Criminal Minds is very similar to CSI but it is a bit more interesting and it really makes you wonder about what some criminals think and how they act. Criminal Minds is also very exciting and suspenseful! It has great acting, well developed characters and a great storyline. The best part about Criminal Minds is when they put the profiles of the criminals together. One of the main characters will begin to give a speech on how the "unsub" (unknown subject)thinks and how he or she usually acts. They can tell if the unsub is social or not, what kind of job they have, why they commit the crime, and many other things. It is a very original show and is extremely exciting and suspenseful. If you want a new show to start watching and you like these kind of shows, you will love criminal minds.

His two partners Agent Aaron Hotch (Thomas Gibson), Special Agent Derek Morgan (Shemar Moore) are the standard "by the book" geeks, who sometimes miss the obvious points in an investigation thus their recruitment to get back Gideon into the FBI/Priofiling field. I did like the character of Elle Greenway (Lola Glaudini), she's tough and speaks her mind.She and Derek have this gender battle going which is funny. In the pilot, they are tracking killer who likes to keep his victims alive for seven days before killing them, thus exploiting them. The killer is pretty clever, and eventually the team realizes that their profile (like most agents will tell ya) are wrong, and thus they start back to the drawing board.They hit pay dirt with by tracking some geek who doesn't appear to be a killer but upon further inspection (he has clippings of Gideon's past work as an agent and rubs it in), and thus the case is broken wide open. However it's not over, Gideon doesn't think by the profile that this kid is as crazy as he seems and his right, he eventually comes up with a theory that they are two killers.The next couple of scenes are well executed, yet very familiar. They play the good cop/bad cop routine, and use the familiar, "your partner squealed on you bit" to bluff one idiot to reveal the whereabouts of the other. Yes I know it's standard stuff but actually this is still part of the strategy of most profilers.

I have seen the first 2 episodes of this show so far, and i think its pretty good, and definitely take a different stance to the lab-based crime shows. However, I have also read all John Douglas's books, and to me, they seem to be actually quoting his writing a lot of the time! The lead character seems to be based on him, but John Douglas isn't mentioned in the credits (if I am wrong here, please correct me) From the shorts I have seen for episode 3 (with the 2 sisters), it looks like it is based on a true crime which John Douglas wrote about...and I wonder if the usual disclaimer will be there claiming that the characters are entirely fictional and not based on any real life people etc etc....