Criminal Minds

Something has gone horribly wrong with this show. Mandy Patinkin is gone this season, and that presents problems, but that's not the big deal. It's details, friends. Details. This show's integrity rests on the details. It's about a group of FBI agents that are major crimes/serial killer profilers. They do their work by anticipating and noticing the little things.

Here are two incidents from recent weeks which indict, I would guess, writing and post-production respectively.

1) An exchange between a parent and a child who is writing at the kitchen table:
PARENT: What are you working on?
CHILD: Multiplication.
PARENT (Startled and impressed): Multiplication!?!
CHILD: Yeah; it's for extra credit. The rest of the class is still on long division.

Think about it, chums. You can't do long division without multiplication. Am I wrong? If so, correct me, elementary teachers of the world.

2) A woman is having a conversation on a land-line telephone. She is speaking to a friend when she hears a busy signal. We learn later in that show that the conversation was interrupted because the line was cut. Apparently, a phone connected to nothing magically generates a busy signal. I understand that if you just have a line go dead, it doesn't tell the story. It just sounds like the other party stops talking. But I'm not sure that the fix to the problem is to use a factually inaccurate stand-in for silence.

This used to be a smart show, but it has rapidly moved off of my must-see list. Smart shows? Friday Night Lights and Numbers.