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thefroggI watched Criminal Minds ep 4x18 Omnivore today. Then, as always, I went on LJ and various other sites and read commentary, and IMed everyone on my list who watches CM about the episode.
The episode itself was awesome. It was awesomecake covered in awesomesauce. Rossi is still growing on me, Hotch cried (TG is God, damnit.), I could go on. The alley scene is one of my top ten scenes ever.
Local accents and geography were still fucked sideways, and they screwed with Hotch's backstory some more, but that's normal for this series.
I have no issues or arguments aside from the normal ones with the episode itself.
But...
I kept reading comments, and I was...less than. I don't know. I was dismayed.
I don't have a television, and I don't check previews online, so I kept hearing "Morgan gets tackled through a window!". So yeah, I was expecting the window-tackle.
What I wasn't expecting, particularly in this fandom, with an episode of this caliber, was the emphatic drooling over a shirtless Derek Morgan.
SGA? One word: Sheppard (who does nothing for me, but there's enough physical gorgeousness for me to watch despite the story-related idiocy). Supernatural? If the towel scene doesn't define the show in terms of fan service, I don't know what does. I can understand it in NCIS, or CSI (any of them), or...::sigh::
Criminal Minds? Yes, I am aware that all of them are physically attractive. Ok, fine, Rossi and Kevin do nothing for me, and Reid...um. I might slash him in my fic, but personally he reads too much 'little brother' to be attracted that way. But aside from the cute/adorable/hysterically funny flirting between Garcia and Morgan (and various other people Garcia mistakes for Morgan now and then), CM doesn't blatantly use the pretty people on the fans, even if they're used, say, against an unsub, as in Ride the Lightning.
The scene with Morgan post-window-tackle doesn't, either - there's approximately 4 seconds of screen time where he's visible shirtless, full-torso. Actually, not even that - the full-torso shots (all two of them) are at an angle. The rest of the time is one shoulder, also angled, or clavicles up.
When I first saw the scene, I wasn't thinking "OMG, Derek's hot!" I was thinking, "Thank God it was the COTW that was killed," and "Damn, I hope whatever's under that bandage doesn't jack his tattoo(s)," and paying attention to the dialogue. And flinching right along with him at getting shards of glass pulled out. The supposed eye candy didn't even occur to me until after I'd been blugeoned with "OMG Morgan's shirtless!"
And to have this ep reduced to squeeage over 4 seconds of film was disheartening. The 4-second-squee cheapened the episode for me.
Criminal Minds was never about, and IMHO should never be about sheer physical attractiveness. It's an intellectual/emotional show that displays a kind of maturity that very few other shows have.
If I want to see Shemar Moore shirtless, there are photos out there. I know - I have some saved on my hard drive just because yeah, I think he's hot. I don't think it should be a factor in Criminal Minds.
While I don't deny the squeeage as a viable reaction to this episode, I do think the whole shirtless scene is a step in the wrong direction.
The episode itself was awesome. It was awesomecake covered in awesomesauce. Rossi is still growing on me, Hotch cried (TG is God, damnit.), I could go on. The alley scene is one of my top ten scenes ever.
Local accents and geography were still fucked sideways, and they screwed with Hotch's backstory some more, but that's normal for this series.
I have no issues or arguments aside from the normal ones with the episode itself.
But...
I kept reading comments, and I was...less than. I don't know. I was dismayed.
I don't have a television, and I don't check previews online, so I kept hearing "Morgan gets tackled through a window!". So yeah, I was expecting the window-tackle.
What I wasn't expecting, particularly in this fandom, with an episode of this caliber, was the emphatic drooling over a shirtless Derek Morgan.
SGA? One word: Sheppard (who does nothing for me, but there's enough physical gorgeousness for me to watch despite the story-related idiocy). Supernatural? If the towel scene doesn't define the show in terms of fan service, I don't know what does. I can understand it in NCIS, or CSI (any of them), or...::sigh::
Criminal Minds? Yes, I am aware that all of them are physically attractive. Ok, fine, Rossi and Kevin do nothing for me, and Reid...um. I might slash him in my fic, but personally he reads too much 'little brother' to be attracted that way. But aside from the cute/adorable/hysterically funny flirting between Garcia and Morgan (and various other people Garcia mistakes for Morgan now and then), CM doesn't blatantly use the pretty people on the fans, even if they're used, say, against an unsub, as in Ride the Lightning.
The scene with Morgan post-window-tackle doesn't, either - there's approximately 4 seconds of screen time where he's visible shirtless, full-torso. Actually, not even that - the full-torso shots (all two of them) are at an angle. The rest of the time is one shoulder, also angled, or clavicles up.
When I first saw the scene, I wasn't thinking "OMG, Derek's hot!" I was thinking, "Thank God it was the COTW that was killed," and "Damn, I hope whatever's under that bandage doesn't jack his tattoo(s)," and paying attention to the dialogue. And flinching right along with him at getting shards of glass pulled out. The supposed eye candy didn't even occur to me until after I'd been blugeoned with "OMG Morgan's shirtless!"
And to have this ep reduced to squeeage over 4 seconds of film was disheartening. The 4-second-squee cheapened the episode for me.
Criminal Minds was never about, and IMHO should never be about sheer physical attractiveness. It's an intellectual/emotional show that displays a kind of maturity that very few other shows have.
If I want to see Shemar Moore shirtless, there are photos out there. I know - I have some saved on my hard drive just because yeah, I think he's hot. I don't think it should be a factor in Criminal Minds.
While I don't deny the squeeage as a viable reaction to this episode, I do think the whole shirtless scene is a step in the wrong direction.
