Criminal Minds is a crime drama of a different kind. Instead of focusing primarily on the crime and the chase to find the criminal and the subsequent arrest, the show focuses on the psychology of the criminal to try and understand why they are committing a certain crime. The show has had a successful run for eleven seasons and it is still going strong.
The success of the series had caused the showrunners to work on spin-offs. They had released Criminal Minds: Suspect Behavior that was released in 2011 and now the team is working on another spin-off called Criminal Minds: Beyond Borders.
The series follows the same arc as the original, where there is a team of agent from the elite FBI who are experts in criminal profiles and are joining forces to solve crimes that affects American citizens abroad.
While the basic premise of the series looks like it will work, there are some flaws that have not let the series be as successful as the original. The very fact that the series focuses on American citizens who are being victimized abroad holds the premise that the Americans are always the innocent victims while the foreigners are always the evil perpetrators. The audience did not like the xenophobic theme that it portrayed in the two episodes that have been aired.
The pilot takes the team to Thailand where the team tries to find three American college students who went missing while the second episode takes them to Mumbai where an American goes to visit a festival and ends up losing his kidneys.
The natives of the countries are all treated as callous and the characters of the FBI agents are half baked. The audience has connected to the original members of the BAU in Criminal Minds and this is something that the new series cannot achieve anytime soon.
The team in Criminal Minds: Beyond Borders comprises of Special Agent Jack Garrett (Gary Sinise), Specials Operation Agent Matt Simmons (Daniel Henney), Medical Examiner Mae Davis (Annie Funke), Technical Analyst Monty (Tyler James Williams) and finally Clara Seger (Alana de la Garza). The show has a set formula that it works on where the crime is committed and is reported to the team, they gather around where Agent Garrett delivers a speech and then they start to figure out the UnSub and then proceed to solving the crime.
The fans who want to head back to the original series of Criminal Minds currently airing its eleventh season can do so easily. The team at the Behavioral Analyst Unit of FBI had been shocked when one of their own was abducted and tortured by an unknown person. However, Derek Morgan survives the brutal attack on him and is now ready to find out who it was behind his abduction.
While Morgan tries to find out what had happened to him, the team has a huge challenge in their hand. They have to find an UnSub who abducts children right from their rooms while the parents are sleeping. While this seems plausible, what makes things rather scary is that the UnSub shuts the eyes of the parents with sand and glue.
The BAU heads to Wichita to find the Sandman who abducts children. The episode is titled The Sandman, is based on a mythological story of a man who would grant kids their dreams and nightmares.