TV Talk: ‘Criminal Minds’ returns, sadistic as ever; Wednesday Addams is back on Netflix
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The dirty little secret of all the streaming services: Even though they pour all their energy into promoting their original series, it’s often the reruns of existing shows that keep subscribers watching. It’s why HBO Max reclaimed “Friends” and Peacock clawed back rights to “The Office.” (The week of Oct. 10, reruns of “The Blacklist” and “NCIS” were No. 5 and 10, respectively, on the Nielsen Top 10 streaming programs list.)
And the next best thing for a streaming service? A reboot of a familiar title, which is why the former CBS drama “Criminal Minds” (2005-2020) is back for a 10-episode 16th season on streaming service Paramount+.
Streaming Thursday – because who doesn’t want their Thanksgiving dinner served with a heaping helping of a serial killer cutting open the back of a victim and giving the poor man the choice of permanent paralysis or death? – “Criminal Minds” returns with most – but not all! – of its cast returning.
The show, now called “Criminal Minds: Evolution,” also has a season-long storyline about a serial killer who, stuck at home due to the pandemic, creates a network of serial killers, which allows “Criminal Minds” to have its procedural element (serial killer of the week!) and a perfect-for-binging on streaming serialized arc too (serial killer for the season who directs the serial killers of the week!).
Since “Criminal Minds” was always a show about brutal crimes, the move to Paramount+ doesn’t result in that much more violence on screen, but it does allow star Joe Mantegna to drop the occasional f-bomb.
“I’m very aware that teenage kids watch this show,” said “Criminal Minds: Evolution” executive producer Erica Messer in a virtual press conference during the Television Critics Association summer 2022 press tour in September. “I never wanted us to go into full Rated R, extra violence or anything that would suddenly feel like a very different series. … So while I don’t think you’re going to be shocked at the graphics being worse or anything like that, there is some language that I feel is very appropriate even though some might consider it inappropriate. … It just sounds normal. It sounds like what they would have been saying all along. So that part, I’m kind of excited about, because I feel like the dialogue feels more authentic in that sense of law enforcement.”
“Criminal Minds: Evolution” also allows more time for character/relationship development. Prentiss (Paget Brewster) has a new job. Rossi (Mantegna) mourns the death of his wife. Penelope Garcia (Kristen Vangsness) hosts British baking parties at home and wants nothing to do with the FBI’s elite team of criminal profilers (of course, she’ll get pulled back in). Reid (Matthew Gray Gubler) and Simmons (Caniel Henney) are on a secret assignment and not back for this season.
“Our hope is that the team members that we ended the series with on CBS will be able to come back and play at some point,” Messer said. “But everybody does have other projects. … There was like a short window to try to get all of our friends to play, and we weren’t able to [get all of them]. It’s a little bit more of a mystery what Reid and Simmons are up to, but they’re certainly not forgotten. Dr. Reid and Matt Simmons’ desks are still there, still have stuff on [them]. If any of you went back after March 2020, you still have stuff on that desk that was there for two years. So we’re definitely playing that. They are not gone-gone. Let’s put it that way.”
‘Wednesday’
Writers Alfred Gough and Miles Millar know their way around a teen coming-of-age drama. They launched “Smallville” on The WB (later The CW) in 2001, seven years before the first “Iron Man” movie laid the groundwork for the MCU.
So it’s no surprise that their spin on “The Addams Family,” focused on a teenage Wednesday Addams (a game Jenna Ortega, well-cast), is very much like a CW show with a larger budget and a Hogwarts-esque setting.
Although Tim Burton directed the premiere and some of the other episodes in the eight-episode first season of “Wednesday,” streaming Wednesday on Netflix, the vibe from the show is more CW-esque than Burton-esque.
If CW dramas are your jam, you might like “Wednesday.” I was mostly bored and found the plot machinations predictable.
“Wednesday” is at its best when it leans into the mordant humor Wednesday evinces.
“I’m not sure whose idea it was to put hundreds of adolescents in underfunded schools run by people whose dreams were crushed years ago, but I admire the sadism,” Wednesday says of high school.
Ultimately that witty dialogue takes a back seat to familiar relationships and obvious plotting.
Yes, viewers get to see parents Morticia (Catherine Zeta-Jones) and Gomez (Luis Guzman) in brief cameo appearances, but most of the action takes place at or near Wednesday’s boarding school, Nevermore Academy. The emphasis is on Wednesday’s vampire, werewolf and merpeople peers and the school’s administrators played by Gwendoline Christie and Christina Ricci, who starred as Wednesday in the 1990s “Addams Family” movies.
Channel surfing
HBO will bring back “The White Lotus” – with a new cast, in a new location – for a third season. … Geoff Bennett and Amna Nawaz will anchor PBS’s “NewsHour” in 2023 after Judy Woodruff steps down from the role. … CBS will broadcast the “45th Annual Kennedy Center Honors,” featuring George Clooney, Amy Grant, Gladys Knight, Tania Leon and U2, at 8 p.m. Dec. 28. … MGM+ (AKA Epix) and Amazon Prime Video ordered multiple series based on Spider-Man characters beginning with “Silk: Spider Society. … Free, ad-supported streaming service Amazon Freevee will revive Australian soap “Neighbours.” … HLN of all places will air a 90-episode marathon of seasons one through four of “The West Wing” beginning on Thanksgiving day and continuing through Sunday.