Criminal Minds: Beyond Borders (TV Series) Obey (2017) User Reviews

A patronising show

[prickly101 · 5/10 · 30 October 2019]

I agree with some of the reviews that I've read, that the very premise of this show is offensively patronising. It seems to imply that law enforcement agencies around the world are hopelessly incompetent, until the Great All-Seeing, All-Knowing FBI fly over to save the day!

Do people realise how offensive such arrogance is? Applied to countries that have 'people-of-colour' it seems racist; applied to other countries, it seems hubristic. Please STOP, people - many of you came from us - *including those of us in racially-diverse (African, Asian and European) nations*. And we don't think that anything makes you superior. Because it *so* doesn't. We can be equal brethren but never your serfs. Get over yourselves - your current President is an effing disgrace who tells the world all we need to know about your FBI intellect. We *do* know it: we just don't worship it (neither does he, when the FBI do not sing from his polluted, insane hymn sheet). This show was vainglorious, and though I liked many of the stars, it needed to eff-off, with humility.

This episode (like most episodes of this show) was sorta, kinda vaguely entertaining, but... offensive!

Worst episode ever!

[deryckdavidson-733-727878 · 1/10 · 11 May 2017]

The story, direction and mise-en-scène may have been good but thanks to the worst Jamaican accents that I have ever heard I could not focus on anything else. How could the producers not find any acceptable Jamaican actors, or at least hire a Jamaican writer to write and instruct on the appropriate use of the local dialogue. Aside from the fact that this show seems to imply that police officers around the world are incompetent and naturally accept the authority and superiority of anyone from the US, how and why are the team members allowed to openly carry weapons in other countries. I wanted to like this show because of the actors but this episode was horrible.

'Criminal Minds' goes to Jamaica

[TheLittleSongbird · 1/10 · 29 March 2021]

Season 2 was an improvement over the first on the most part. It did repeat a lot of the same mistakes that all the episodes in the first season did but there were aspects that did improve. That is not to say though that it was a good season, to me it wasn't particularly and even the best episodes, while certainly better than the least bad episodes of Season 1, were very flawed and the flaws sadly were quite big and very difficult to overlook. One does naturally hope that 'Beyond Borders' would have moved on from the incredibly poor quality of the first season.

One where none of the episodes rose above weak. Not so with "Obey", which sees 'Beyond Borders' go right back to "offensively bad"-land. If there was a contender for the worst episode of Season 2, "Obey" would be a more than worthy contender. It has everything that made the worst episodes of Season 1 as poor as it was and can totally see why others have found it insulting. Of the previous Season 2 episodes, "Cinderella and the Dragon" also insulted, but it least had a redeeming quality. Whereas here it is very difficult to find anything that is remotely okay, it didn't have the virtue that that episode had of starting off promising, this episode began bad and got worse each minute.

Can completely understand the criticism here regarding "Obey's" portrayal of Jamaica, its culture and its people. Calling it inaccurate is being too kind, count me in as another person to find it very insensitive and quite patronising. A common problem with 'Beyond Borders' but this is being towards being one of the worst episodes in this regard. None of the characters feel real and come over as insensitive caricatures.

It doesn't even look good, the episode that is. There is never a sense of being there and none of it feels authentic, any stock footage being typically awkwardly inserted. "Obey" does not look good on a visual level. He way it's shot and edited is incredibly choppy, with it being incredibly obvious when stock footage is used, and completely lacks atmosphere or a sense of mood, either being overly-bright or drab. The music is also annoying, it is too loud and too constant with not a sign of a break and with the subtlety of a sledgehammer, it also does not fit at all (a lot of it is misplaced actually) as well as cheap and out of date.

Even worse is the writing. Writing that condescends to the viewer and filled to the brim with cheese, convolution and awkwardness. The story on top of not being particularly original is both dull and convoluted, with it down to being quite thin and then never really properly explaining. It never rings true, both the case and the team's involvement. Complete lack of tension or suspense in action-oriented parts. There is no chemistry at all within the team with no great little character moments (one of 'Criminal Minds' greatest strengths), and the mystery elements (that 'Criminal Minds' did with profiling and psychologically delving into the unsub's mind, excelling so brilliantly at it as well) are severely under-utilised and underdeveloped to the point of non-existence.

None of the characters are interesting or compelling, and have absolutely nothing worth relating to or liking. Have also had enough with the law enforcement being portrayed as excessively incompetent. With the unsub, it is very familiar territory with nothing new and the unsub is also very vanilla, with none of the menace, feel-bad-for factor or development. None of the acting is great, do like Gary Sinise in other things but he rarely looked as though he was trying that much in this show.

All in all, awful. 1/10 (the first given out in a while)

Somewhat Racist and Negative

[Johnny_West · 3/10 · 18 May 2017]

Last season, it seemed like this show was going to take a positive approach to the FBI engaging with law enforcement in foreign nations. Some episodes have been good, but a lot of them have taken a backwards attitude.

Gary Sinise, as the team leader has a very condescending attitude in general. He is not a nice person. His interaction with most people is very arrogant. I have gradually stopped liking this show because of him, and because of the so-called doctor who seems to be around to interject her liberal propaganda regarding law enforcement, crime, punishment, etc.

This episode was particularly hostile to Jamaica. The Police Chief basically told the FBI that all his employees were used to corruption, and to being culturally prejudiced against Jamaicans from certain areas. Even if that were true, I cannot imagine any Police Chief admitting it to strangers. I found that whole concept offensive to my intelligence. It was very stereotypical of a whole nation of police officers.

The rest of the story is OK, but nothing special. Crime of the week fare, with a lot of borderline racism interjected. The Rastafarian character was portrayed as total loser who watched a security guard get murdered without any care in the world. The security guard was portrayed as a goofball playing games on his cell phone. It seemed like not a single Jamaican was spared. Even the Chief, by being submissive to the FBI, was not cast in a positive light.

This whole story, and the way the Jamaicans were portrayed, should have been 100% better. Jamaicans are good people.