Crime Drama TV

Last night, I gave up watching Lost and instead switched to Criminal Minds. I’ve seen the show (I’ve always found Shemar Moore to be a bit of a hottie) before but it has always conflicted with Lost. The show that aired last night was far more intriguing to me in light of news that Lost will be taken off the air for a lenghty period of time. Lost is one of the only shows I know of that takes such huge hiatuses, and I think I am growing tired of it. The span between Thanksgiving and Christmas is one thing, but over three months is ridiculous!

Anyway, last night’s Criminal Minds revolved around the kidnapping of three girls. They were placed in an underground chamber and given an ultimatum–they would be released when they agreed on which one of the three would die. Only two girls were to walk out alive.

This was creepy. If you are placed in a room with your best friends and told you will choose who dies or you all die - what on earth would you do? Human instinct would be the strong survive, but how do you choose who is strongest?

This show was very creepy, and despite a bit of obvious nature I found towards the end, I thoroughly enjoyed it.

In the end, I find I could care less that I missed Lost.

CBS:

9pm - Criminal Minds: Three college students vanish during a pep rally.

10pm - CSI: NY - A woman is found dead in the subway after an apparent rave.

NBC:

Nothing crime drama related.

ABC:

10pm - The Nine: Startling new facts arise regarding Eva.

FOX:

8pm - Bones: The body of a young beauty queen is discovered.

There were so many good shows on last night, but my DVD player was going to record the live five hours of Ghost Hunters, so I spent much of the night flipping between channels.

NCIS - I felt the whole Abby sequence was a let down. I got very sick of her twirling in her skirt. Seemed out of character to me. Anyway…

The case involved a Marine who had been shot in the neck and his daughter was kidnapped. He managed to stumble over to a neighbors. She, at first, thought he’d taken his Custer costume a little too seriously, but then realized he was injured. The team arrives and learn the daughter has been taken when the wife shows up asking if the girl is okay.

S
P
O
I
L
E
R

Okay so, Tony, McGee and Ducky’s helper are all in a tizzy because Abby is Marilyn Monroe for the evening. The trio spend a lot of time with gaping mouths.

At the crime scene, McGee marks all the evidence only to find his markers get knocked over and the bullet casing disappears. They all laugh at him until something unseen brushes Tony’s foot. Turns out there is one of the robotic vacuums in the room under the chair and it picked up the evidence. There is a dead body in the living room, but he has no id.

Ziva questions witnesses and gets a description of the car seen leaving the scene. It smashed a pumpkin on the way out.

The wife shows up with her sister. Something seems odd and Gibbs picks up on it immediately. The wife is holding something back. He finally learns that the woman had an affair and paternity of the girl is questionable.

Meanwhile, Abby is able to pull part of a licence plate imprint from the pumpkin. They do a search and find the car had been reported stolen. Abby still has to identify the John Doe.

Gibbs, Tony and McGee head to the old boyfriend’s house and find the stolen car… part of the little girl’s halloween costume is in the trunk. They raid the house and are met by a beligerent vegetable (”NCIS- You guys can’t even spell it right”) who turns out to be a lawyer. They find the ex-beau and question him but he doesn’t know the girl is missing - he did not take her and the car is not his. He doesn’t know how it got there.

Ziva goes to inform the mother only to find she and her sister fled through the window.

Meanwhile, they learn that the John Doe is connected to the same law firm where the wife works. They realize that the girl must be at that law firm.

Upon arrival, they find the mother, her sister, and an unknown holding them at gunpoint. The guy demands the girl’s mother transfer money to three accounts. He tells her NCIS will never figure it out in time. They yell freeze, and the suspect shoots, but they are quicker. The sister points out that the girl is still missing.

After a full building sweep, Tony and Ziva find the girl. They call to the mother who immediately starts kicking the sister’s behind. Turns out she wasn’t a sister at all, she was in on the heist.

FOX:

Standoff moves to Tuesday now hoping that tying it to House will boost ratings. Pitting it against NCIS may not be a brilliant move. Tonight at 8, the hostage negotiators deal with a young boy who takes a hospital hostage in order to get a surgeon to operate on his dying sister.

CBS:

NCIS airs at 8pm - the team are called in - Halloween costumes and all - to delve into an attack on a Marine whose daughter is then kidnapped.

At 9pm, The Unit has a new show airing. The team are sent in to recover some diamonds that are meant to fund a future terrorist attack. One of the soldiers steals some diamonds for himself…

ABC:

Now Boston Legal is slated from 8pm to 11pm on my channel guide, though I doubt that’s right. The website shows tonight’s 10pm show as involving Denise’s search for her fiance, Alan defending Jerry for falsifying information on federal forms, and Lincoln sues Jeffrey. I don’t watch the show, so hopefully these characters make sense.

NBC:

9pm Law & Order: CI - A pedophile announces he killed a young girl more than a decade earlier. The problem is that the girl’s mother was the prime suspect in that case. Liza Minelli stars. It seems to be a little Jon Benet Ramseyish case wise…

10pm Law & Order SVU: Benson (Mariska Hargitay) returns tonight. She’s called from her undercover work in Oregon to help provide the evidence necessary to keep a sadistic rapist behind bars.

CW (for those who may get this new channel)

9pm - Veronica Mars tackles the case of a robbery in a casino.

If you watch NCIS at all, you know Abby. Abby is the reason I like the show so much. Besides having a childhood crush on Mark Harmon (from his St. Elsewhere days) and enjoying Michael Weatherly in Dark Angel and now as the pain in the behind Tony, I find that Abby’s character is always refreshing. The actress has that goth lab techie character down pat.

My husband once asked if there were pictures of the actress who plays Abby looking non-Goth. I found a few of her as a blond from about five years ago. If anyone else has asked that question - Abby is going to be dressed as Marilyn Monroe tonight - so here is a chance to see her looking non-Goth!

Apparently, instead of publish, I must have clicked save yesterday because my post on last night’s TV never went up. Though, I swear when I checked the site yesterday afternoon it showed up. So who knows…

The time change has my body messed up. I fell asleep at 8:00 P.M. last night during the opening of the Patriot’s game, so I didn’t watch much anyway.

I did catch a repeat episode of CSI. I find it amazing how much different the characters look now compared to earlier seasons. I know every ages, but some of them are showing their age far more than others. Last night’s show had Nick in his bowl cut phase. I hated that hair cut. I am thrilled that he ditched that look!

Meanwhile, Warrick never seems to change at all.

For crime drama - looks pretty much like Fox has it with Prison Break and Justice.

I started watching Prison Break last year, but lost interest - it was on against another show I watched. If you want to know what tonight’s episode is about - head to Yahoo - http://tv.yahoo.com/tvpdb?d=tvp&id=170084734&cf=0&lineup=us_Eastern&channels=us_FOX&chspid=166034673&chname=FOX&progutn=1162256400&.intl=us

Justice is going to be about a millionaire’s son and his lower-on-the-totem-pole girlfriend. When they die in a plane crash, the girl’s low income parents sue the millionaire.

As the CBS comedies are repeats, I’ll have the full breakdown of Justice tomorrow.

Let me start by detailing a bit about Scotty. His brother was apparently molested by a coach in their childhood. Scotty was warned by some associates that the coach was being tried for molestation and that Scotty’s brother may be a victim. Since Scotty mentioned it to his brother, his brother has taken to spending all day in bed and creeping around his house at night. That offshoot is featured tonight, but not in great detail.

The real case involves a 1958 suicide of a D.J, “The Hawk.” After a computer geek starts toying with tapes from that fateful night, evidence comes to light that someone else was in the room when Hawk supposedly shot himself. He may have been murdered.

S

P
O
I
L
E
R
S

The case begins with Hawk’s exwife. She sends them to Hawk’s assistant who was apparently peeved that Hawk wouldn’t play his song on the air. Back then it was the DJ’s that made or killed a potential hit.

After visiting the former assistant, he tells them that Hawk had made one enemy - a man who claims Hawk impregnated his teenage daughter. They interview that man, and he admits the girl finally admitted it was her boyfriend, not Hawk. The man does, however, tell them that Hawk had been hitting on some girl in a diner and that the girl’s boyfriend was not amused.

They track down the boyfriend, he has a record for armed robbery, so he becomes a key suspect. He points them to his girlfriend. After questioning her, they learn that Hawk was threatened by a music producer after Hawk learned his assistant had taken bribes from this producer to play some of his songs on the air.

They return to the assistant who then points them to the girl he met in the diner. She had a song that she’d given to Hawk and it was the song that was playing the night Hawk died. Things begin to unravel when they discover the missing lyrics to that song - the girl wasn’t Hawk’s secret girlfriend, she was his daughter.

Turns out Hawk made plans to quit his job and tour the country with his very talented daughter. Unfortunately, the girls mother was not having that. He’d walked out on the daughter once and she wasn’t going to have him steal the girl from her now. So she shoots Hawk, makes it look like he killed himself, and walks away.

Starting today, I’m going to try to narrow down my scope earlier by doing a little research into what the major stations are airing for Crime/Drama TV.

Side note - The second season of House will be airing from 1pm EST to 11 tonight. If you’ve never watched this show, head to USA. I think Hugh Laurie is brilliant on that show! Pain in the behind, sure, but I’d trust him any day of the week!

If you actually get the new channel CW - their lineup starts at 7pm tonight with Supernatural. It’s a repeat episode - the brothers head to Oklahoma to investigate a man who is able to make people do anything he wants.

At 9pm, a new episode of Cold Case airs. The team reopens the 1958 murder of a popular DJ after a tape of the murder is discovered.

10pm has a new Without A Trace. Eriq LaSalle (ER) plays a family man who moves to NY after Hurricane Katrina. He vanishes on his way to work.

Now, football will probably cause delays in many areas. I’m hoping that political debates are over, but who really knows…

Fans of Smith - the show is gone.

Kidnapped will finish up airing the filmed episodes and then leave for good. The network says loose ends will be tied up first.

Runaway is also going.

Oddly enough ABC is scrambling to revive LOST’s viewership. Mandy Patankin and his show Criminal Minds have been doing well against LOST this year. Perhaps it is time for the writers on Lost to tie up a few ends and get Jack, Kate, and Sawyer back with the rest of the crew. Criminal Minds is a pretty good show, and I have to admit that I’ve been known to flip away from Lost to check in with Mandy and the rest of his crew. I’ll have plenty of time to catch up with Criminal Minds anyway, Lost is being put on a hiatus in November for a total of 13 weeks to allow the new show Day Break to draw in viewers. During those thirteen weeks, I have a feeling I won’t mind Lost being gone at all… I think those writers are starting to figure out that they are writing themselves into a black hole that some fans are growing tired of.

Also in the rumors are whispers that the show Twenty Good Years (John Lithgow) is going to be axed from the schedule. I’d love to see Alec Baldwin’s 30 Rock go with it! I just have serious issues with Alec Baldwin as a human right now. What he and Kim Basinger are doing to their daughter is inexcusable.

Finally, a new show! No repeats last night for CBS and no politics!

If you’ve never watched to Close to Home, the show is set in Indianapolis and revolves around the district attorney’s office. Key players are Annabeth (Jennifer Finnigan), Maureen (Kimberly Elise), Ray (Jon Seda), Ed (Cress Williams), and the newcomer this year is JAG’s David James Elliott who plays their boss the D.A. James.

Annabeth and Maureen work for the D.A. while Ray and Ed are detectives who handle the investigation work.

Last night’s case involved the murder of a local college football player. The boy was badly beaten to death; his spleen ruptured in the injuries. As the boy had been at a football party, they go to question the other team members, two are also cut and bruised, but everyone is repeating the exact same story–the victim started a fight because he’d been benched due to injuries. Due to the other two boy’s injuries, they are arrested. Now the DA has to build their case.

S
P
O
I
L
E
R
S

The two boys lawyer up pretty quickly. The coach (B.J. & The Bear or My Two Dads’ Greg Evigan) seems happy to forget all about them and move on without the star quarterback. Meanwhile, one of the boys does seem willing to make a deal, so Annabeth plays that route.

They continue questioning friends and party goers, something isn’t adding up because the dead boy had no drugs or alcohol in his system. Annabeth and Maureen are pointed in the direction of a bunch of girls on campus who are “given gifts” in exchange for “servicing” the players. The girl questioned denies seeing the fight.

After it becomes clear the judge is convinced the boys will not receive light treatment, the one boy agrees to tell everything IF he gets a reduced sentence. At the party, one girl was “servicing” one of the booster club sponsors (an older guy who owns a car dealership) and the dead boy found out about it and became enraged. The fight ensued, but he swears when they left the other boy was still alive and standing up.

With new names to question, Annabeth goes back to the dealer who says he left as soon as the fight began. The girl still says the fight went outside and she never saw what happened, but the fight was really over the dead boy telling the star quarterback that he knew the quarterback was having an affair with the coach’s wife and he was going to tell everything.

Annabeth goes to trial and calls both the coach and his wife to the stand hoping that she can get them to give conflicting information. She has proof that the quarterback called the coach’s wife that night - even though everyone says she was no where near the hotel where the party was held.

When the star quarterback gets up on the stand, he cracks. He tells Annabeth that he left the other guy alive. That he came back out to the pool area and saw the coach talking to the boy. That the coach had him pinned down and wasn’t letting the boy get up to get help. This is the break they need. The coach knew the boy was dying and let him die.

The court is adjorned and they bring the coach in. He states that the boy was causing his hard work building a winning team to fall apart. He couldn’t let his team fall apart. He couldn’t let the boy live and inform the press that they had girls who “serviced the team” in exchange for gifts… Annabeth repeats that what they did with the girls is considered prostitution by Indiana law. The coach is arrested.

As per usual, the World Series or Politics have overruled my shows - so we are still in repeat world.

I do have some tidbits that I’ve seen in the news recently, however.

CSI - The actor who plays Grissom (William Petersen) is taking a hiatus from the show for a little while. Apparently, he is going to head back to the theater for a few weeks. How they will handle his temporary departure remains a mystery.

Pauley Perette (NCIS’s Abby) is dressing up as Marilyn Monroe in an upcoming show. (Halloween) Apparently Tony and McGee are going to be thrown for a loop.

Are you a fan of the CSI or Lost television shows? If so, the government wants you! It’s been all ove rhte news this week. Apparently, the government feels that fans of these shows many have “spy potential” and the NSA feels you should apply for training with their agency.

Mel Gibson move over! Chevy Chase is going to be using his personal experience with DUI to play a bigoted drunk who becomes accused of murdering a Jewish man in an upcoming Law and Order.

Speaking of L & O Law & Order: SVU’s Mariska Hargitay (Jayne Mansfield’s daughter) will be returning from maternity leave in November.

After his role in CSI, Kevin Federline earned both rave reviews and plenty of scorn. He’s come forward to tell people that he doesn’t care - hating him is making his popularity soar…. I still say maybe it’s time to get a life, not just borrow Britney’s.

The world series obviously is putting many shows on a temporary hiatus. Add in local politics (third night in a row that they have reaired a political debate on our NBC channel), so there is little CrimeDrama TV wise that I have watched…

However, it does allow me to broaden my horizons and watch other shows. Anyone into GhostHunters? My ten-year-old wants to join TAPS when she grows up. She is thoroughly fascinated, and I have to admit, some of the things they film are quite intriguing. I think most of it depends on if you believe in ghosts or not. I most certainly do. I am a non-smoker, can’t stand the smell of smoke actually and it makes my eyes puff up something fierce, but my English grandparents were smokers. In fact, when my mom started smoking back in the 50s/60s, the ads in her hometown were that smoking cured emphysema (cute huh?)

My grandfather raised five girls, including a set of twins, but he’d always dreamed of having a son. When I got married 15 years ago, I took my new husband overseas to meet my grandparents and aunts. My grandfather begged me during that trip to name my first born after him. Of course, George, while a classic name, isn’t what I had in mind. I did have a surprise in store for him though. Two years later, my son was born and named after Grandad’s grandfather, Christopher/Kit, who died rescuing a number of stranded seamen from the North Sea. My grandfather was dying of lung cancer when me son was born. He was prouder than anything that someone had named a boy after Kit.

So now that that story has been told, I can revert back to where I was going. In my non-smoking house, every month or so, my children, husband, or I will be sitting in the living room and have the room fill with an intense smell of stale cigarette smoke. It will stay for a minute or so and then vanish. I actually love it because I know my grandparents have come to visit.

Yet weirder, the day my daughter turned two, we got the call that my grandmother had passed away. She was always terrified of flying, so she never came to America. My two year old had just fallen asleep on the floor after her birthday party and her balloon was in her hand. I’d finished picking up cake and the various mess that comes with a party. She’d lost her grip on the balloon and it was up against the ceiling. We had no doors or windows open that day… the balloon suddenly came into the kitchen area, went back to the living room, came back to the kitchen and went half way down the hallway off the kitchen that goes to the bathroom area, then came back and went to the front door. From there it went up the stairs to the bedrooms. Now my brother kept writing this all off as air currents in the house itself. I didn’t agree, but couldn’t prove otherwise. Then something happened…. The balloon came back downstairs and went back to my daughter and remained there. Coming back down the stairs - that one my brother suddenly couldn’t argue… I’ve never seen anything like it and to this day I assume my grandmother was finally at peace with flying overseas.

I have managed (yeah - lucky me) to catch my son’s chest cold. So my headache, cough, and I are going to bed early.

Tonight’s NCIS episode is a repeat anyway.

Meanwhile, and slightly off topic, I wanted to mention a movie we just finished watching - An American Haunting. This is one of the better horror movies I’ve seen in a while, even if I did make a guess that turned out to be correct! I’m not sure who plays the girl, but she’s a really good screamer!

I’ve been after networks to try relocating a show before canceling it, and that is exactly what Fox did with Justice. The problems is they moved it to a night that doesn’t work for me! Now I do realize they are not out there to please ONE person, but pitting Justice against Two and a Half Men does not help me out. Even in the summer when I want to catch up on shows I was unable to see, now they air fillers instead. It’s getting annoying and I’m beginning to agree with my brother that it’s better to cancel satellite or cable all together and then spend the money you save on the box sets that come out every fall.

Anyway, last night was spent bouncing back and forth between Two and a Half Men and Verdict.

Now Verdict stars Alias’s Victor Garber (Played Jack Bristow) and the entire show revolves around a defense team building their case. I happen to love this show, and my son who is currently taking Mock Trial says it is the first show he’s seen where they actually do list reasons why they are objecting which is typical in real law according to his teacher. He watched it with me for the first time and admitted he thinks it is a better show than others.

Last night’s case involved a Goth teenager accused and arrested for the murder of another teen (one who bullied him.) The murdered teen was found hanging from a cross.

S
P
O
I
L
E
R

Now while I missed pieces of the show, I did catch the gist. The teen’s room is searched and the prosecution and the police go after his computer files, books, and the kid’s goth artwork. It looks bad for this kid, so the defense team polishes the kids image. Gets him looking rather preppy and then searches for other possible suspects. The problem is that the lawyer defending this kid feels the kid is guilty for most of the show, so his efforts are not great. The kid’s father also doesn’t feel his kid is innocent, so that doesn’t help matters.

Alibis rule other other potential suspects (another friend and the Goth kid’s own father who hated the bully), and the case doesn’t go well. The kid is found guilty.

The end of Justice shows what really happens. This was a first for me with this show, but the kid actually went to jail for a crime he did not commit. The builder say this teen spray painting (tagging) the house he was building, so the builder kills him. Unfortunately, the builder has an issue with this goth kid and decides he would be perfect to frame, so that’s exactly what he does.