Criminal Minds: Beyond Borders

When I saw the title of the show I got very interested, but after three episodes I have to say it is a huge disappointment and a totally missed opportunity. As someone with international background and loved the original CM series, this show unfortunately demonstrates a very simplified, distorted, American-centric view of the world. The plots are OK so far. But the offensive, one-sided plots/comments about other countries/cultures keep jumping out, making me want to turn off the TV immediately. Ep2(India) is slightly better than the others, but after watching ep3 (Egypt) I just decided it is time for me to stop watching the show.

The April 13 2016, episode was supposed to be set in a real place - San Pedro on Ambergris Caye in Belize. They showed a map in the opening section. They also showed huge sandy beaches which are virtually nonexistent on Ambergris. Then they landed a giant aircraft and unloaded vehicles. The only runway in San Pedro can just take the twin engined prop planes that hop around the islands. Then the storyline was that the honeymoon couple had vanished into the jungle driving a rented jeep heading for the west coast of Ambergris Caye. The trouble is that the distance between the east coat and the west coast in San Pedro is three blocks and there are no rental cars. In fact, there are virtually no cars at all as everybody gets around on golf carts. And the few cars there are, mostly taxis, are not allowed on the north part of the island. One of the characters supposedly spoke only creole. Everybody on Ambergris speaks English; the place used to be called British Honduras. Now I know this was fiction, with a plot that was laughable, conflating Mayan and Aztec legend with cannibalism and polygamy. But really if it's set in a real location at least let it reflect a little of that. And, just for the record, there is no American consulate in Ambergris Caye. I can only conclude that the creators of this shambles never read a guide book or even heard of Google.

Seriously, who on earth believes that some pseudo-"qualified" Americans need to fly into a country to "fix" things and resolve a crime? And who wrote this script that has Alana De La Garza spouting local so called legend wherever she lands? It is painfully bad viewing.She has zero depth and I want to do to her what the perp did to the victim in episode 5. I'm kinda serious. She has no acting chops but she flips from country to country and we are expected to believe she knows all the local languages, habits, and so on, and she is no one with no background and doesn't have the strength of character to carry off such a task. Give me a break. She is so puffed up and secure in her so called knowledge of the area and country. And yeah, who believes that this crowd rolls into a country in their private plane all equipped with vehicles and weaponry? What rubbish.

I was quite excited to see a new CM spin-off after 'Suspect Behavior' was unfairly cancelled, but after watching 3 episodes I think I'll only be watching in future because it's SO bad! The cast seem to be doing their best with the material provided, and it's nice to see them include another actress who isn't stick-thin (although I have my doubts about her supposed assault course abilities), but for a show whose main premise involves foreign countries it seems to be doing a fair job of p*****g them off. Here we have the FBI sweep in to save 'innocent Americans' from the incompetent, funny-speaking foreigners (never just Americans, always 'innocent Americans') and yet still taking time to point out the cultural stereotypes. For example, in episode 2 set in Mumbai, presumably we're supposed to be impressed that one of the amazing FBI agents can name the most famous Indian cricketer who has ever lived (Sachin Tendulkar) - and yet the producers couldn't even take the time to find an old video clip of India actually playing cricket ('no one watches cricket except the Brits, Aussies, Indians, Pakistanis, Jamaicans, Kiwis, Sri Lankans, Bangladeshis etc so they won't notice if we use England vs the West Indies') - if only there were resources where you could research this sort of stuff?! And we're told at the start of the episode that it's considered to rude to refuse an offer of hospitality - and yet at the end of the same episode Gary Sinise's character (I can't even be bothered to remember his name) refuses an invitation to a wedding! Maybe the average viewer now has such a short attention span that the producers assume we won't remember something from 30 minutes previously? Maybe it's this bad on purpose just so we keep watching for the patronising cultural clangers?? Can't wait for them to visit the UK so I can see the FBI pointing out that by law you have to drink 10 cups of tea per day and speak like Dick Van Dyke in Mary Poppins . . .

This is even beyond bad.

My heads kept turning around these issues....

1. American FBI go outside of America to investigate civilian related crimes? 2. Got full cooperation from the troubled country? 3. All American origin team leading Police? 4. They are able to carry a weapon? 5. Able to solve it in 45 min show? 6. Even able to have time to psycho analyze the UNSUB despite the cultural background differences!! 7. You can take back the victims home immediately after solving the crime occurred in foreign soil.

OMG!!!!

The Europe-based show called "Crossing Border" is far far better and realistic (even through the team is fictional under existing International Criminal Court) than this garbage.

Beyond Borders of human intelligence.