With 14 seasons under its belt, “Criminal Minds” will say goodbye to its fans after having run for a total of 15 seasons. While there has not been a premiere date for the last season, it has been speculated that it would start running early in 2020, compared with its traditional run from fall to spring.
While the show experienced mixed reactions when it aired for the very first time back in 2005, it has made it through some ups and downs. Both on the production end and when it comes to the storyline itself.
After its first season, the Behavioral Analysis Unit (BAU), under the supervision of Jason Gideon (Ben Savage, “Girl Meets World”) lost its first agent. During the first season’s finale, Elle Greenaway (Lola Glaudini, “Ray Donovan”) suffered from extreme trauma after being shot by an unsub, or unknown subject. Then, Agent Greenaway took justice into her own hands and was forced to leave the bureau.
Other characters and actors to leave the show during the early seasons included senior supervisory special agent and former BAU unit chief Jason Gideon (Mandy Patinkin, “Homeland”). At the time, Patinkin justified his departure from the show as it related to the show “being way too real when it comes to the violence side of it.”
Although in the end, the show was not all violence. Throughout the show we have seen various romances between different characters. In the span of these 14 seasons, supervisory special agent Jennifer Jareau “JJ” (A. J. Cook, “Back Fork”) has married and had children with detective William LaMontagne (Josh Stewart, “The Punisher”), despite Jareau’s endless romance with colleague doctor Spencer Reid (Matthew Gray Gubler, “Zoe”), a relationship that we could see flourish during this upcoming 15th and last season of the show.
However, the television show created by writer Jeff Davis has endured 14 seasons with a total of 314 episodes, the show did have a spin-off titled “Criminal Minds: Beyond Borders,” although that only lasted a total of two seasons, with the episodes adding up to 26. Each episode took place in a different country, with the International Response Team (IRT) led by Jack Garrett (Gary Sinise, “Beyond Glory”) aiming to ensure the safety of American citizens overseas. The aforementioned spin-off television series originated from the 19th episode of “Criminal Minds’” 10th season, which was titled “Beyond Borders.” In that episode, the BAU is called to Barbados to assist the IRT in saving an American family of four, therefore giving birth to this spin-off series.
Nonetheless, it is expected that some of the aforementioned characters and actors who have taken part in previous seasons of the show experience a return to the series in light of its last season ever. By doing this, Davis might add a little bit of spice or foreshadowing as to how the show might end, giving fans an idea as to what direction it might take before reaching its final destination, before catching the last un sub or before saving the last endangered U.S. citizen.
Overall, the past 14 seasons would earn five out of five, as they have never failed fans with their intriguing mid-season episodes and season finales, always adding a slight ray of foreshadowing as to how the season might continue after winter break or how the next season would kick off.
Image from Criminal Minds via YouTube
