CBS' "Criminal Minds" is a gory, creepy, serial-killer show. It's dissed by critics as a stapled-together knockoff of the network's many other crime dramas. Its mirth-free tone is epitomized by Jason Gideon, the grumpy, taciturn FBI profiler played by Mandy Patinkin. And it's up against the ultimate water-cooler show on Wednesday nights, ABC's mythologically complex "Lost."
Yup, conventional wisdom would dictate that "Criminal Minds," now in its second season, should be moldering on TV's rubbish heap.
So why is the series growing into a bona-fide hit that last week delivered its most-watched episode ever, with 16.8 million total viewers, just a shade behind the still-formidable "Lost" (17.1 million), according to Nielsen Media Research?
That's one of the top questions bedeviling TV veterans in the first weeks of this season, which has already proven a disorienting wasteland for network executives praying for a fresh batch of big hits. Viewers with near-infinite programming choices are supposed to be gravitating toward the creatively daring and the critically acclaimed, such as "Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip" or "The Nine."
Instead, the masses are screaming for ... "Criminal Minds"?
Well, yes. Since "Desperate Housewives" and "Lost" broke through two years ago, programmers, trainable creatures that they are, just figured the audience wanted more. So networks loaded up on serialized dramas that inspired -- and also required -- slavish devotion from fans. Forget to TiVo a couple episodes and you may be, well, lost.
This season brought fare such as ABC's "The Nine," which follows the interconnected lives of hostages who survived a bank robbery, and NBC's "Friday Night Lights," designed as a rural Southern answer to "The O.C." But neither series has clicked with viewers. Nor did other serialized shows such as NBC's "Kidnapped" or ABC's "Six Degrees."
"This was the year of serialized dramas trying to recapture lightning in a bottle the way that 'Desperate Housewives,' 'Lost,' '24' and 'Grey's Anatomy' did," said John Rash, director of broadcast negotiations for Minneapolis-based ad firm Campbell-Mithun. "But almost all of them were rejected by the audience."
The growth of "Criminal Minds" is maybe the most convincing proof that not everyone wants to be chained to a dense, character-packed drama that unspools like a Dickensian novel. And even those who do have their limits. There is a reason why formula sells, why genres become generic in the first place.
