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Worst TV Show of the Week Brought to you by the Parents Television Council	Share |
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Worst TV Show of the Week

Criminal Minds on CBS

In 1994, Oliver Stone’s controversial, blood-soaked thriller, Natural Born Killers  hit theaters amid public outcry for its graphic violence, sexual sadism, and hypocritical critique of the media’s obsession with violence and celebrity. Entertainment Weekly ranked the film at #8 on its list of “The 25 Most Controversial Movies Ever,” due largely to several copycat killings it allegedly inspired.

On January 26^th at 9:00 p.m. ET, CBS aired a particularly brutal episode of Criminal Minds inspired by the aforementioned film. As television programs go, it packed every bit as much sex and violence as its big screen counterpart. But the ultra-violent episode aired without even a whisper of controversy. (Who says media doesn’t have a desensitizing effect?) This episode rightfully earns Criminal Minds the title of Worst TV Show of the Week for extreme violence and disturbing sexual content.

The show opened with a young couple at a convenience store, casually wandering the aisles, talking about their impending nuptials. When the store owner tells the boyfriend that marriage is overrated, a blood-bath ensues. The couple, Sydney and Ray, kills everyone in the store. On their wedding night, they indulge in another killing spree at a second store, mowing down their victims with a shotgun, then torching the building. A medical examiner later explains that one victim was beaten with a crowbar as a flashback of the attack is shown, and another victim was sodomized with a tire iron. The carnage continues at – of all places – an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting. While Ray tells the group about how his father molested him, outside, Sydney propositions a stranger to have sex with her. As the stranger presses her against a wall, she pulls out a gun. Ray loses control during the meeting and shoots everyone inside. He finishes off the stranger as he and Sydney flee.

The investigative team maps Ray and Sydney’s pathologies, and surmise that the couple will go after their childhood abusers – their fathers – in a twisted bastardization of the 12-step program. Sydney and Ray decide to ratchet up their “recovery” by combining the seventh, eighth and ninth steps: acknowledge your shortcomings, accept responsibility, and make amends. But rather than perform the steps themselves, they force their fathers to…at gunpoint. Ray’s father denies he had molested him, and Sydney shoots him before Ray finds closure. To quell Ray’s anger, Sydney manipulates him sexually, begging him to beat her. Eventually, the couple makes their way to the gas station that Sydney’s father owns. Ray brutally beats him as the man’s young daughter watches in horror. Ray forces him to the back room, where a gunshot is heard. The investigative team arrives just as Ray and Sydney attempt to flee with the little girl. Sydney is shot in the arm. A tense hostage situation ensues, ending with Ray strangling Sydney and eventually dying in a hail of bullets.

Perhaps this televised orgy of violence would have ruffled feathers 17 years ago when Natural Born Killers was released; but after more than a decade of forensic crime procedurals filled with countless cadavers and sadistic serial killers, the average viewer simply has gotten used to it. Sadly, we have become inured to murder and mayhem, in a downward cultural slide that feels so gradual it almost seems, well, natural.