Criminal Minds Annual Cast Changes

At this point in the year, news of cast changes in the Criminal Minds lineup is to be expected. 

So who's in and who's out this year? 

Well, Damon Gupton is out of the coming season, which apparently was a "network decision". I'm not complaining, because the guy's character didn't add much to the show. He won't be hard to write out if they resolve Mr Scratch quickly. 

And they decided to rescue (?) Daniel Henney from the now-cancelled, much maligned (especially in Singapore) Criminal Minds: Beyond Borders to join the mothership show. My guess is that they need a Pan Asian for the diversity quota (besides Aisha Tyler and Adam Rodriguez, that show is also mostly consist of white people; I don't think there's ever been a regular cast member of Asian descent on that show). I'm also guessing that they're hoping the Henney fanbase will also follow. I have my guesses as to how he'll join the BAU fold, but I'm sure they'll come up with some mildly plausible way to write him in. 

Also in are AJ Cook and Kirsten Vangsness who got their salary parity with both MGG and Mantegna (🎉🎆). Those two are gonna be interesting to write out if the negotations didn't work out. 

Adios, Hotch

In all my years following the comings and goings on Criminal Minds, the news about Thomas Gibson's dismissal from the show after an "on set altercation" was (you have to admit) more mind blowing than when they announced Shemar Moore was leaving, mostly because his character Hotch has been the backbone of the BAU for the entire run of the show. At this point the only OG cast members left are Matthew Grey Gubler... and maybe Kirsten Vangsness. 

Okay, he's had some prior incidents which all lead to what some would say was that last straw for the production. Also, I read someplace that the guy was kicked in the shin - if I knew there was a "three strikes" rule on the show, I would've gone all out and kicked the guy in the balls, but that's just me. We don't know what actually happened and we probably never will. 

With him gone, the show saved the money that would be his salary (which I imagine is pretty significant, given his OG cast member status) and bring in someone younger and/or cheaper. 

With a departure as abrupt as this, I can't wait to see how they write themselves out of this Hotch-sized hole: I don't think they can use "Hotch finally retired" as a write-out, I think they would have to kill him off at this point. Or maybe they could say Hotch got fired because of what happened in the last season, but the team still has to carry on. 

I don't know who can step in as BAU unit chief... I suppose Rossi could, but I don't think that was why he came back to the BAU in the first place. 

I'm with the rest of the fandom - here's to the beginning of the end of Criminal Minds. 

Criminal Minds casting news - New BAU muscle!

When news broke that Adam Rodriguez (who, as far as I'm concerned, will always be that guy from CSI: Miami) will be joining Criminal Minds this coming season, I mean, with the BAU's staffing issues, you just have to. 

Anyway, considering that the previous season ended with the mass prison escape, and that the next season is starting with them attempting to recapture said prisoners, writing his character in as someone from the FBI Fugitive Task Force totally makes TV-sense. Also, the BAU's resident muscle had just left, and unless Dr Reid seriously bulks up, they still need someone to do UnSub takedowns.. #thereIsaidit

Long story short: Don't care, good for him, can't wait for Season 12 of Criminal Minds in the fall. 

Shemar Moore Leaves Criminal Minds

Every time news about someone leaving the show Criminal Minds erupts, the fandom just go nuts. You would think people would get used to it by now because there's always someone coming and going every year... 

This year, one of the OG cast members Shemar Moore is finally moving on from the show, having been there pretty much since the beginning, all those years ago. Which is a shocker to fans (even me) because we're only finding this out recently (apparently it was also teased on his Instagram account, which I wouldn't know because I don't follow the guy there). And the show gave him three episodes for his exit, which is pretty generous, considering how abruptly other people get written out over the show's run.

I personally had never given two hoots about him or his character, but I don't begrudge the guy his popularity amongst the fandom. But knowing the show, we'll be hearing about Morgan's replacement before the new season starts in the fall, because I don't see Matthew Gray Gubler stepping in as BAU's resident muscle man :P 

I haven't seen Morgan's last episode myself yet, but from what I've read about it, it seems like a decent send off for a longtime cast member. And at least he wasn't killed off..? 

Thoughts While Watching the Criminal Minds: Beyond Borders Pilot

After almost a year since the yuuggge crossover/backdoor pilot from last season's Criminal Minds, their second attempt at a Criminal Minds franchise finally got started, and that was Criminal Minds: Beyond Borders. 

As to be expected, they made some cast changes in the months between the backdoor pilot and this pilot - Anna Gunn got cut, Annie Funke and Alana De La Garza got added... There would be a revolt if Daniel Henney got cut, so thankfully for everyone he's still on the show. 

• Of everyone from the mothership show, they could only get Joe Mantegna to cameo in the first five minutes of the show? Okay, then.
• Wait, so IRT is also based out of Virginia like the BAU, right? 
• I know it's a calculated move on their part that Simmons's first appearance on screen be him doing that obstacle course :P 
• There's something about Daniel Henney that doesn't convince me that his character is a father of four young children. Too well rested, perhaps? 
• If you thought the BAU's private jet was fancy, the IRT's jet is so MASSIVE and IMPRESSIVE that they can transport both a bike and a SUV in there O.o 
• More jet scenes please! 
• Did they get their Thailand B-roll from The Amazing Race, existing stock footage, or did they shoot their own B-roll?
• Their "Thailand" set is clearly some dressed up backlot - there's something about the sky that clearly does not look like Thailand AT ALL.
• I suppose if I was Mae, I would rather get on the back of the bike with Simmons in the rain than to ride in the SUV to be a lamp post between the boss-man and Clara :P 
• You have to admit that Monty has a tough time, what with having to deal with victims' families AND still be the black, male Garcia of Beyond Borders. 
• Dumb question: What does one do with a challenge coin? 

The pilot was, IMO, rough, borderline cringeworthy to watch, but that's more to do with the writing than the performances. My inner sucker will keep watching to see if it gets better. 

Jennifer Love Hewitt on Criminal Minds? Really?!

Well, they found another brunette to fill the missing brunette hole on Criminal Minds after the departure of other brunettes before her in the long running show. 

The announcement made about Jennifer Love Hewitt joining Criminal Minds as a series regular in the upcoming season certainly made a lot of waves, especially among the CM fanbase. Perhaps it was just me. There'll be a whole load of jokes of talking to ghosts and happy ending massages amongst fans for sure. But I'll refrain from making those myself. I don't know how she will be, as part of a huge cast, after being the lead on Ghost Whisperer and The Client List. The last ensemble role anyone could remember her in was Party of Five? 

According to the news outlets, her character is Kate Callahan, a "seasoned undercover agent whose work landed her a position with the BAU". 

Here is my question as a fan of the show: If her character is a longtime undercover agent, so unless they release the part where it says that she's also did some profiling or just really astute about human psychology, she'll be joining the BAU in what capacity? 

Like the changing of colours in the fall, I can't wait to see the change in the huge cast photo at the end of the opening sequence in the new season.

Related articles

• Jennifer Love Hewitt joins 'Criminal Minds' as series regular
• Jennifer Love Hewitt Joins 'Criminal Minds' Cast

Jeanne Tripplehorn joins the BAU (Criminal Minds)

I was beginning to wonder who they were bringing in to replace Paget Brewster on the eighth season of Criminal Minds, if she was getting replaced at all. After all, Paget came in to "replace" Lola Glaudini way back when.

Then news broke that Jeanne Tripplehorn is confirmed for next season as a profiler. In the grand CM tradition that the departing cast member is replaced with someone with similar-ish features. 

I don't know why people don't like to use the word "replace" in this context. They are replacing someone with someone else. I wish the network and the fandom would just get over it.

Personally, I can't complain. But I can't wait to see what they do with her character this coming season. I haven't seen Jeanne Tripplehorn on a screen of any size since erm, Waterworld? Yeah, that long ago. Never saw Big Love myself.

Related articles

• Criminal Minds Scoop: Big Love's Jeanne Tripplehorn Joins Cast as a Series Regular

  ---

• Paget Brewster Makes A Post-'Criminal Minds' Move

  ---

Paget Brewster off Criminal Minds... for real

Image via Wikipedia

Aaaannnnd... Paget Brewster is leaving the Criminal Minds mothership, on her own terms.

Or rather, she's not renewing her contract with the show, which will (inevitably) be picked up for another season. I hope her character doesn't actually get killed off, but I do wonder how she'll get written off. It can't be that hard - between the entire BAU unit, they've enough PTSD to go around  and leave en masse :P

I don't understand the overreaction of the fans with regards to the lineup change - it's not the first time it's happened. THESE THINGS HAPPEN. Deal with it, it's only a TV show. In case you can't tell, I am pretty blase about it. 

Word is still out on whether Matthew Gray Gubler will be returning next season.

I can't wait to see the cast picture they flash in the end of the opening montage next season... 

Related articles

• 'Criminal Minds': Paget Brewster to Leave After Season 7 (buddytv.com)

Matthew Gray Gubler and Aldo, F/W 2011/12

Walked past an Aldo store and I saw this (or some other picture) in the store window. I thought I was seeing things, so I had to look it up for myself. 

Took it from here

So it turns out that Matthew Gray Gubler (MGG) and British model Lily Donaldson are the faces of Aldo's Fall/Winter Collection for 2011/2012. I'm not one to like commercials, but I thought this one was pretty cute. It does help that the song used in this ad is pretty catchy, and I found out that it's called Can't Stop Thinking About It by The Dirtbombs. Cool song :)

I'm not a huge fan of Aldo or MGG per se, but I thought it was an interesting side of MGG outside of Criminal Minds (in case anyone was wondering why I'm talking about this here).

Hotch is back - yay!

It took a long while, but Thomas Gibson is back for another two years on Criminal Minds.

Phew.

I guess for "mid-to-high seven figures, plus a signing bonus, ...doubling his previous salary", I would rather keep fans in suspense too as to whether I was going to go back again on a show fraught with casting issues.

Paget Brewster also back on board the Criminal Minds ship

Who's happy that BOTH Paget Brewster and AJ Cook are going to be back for the seventh season of Criminal Minds? I'm just curious as to how they'll be written back into the show as AJ Cook made a guest appearance in (literally) the last minute of the recent season finale, telling Rossi that she's coming back to the BAU. But as Prentiss is still presumably on the run (and also presumably dead) from the crazy Irishman... how is that going to work out?

If that's the case, it really means that Rachel Nichol's character Seaver is definitely not coming back for the new season. I hope that Seaver gets a nice exit and isn't just killed off willy nilly because her character happens to be a serial killer's daughter and also a rookie. Even a casual mention of her working in a different department is fine by me.

Good news aside, there's still no sign of Thomas Gibson coming back as his contract's not been ironed out yet. Here's hoping.

Related articles

• Paget Brewster Returning to 'Criminal Minds': Report (aoltv.com)

AJ Cook back on Criminal Minds

Read it here that AJ Cook is coming back to Criminal Minds for two years as series regular, which apparently first came out via Twitter here. All thanks to the fans, apparently. After all the hoopla about her being fired from the show not too long ago, I guess this would count as a hurrah if you're a fan of her character, JJ. As I'm not (really), all I can say is good on her.

It should be interesting to see how they'll squeeze her back into the show after all that; the most ridiculous thing I could think of is that she comes back to the BAU as liaison between them and the Pentagon (as her character was ordered to take the Pentagon job), or she pulled some string high up in the Pentagon hierarchy to come back to the BAU. If I'm right, it either means that I watch way too much TV (which I can't deny), or the writers ran out of ideas, too.

While we're on the subject of the show, I don't understand the hate on Rachel Nichols (as Seaver), with the show's history of cast comings and goings: In case no one remembered, Mantegna was brought in to replace Mandy Patinkin and Paget Brewster replaced Lola Glaudini (who only lasted ONE season). Did anyone complained about that then? Sometimes you need to change things up. People should just deal with it.

Am I the only person that wondered how Seaver got into the FBI academy with her serial killer dad? We all knew that she changed her last name to her mother's maiden name, but still - you would think that the FBI has the resources to do a deep enough background check on candidates. Or perhaps there was an interview component that she passed with flying colours? 

Anyway, it can't be that hard to work her back into the opening credits and into the huge group shot in the end, no? It's just one of the things I like to watch out for whenever there's news about the cast.

Related articles

• A.J. Cook Officially Returning to 'Criminal Minds' As Series Regular (tvsquad.com)

Prentiss's Departure (Spoiler)

If you've not seen this week's episode of Criminal Minds where Paget Brewster's character Emily Prentiss got written out of the show for this season, go watch it someplace and then come back. Really.

.
.
.
.

Understanding TV spouses piss me off

If you've watch enough TV, you'd notice that there are some shows where one or more lead characters are married/otherwise committed to spouses/partner/significant others that are pretty understanding as to what they do for a living and are pretty much okay with their quirks and idiosyncrasies. I watch these shows with incredulity when it comes to their home life aspect, thinking "that's not for real!" - I know it's not, just bear with me.

Here's a list of characters that comes to mind:

• Tiffani Thiessen's character Elizabeth Burke on White Collar
• David Conrad's character on The Ghost Whisperer (as Jennifer Love-Hewitt's uber understanding husband)
• At least one of the women on Army Wives... and maybe that guy who's wife is in the army.
• Jon Tenney on The Closer - so much so that he doesn't even wear the pants in their marriage anymore :P But it's good to see him exasperated with the wife on occasion.
• Kelli Williams on Lie to Me - while technically not romantically involved with Tim Roth's Dr Cal Lightman, but she seems to be okay with his crazy shenanigans and is about as good as a TV spouse can get.

The rare exception that I could think of would be Meredith Monroe's character Haley on Criminal Minds, who divorced from Hotch because of his job.

Post-JJ Criminal Minds

Saw the post-JJ episode of Criminal Minds, Remembrance of Things Past.

They totally reworked the title sequence - different mix of the tune, shuffling of cast members with Joe Mantegna get first billing and Thomas Gibson getting the "and" billing. Even the final cast photo at the end also changed.

Question: If Paget Brewster is also (eventually) getting written out, why still bother with the billing at all?

The only sign (literally) alluding to JJ's absence was Garcia taking down the name from the door. I don't think I'm the only one that's curious about who is going to be their new liaison, if they are going to address that at all.

Mad about the Criminal Minds cuts

I know it's been awhile since they announced this, but I'm a little mad that due to budget cuts, they're slowly cutting out the women on Criminal Minds... except for Kristen Vangness of course, but that's a given; imagine the riots if Abby were cut out of NCIS.

I have no idea why the budget cuts, nor do I have any theories about it. But IMO, CBS should just let Charlie Sheen rot and not pay such an obscene amount for him to come back to Two and a Half Men. WTF.

I have nothing against AJ Cook's character, JJ on the show - she was like the "civilian" of the BAU team, the non-profiler who doesn't have to deal with the psychopaths too much on the show. But what happened to her over the last few seasons is like the employer paper trail - her on screen and real life baby, baby daddy... it was a matter of time before she gets written out of the show eventually. I would like to think that she wouldn't be killed off, but it would be too obvious for her to quit the bureau for some lame ass reason and be a full time parent instead. Whatever happens to her next (as in TV gig-wise), I wouldn't go out of my way to watch it.

I have no idea how they're writing Paget Brewster out of the show, but I'm also hoping that she won't be killed off - it's probably likely that Prentiss would just move on to another department in the FBI. I hope to be pleasantly surprised.

But seriously, I don't know if I'll ever watch the show after this.

Related articles by Zemanta

• Criminal Minds: Kirsten Vangsness Not Happy With Co-Star Firing (screenrant.com)
• 'Minds' star: 'Cook exit affects morale' (digitalspy.co.uk)
• 'Criminal Minds' Update: Paget Brewster In (For Now), A.J. Cook to Wrap Up Storyline (tvsquad.com)
• 'Criminal Minds' Cuts Cast Member A.J. Cook (tvsquad.com)

Criminal Minds spinoff - WTF

When I first heard the news that there was going to be a spinoff for Criminal Minds way back when (a couple of months tops), I was like, are they kidding me? It's not enough that they're the murder network, but they want to be the network of spinoffs as well? Seriously?!

On the Tiffany Network, there is CSI with both CSI: Miami and CSI: NY spinoffs; NCIS (already a spinoff itself from JAG) now has NCIS: LA. A Criminal Minds spinoff is as about as necessary as Steve Wozniak needs more money. I think the only reason why they're going through with it is because they have Forest Whitaker in the lead role, and they can't toss him with the original cast without overwhelming them*. Maybe they want another black guy in a leading role on TV... anyway, wouldn't mind watching the back door pilot for this.

I like Criminal Minds as it is, and I'm kinda tired of the ensemble cast procedural drama. I know I don't have to watch it, but the curiousity will just kill me if I don't.

I hope they came up with a better name for this spinoff than they did for NCIS: LA.

I'll be darned if a Mentalist spinoff is happening as it's one of those shows which you can't squeeze a spinoff out of, but you'll never know.

* Besides, who needs one more wonky eyed older man on the BAU?

Related articles by Zemanta

• Here's a Pic From the 'Criminal Minds' Spinoff Episode (tvsquad.com)