Criminal Minds: Beyond Borders

I moved to Mumbai 3 years ago and still have all my body parts. I am sorry to say but I find this show racist and offensive. Basically telling Americans that the whole world is unsafe for them, and all foreign cultures are a bunch of savages...I have hoped that in this day and age we are over cultural stereotypes but it does not appear so. I hope this show will improve , cos I am a big fan of the original one. The only redeeming factor so far is the lead cast of Gary Sinise who I love since I saw Of mice and Men.

Americans leaving the safety of their borders... yeah right , cos nothing bad ever happens over there...

This show is just so horrible and it has Erica Messer's signature all over it. First, the original Criminal Minds frequently messes up details because its writers don't seem to know US geography (hence Quantico and DC are contiguous communities). But once the writers go "beyond borders," they really show their ignorance both geographically and culturally. Second, CBS seems to have adopted an ominous signature cinematography which makes everyone look horrible… and it's doing Sinise no favors. Third, everything on this show seems formulaic (again, a Messer signature); anyone who is paying attention can figure out the ending before the first commercial break. And finally the cast, which changed since the "pilot," has no chemistry. Frankly, my co-workers and I have no chemistry – but we aren't asking millions of people to watch us every week either.

Cancellation in five…four…three

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.

Even given the xenophobia of the show, I'm surprised that their first four episodes took place in countries that use the British right hand side driving system (Thailand, India, Egypt and Japan) but the local cars in the show have the steering wheel on the left ALF (Aft Looking Forward). Most prominent was the old BMW in Cairo and the plot point that showed a clue on the 'passenger's seat' which was on the right rather than the left. This adds to the feeling that the show's producers' mission is to denigrate foreign cultures and peoples. This lack of attention to detail adds to the lack of sensitivity to foreign cultures that seem to be a hallmark of the show. As an American who has lived in Iran, Jordan, Germany, Singapore, Thailand and Malaysia, I'm surprised with the world wide audience nature of TV these days that more attention wasn't paid to these details.