idiotwaltz

I wish! I live in a country where the prices of English-language DVDs are jacked up immensely to milk as much money off rich expats as possible, so I'll have to wait for a summer or Christmas sale :( One of my biggest regrets is that my Season 3 DVDs have no subtitles and are missing some extras, but I got them for super cheap. They're legal though, I swear! Hair is extremely important. Also, outfits. That's another reason why I am of the view that the show started slipping downhill in S5, once they gave JJ that ugly shirt with the fish on them or something, and let's not talk about Emily's weird top with the elbow patches in Self-Fulfilling Prophecy. I didn't used to ship Prentiss/Rossi, until I found the smutty fanfics. Then I became ALL ABOUT THAT SHIP. Do a rewatch of the following: Demonology, Damaged ("Why do you care?" "Because you do."), the Angel Maker, the briefing scene in Lucky where Rossi gives her this appraising look ("Rossi's the one who debunked them." "Oh yeah."), Amplification ("Don't Emily me"), True Night ("Life is a hell of a thing to happen to a person.") ... forget it, just rewatch the whole goddamn show with Rossi/Prentiss goggles. It's a trip. Yes, I absolutely adored Elle and was wary of Prentiss at first when I found out Elle had been replaced. Derailed is possibly one of my favouritest episode ever, with the Elle/Reid scene at the end and the scene where they're all squashed together in a car, like a family going on a morbid road trip. I also liked Morgan/Elle on vacation in the season finale. The cases themselves has an eerier quality to them and are much more low-key and plausible (In Plain Sight seems like something that could totally happen irl and probably has). S1 and S2 are almost a completely different show from the later seasons. I recently rewatched the early episodes of S2 such as The Last Word, North Mammon, The Perfect Storm, and Empty Planet and was surprised by how well they hold up after all these years. Whereas I cannot sit through a second viewing of any episodes from S8 or S9. Ugh, I hated his Season 5 hair, it gave me early 90's flashbacks. Pretty sure it was the same hair the boy had in My Girl 2. Season 5 doesn't have any episodes that stand out, case-wise. I like Haunted and A Thousand Words, but the rest are meh. As for Season 7, my personal favourites are Unknown Subject, Foundation, Profiling 101 and True Genius. I don't particularly like It Takes a Village, but I watch it often for the resurrection of Emily Prentiss and her ugly yellow blouse thing. Worst episodes: A Family Affair, Dorado Falls, that one about with the bodies in the lifeguard towers and somebody gets crushed by a compactor, and Painless.

Um ... probably not? I was a sporadic lurker at TWOP but didn't post much. Here are my rankings, from most to least favourite: 1. Season 4 2. Season 1 3. Season 3 4. Season 2 5. Season 5 6. Season 7 7. Season 6 8. Season 8 9. Season 9 If ties were allowed, Seasons 1 and 4 would be tied. In terms of profiling and suspense, Season 1 wins hands down, but it doesn't have Emily. As I have stated earlier, I am an incredible shallow person, PLUS I ship Prentiss/Rossi, so Season 4 wins by a very narrow margin. Like you, there are only a few S4 episodes I never rewatch (off the top of my head: Brothers in Arms, Roadkill). The fallacy here is that I don't actually own S1 on DVD and I don't live in North America anymore, where there are endless reruns, so I don't actually rewatch S1 at all. But have seen it in its entirety several times and aside from What Fresh Hell and maaaaaaybe Somebody's Watching, all of the other episodes are rewatchable to me. Season 5 may have AMAZING Emily hair, but even the shallow can't make up for episodes like The Fight and The Eyes Have It. Outfoxed annoyed me to no end since it basically retconned The Fox, which was one of the first episodes of CM I ever watched and grabbed me right away. I don't recall a single episode or title from Seasons 8 or 9, but 9 is the bottom of the barrel to me thanks to the awfulness that is 200. Not even PB's guest appearance could override the lunacy that is Ninja!JJ Hunts Bin Laden. Re Cold Comfort - I like it, but I don't love it. Whenever I have the DVD menu on, I always select Zoe's Reprise first, Bloodline second, Cold Comfort third, and Pleasure is My Business fourth. I like Pleasure is My Business as a case and I find the UNSUB to be sympathetic, but I like my serial killers gory and gross, so Cold Comfort almost always wins out. Lucky might be my all-time favourite episode of the series, objectively speaking, but Demonology might be my most-watched episode out of sheer shippiness.

I've read a fanfic where JJ is a sociopath, which accounts for all the coldness and compartmentalization. The fic was written pre-baby (circa Revelations) so given the limited canon at the time the story was written, it's pretty plausible. I liked JJ a lot better before she had Henry and suddenly every single case was about TAKING! IT! PERSONALLY! I'M A MOTHER! DON'T YOU GET IT?!?! My own crackpot theroy re JJ, especially regarding her comment about being scared of the woods, is that she actually comes from a family of demon hunters a la Supernatural and she had an encounter with a wendigo in the woods behind her house once when she was a child. It always explains why she's such a great shot (see: Revelations and Penelope) and why gory stuff doesn't spook her at all. *proudly wears tinhat* .

I just rewatched Birthright and one of my favourite things about that episode are the strong, badass female characters. Mary Wilkinson, Karen Foley, and even the daughter-in-law who ended up shooting the Serial Killer Son. Amazing performances all round. Definitely underrated. It seems like Season 3 doesn't get enough love! Overrated episodes .... *small voice* 100. Mosely Lane. (It was well-shot, but the crime made so little sense ...) The whole Doyle arc, basically, including Lauren.

My wishes are quite simple: 1. Please have more Asian-Americans on this show! If not a lead, then at least some recurring characters would be nice. We have Dr. Kimura and Detective Kim of the LAPD, and the boy Reid plays chess with in the park, but other than that, I can't recall any Asian-Americans on the show, even as victims. 2. Please can somebody on this show have a daughter? Hotch, JJ, Blake, and Rossi are all parents of sons and all the babies born on this show (e.g.the ones in Cradle to Grave and A Thousand Words) are boys. This show is a complete reverse of Gilmore Girls, where nobody has a son. Huh.

I really like Normal and think Mitch Pileggi did an excellent job. I also think Tabula Rasa deserves more love, as does The Instincts. Other contenders: Empty Planet, Birthright, and Ashes to Dust. As for very best episodes ... this one is a toughie. I want to say Minimal Loss, but I don't know if it's my inner Prentiss fangirl speaking. My favourite episodes, well, I'm an incredibly shallow person so they're pretty much all the Emily-centric ones.

What Fresh Hell Charm and Harm Natural Born Killer I like Blood Hungry because they kept to the details of the crime on which murders were based, down to the yogurt containers and the rings of blood. Creepy.

I'm as gay as the day is long, but something about Rossi makes my knees weak. I know a number of gay CM fangirls who feel the same way and once suggested a "lesbians straight for Joe Mantegna" club. This accurately sums up my feelings towards 100. I liked Omnivore, but I thought the whole Foyet arc in Season 5 was too over-the-top. Perhaps not as over the top as the Doyle arc or Ninja!JJ Looks for Bin Laden, but still too far-fetched for my tastes.

Speaking of child actors, I liked the kids in Into the Woods. The boy who played Robert is wonderful. I also liked the little girl in Bloodlines, doing the cognitive interview with Prentiss. The little girl in Gabby is adorable and a good little actress for her age. I really wonder why they couldn't have found a better actress to play Ellie. It's really hit or miss for this show: Stanley, the blind kid in The Big Wheel, is amazing, as is Sammy in Coda, but then we have the little psychopath in Safe Haven who chewed up the scenery and the kids in Mosley Lane. And Jack Hotchner. The kid is cute, and I appreciate the continuity, but he could use an acting lesson or two.

Backtracking a little, but one more for the Reid/Elle love. Also, let's not forget Morgan/Elle. I actually started watching CM at the beginning and stopped halfway through season 1 because of RL things going on, and I was surprised when I stumbled on an episode of Season 2 during its initial run and found out Elle was gone and Prentiss was in her place. I stopped watching again, binged on the DVD sets over Christmas while Season 4 was showing, fell hard in love with Prentiss and Rossi, but I digress. Anyway, I adored the dynamics of the original BAU team, even with Gideon the drama queen. In a way they felt more like a family to me than the latest team does, despite all of the writers' efforts to cram that notion down our throats. I remember the scene in Derailed where Elle is on the train and they're driving to the scene --- Hotch and Gideon in the front seat (I forgot which one was driving), Reid, JJ, and Morgan at the back, squashed together in that car like a family going on a morbid road trip. I flove this scene. The Chinese food scene in A Real Rain is also lovely. I know nobody really likes Seaver (myself included), but I did like her relationship with Rossi and how paternal he was towards her. Whenever I rewatch Season 6 (which I don't do often, since it is my least favorite season), I get the fuzzy feelings whenever Rossi watches out for Seaver. It reminds me a little of JM with his on-screen daughter in Joan of Arcadia.

Where have you been my entire life? I can write a dissertation on Emily's hair. My personal ranking, from Best to Worst: 1. Season 5 (up to The Fight, when the bangs return) 2. Mid-season 3, from around Lucky to Limelight, when it was shoulder length and had a bit of curl to it 3. Season 7 4. That weird period in Season 3 when the hair people decided to give it a bit more curl than usual 5. End of Season 2, when it wasn't so flat and straight as when she first joined the team 6. Seasons 3 to 4, a.k.a. the First Bangs period 7. Mid-season 5 to end of season 5, a.k.a. the Second Bangs period 8. Season 6, a.k.a. the Third Bangs period I've left out the Lauren Reynolds hair because I don't know how I feel about it. I used to hate the bangs (it was so distressing when they reappeared in Season 5) but in retrospect, I don't mind them as much. Probably because I like Season 4 so much? I do hate whatever Paget did to her hair in Season 6. She's a gorgeous woman but that look did not do her any favors. Your thoughts?