criminal Minds made you really work for it. But who knows? Maybe it’s really difficult. I’ll check out the site and try to come up with my own theory.

Good luck, Bones fans and amatuer detectives!

Bones is all new tonight! Check out the promo:

Criminal Minds is another repeat with “Profiler, Profiled”.

Let’s talk about romance and it’s place in crime dramas. A lot of people aren’t interested in the characters personal lives, they just want to watch them solve cases. And that’s perfectly respectable. I mean, if I’m watching a crime show I’m obviously expecting some crime and the solving thereof.

But there are those of us who enjoy the little glimpses into the lives of our characters outside of the office. I have already professed that I am one of these people. Every time there’s an Eppes family moment or a new love interest for a character, I get giddy. Now I could go on and on ad nauseum about how seeing their personal relationships not only humanizes a character, but shows how their job affects them (Veronica Mars is a good example of this. Her PI gig has made her very untrusting and slightly paranoid). I could do that, or I could be completely honest with you about my motivations.

Living vicariously. I am a boyfriendless girl, so when one of my TV boyfriends has a new love interest, I get excited because I get to live through them. And don’t be so quick to judge; it’s like reading a romance novel. A well-written, crime-riddled romance novel.

Any thoughts?

Today is the first day of the new quarter for me. I don’t think I’ve mentioned it before, but I’m on the fence about declaring Criminology as my major. I’m taking Criminal Justice this quarter (lucky Veronica, getting to take the actual criminology class as a frshman. I want to go to Hearst.) and feeling it out, since it’s on the opposite end of the spectrum from my current Creative Writing/Film major.

Anyway, I was peeking at the Criminal Minds official site in a fit of boredom and came across the Profiler Quiz. Sweet! I love personality quizzes and I love profiling; they are two great tastes that taste great together. 26 out of 30. Guess I should give some serious consideration to the major change.

Take the quiz and see if you’ve got what it takes to hang with the BAU.

Are crime shows less enjoyable if you miss the first couple of minutes?

Running late after taking my cats to the vet, I sat down at 8:14 to watch Bones and I just couldn’t get into it. I watched the entire episode but I felt lost the entire time. The first few minutes are the set-up for the entire episode; the initial comitting or discovery of the crime. The initial presentation not only to the characters but to the audience.

What do you guys think? Do you turn off a crime show if you’ve missed the first few minutes?

Whooo! Hotch-centric episode! This week the team is looking for a serial killer who sets fire to houses while the family is still inside and then uses a fire suit to stay inside and watch them burn. It’s learned that the fathers of the households were employees of companies that were found guilty of hiding leaking underground benzine tanks and the team suspect the leader of the eco group EDF.

Hotch and Prentiss tail the leader. It looks like he’s getting ready to run until he stops at a hospital. He has leukemia caused by years of inspecting the tanks for companies. Figuring that the killer is at least a member of the group, Hotch gives him the profile and is pointed in the right direction.

Side note: Hotch tells the guy a story about how everyone knew his father was having affairs and he went to confront him about it. Only it turns out that his father had lung cancer. Okay. Correct me if I’m wrong, but in “The Tribe” Hotch’s brother says that their father died of a heart attack at 47. BAD continuity people! No cookie!

Anyway, the leader has the killer meet him at an old warehouse standing over benzine tanks that has been rezoned for an elementary school. Leader and bad guy go boom. Hotch is sad. The EDF leader left him a letter to give to his estranged son, which he does while wearing a fleece pullover, marking the third time we’ve seen Hotch in something other than his Three-Button Suit (of Justice).

If that continuity screw up wasn’t so bad, I might have forgiven the writers for having Reid talk about addiction. When giving the profile, Spencer mentions that fire is and addiction for this guy and he’d be unable to stop without help, throwing a significant glance at Gideon. Thank you, Spence. That was EXACTLY my point three weeks ago.

All in all a good, enjoyable episode.

I have a serious question for y’all. Does anyone watch American Idol anymore? Really? And how about that Pussycat Dolls reality show? Is anyone watching that?

As a rule, I don’t watch reality television. The only show I allow myself to watch is Project Runway because Tim Gunn is my life coach (by the way, I met Angela Kesslar this fall and she said “Tim Gunn is the jewel in the crown of humanity.” Truer words have never been spoken).

Do you have any thoughts about reality television? I know this doesn’t have anything to do with crime dramas, but I wanted to ask since all my shows are being preempted by “reality” programming.

Numb3rs and CSI weren’t even showing repeats this week, so let’s talk about Criminal Minds. This week’s repeat was of “Lessons Learned”. The DEA has raided what they thought was a meth lab but is actually a terrorist cell planning to disburse anthrax. The BAU is brought in to question the leader of the cell, who has been held for a few months in Gitmo. Gideon, Reid, and Prentiss (who happens to be fluent in Arabic) fly to Gitmo while Hotch and Morgan team up with the DEA and Garcia and J.J. spend some quality girl time together back at Quantico.

Pretty much every crime drama has done their terrorist episode since 9/11, but this is my favorite by far. Mandy Patinkin was amazing, which isn’t really a break from the norm because Mandy will always be awesome no matter what he’s doing, but this my favorite Gideon-centric episode. His face when Jind Allah proclaims that innocent people “hurt [him] by existing” is a great reaction of an educated man hearing something so ignorant.

Also great; more Hotch family moments. When the target of the terror cell turns out to be the mall where Haley and Jack are supposed to be getting Jack’s pictures taken, Hotch struggles with whether to breach security and call Haley to warn her. He returns home to find that Haley decided to reschedule so he could be there. It’s very sweet. I love me some Hotch family moments, yes I do.

This week’s episode is new! Rejoice, fellow Criminal Minds fans!

There’s a new show about a detective solving supernatural crime on…..Lifetime?

That’s right, Lifetime. Blood Ties, based on Tanya Huff’s Vicki Nelson series, had a 2-hour premiere on the network for women (and gay men) Sunday. “Blood Price” Parts 1 and 2 had former police officer Vicki witness a homicide and unwittingly stumbling on a demonic plot to plunge the world into darkness. While fighting with her ex-partner and ex-lover Michael, she teams up with Henry the vampire to solve the case.

Vicki is an awesome heroine for Lifetime; she kicks ass and she doesn’t look like a supermodel. And she isn’t a supernatural whore (at least not yet), which puts her several steps ahead of Laurell K. Hamilton’s Anita Blake. I like her and I can see myself rooting for her for an entire season.

And holy god am I hot for Henry. Think Stuart Townsend in Queen of the Damned but prettier and writing/illustrating more comic books.

The show is pretty much a weekly, hour-long B vampire movie. The special effects are cheesy, the acting is sometimes hammy and over-dramatic, and the fight scenes weren’t that well choreographed. I can honestly say I loved it. I loved it for a lot of reasons, most of which were probably unintended by those involved in the production of this fine hour of television, but I loved it nonetheless.

NBC has a new linear crime drama; The Black Donnellys. It’s the story of four brothers - Jimmy, Kevin, Tommy, and Sean Donnelly - involved in the Irish mob. Tommy wants to get out of this life of crime and just go to art school in peace, but he constantly has to get his brothers out of trouble.

Now, I didn’t watch last night’s episode because I was studying for finals watching the South Park movie with some friends after 24, but thanks to NBC’s awesome policy of putting up full episodes of their shows online, I’ve managed to catch the first two plus an online bonus episode. And I have to say that I’m suitably impressed.

First off, if you don’t like graphic violence, this show isn’t for you. The Black Donnellys is just getting by Standards and Practices by the skin of their teeth. Because of the violence you might think that this show has a mostly male audience, but I frequent a message board full of women and we all LOVE it. The dynamic of the four brothers is really engaging.

But the thing I love most about The Black Donnellys is Joey Ice Cream, a childhood friend of the brothers. Joey is our narrator, telling the story to cops and lawyers while in jail. The thing is, he’s not exactly the most reliable of narrators. A few times during the second episode he was asked how he knew all this and he answers, “Oh yeah, I was there” only to disappear out of the scene a few seconds later. It adds a layer of “what the hell is really going on here?” to the story.

All in all, The Black Donnellys is an enjoyable mob drama. If you’re missing The Sopranos, I’d definitely give it a try.

Once again, I find myself without an episode to comment on. The CW has deigned that instead of a rerun, the Veronica Mars timeslot was to be filled with Who Will Be the Next Doll?, which is a search for the next great slut Pussycat Doll.

So let’s discuss another reason why I love crime dramas; TV boyfriends. Crime dramas are ripe with beautiful, angsty men (or women if you so prefer) to crush on. Some of you might prefer the strong leader types or perhaps the tragically damaged. But my weakness is….the geeks. Yes, I have a thing for geeks. And their usual habitat is the crime drama, where they use their mad knowledge skillz for the greater good.

Let’s start with #1 on my list, Special Agent Dr. Spencer Reid. There’s really only one word that accurately describes Spence and that word is “adorkable” (a word which here, dear reader, means adorably dorky). Physics magic, anyone? Spencer is a geek with a heart of gold and while I find him extremely sexy, mostly I just want to curl up in bed with him and a good book.

#2 on my Crime Drama Boyfriends list - who is actually #3 on my overall TV list because of Dr. Robert Chase on House - is CSI’s Greg Sanders. As I’ve mentioned before, I began watching CSI when I was 12 and I’ve alwyas had a soft spot for the geeky lab tech; “Fannysmackin’” had me demanding the blood of Kevin Federline. My Thursdays are made brighter by the appearance of Greg on my television screen.

And last but most certainly not least, #3, Charlie Eppes. Any man who can make math interesting to me deserves to be on the list.

So, dear readers, who are YOUR television boy/girlfriends?