It started with Kentucky Fried Movie, which was a somewhat modest box office success mainly because of the genius of Joe Landis as director, but this game really took off three years later with the box office hit Airplane. It was a spoof of all of those Airport films we saw during the 1970’s and 80’s. They all had the same formula and were almost spoofs of themselves by the time the string ran out. The film pulled in an impressive $85 million on a measly $3 million budget. The team of Jim Abrahams along with brothers David and Jerry Zucker was born, and comedy would never quite be the same. The comedic form they developed relied on a lot of deadpan delivery of one-liners and some rather stilted wit. But it was something different, and it wasn’t really a surprise that the team would want to keep it going. A second Airplane film wouldn’t come along for a couple of years, and it would be guided by a completely new team. This trio was on to bigger and arguably better things. The first step was to land on the television screen with a police comedy called Police Squad. It was hoped the show would help capitalize on the same kind of comedy that took Airplane to the stratosphere. They would also maintain the film’s star, Leslie Nielsen. It should have been a no-brainer and an instant hit. It lasted six episodes and was gone in a hot flash. But that wasn’t quite the end of the story.

Here comes the ultimate comedy about a codependent relationship; however, though that may not sound that good, in this film it is very entertaining thanks on no small part to Tiffany Haddish and Rosa Byrne. Haddish and Byrne play Mia and Mel respectively, two independent women with their own cosmetics storefront. Though their line is very popular, their revenue does not reflect their popularity due to an inability to mass produce, causing them to fall into deep debt and in danger of losing their store. Then along comes a spider in the form of Salma Hayek’s Claire Luna, the head of a internationally successful cosmetics conglomerate that offers to invest into their company. Haddish and Byrne are both well established in the comedy genre, but the combination of the two made for one the best comedy experience that I’ve had this year. My wife kept telling me that I would enjoy the film (this was one of the rare occasion where she went to a movie unaccompanied by me), but given our different taste cinema-wise, I was expecting a film full of cliché, especially given that it seem like the entire film was given away in the previews. Well, honey, let me say for the record that you were right.

There comes a time in any project where one must decide exactly what their mission is. In entertainment, that’s usually a pretty easy question to answer. Of course your goal is to entertain as many people as possible so that it can be profitable and enduring. For many years there have been filmmakers and television series show runners who have let that goal get out of hand, mostly in the political arena. I don’t have any issue when a show’s editorial policy happens to come down on one side or the other. It doesn’t even matter if it’s my side or not. But two things I don’t want in my entertainment. I don’t want to be hit over the head every five minutes. Trust me to get your point. The second is that there must still be entertainment value that compels me to care about a show and its characters and their stories. Madam Secretary fails in both of these tests. The West Wing was just as political, but there was a demanding quality to everything from the performances to the stories and production value. As a government teacher, I was impressed at how many of those little-known facts about our system they got right. I used moments of the show as teaching moments. This last season of Madam Secretary would be a disaster in any classroom.

To the point, Criminal Minds is very compelling television. Ever since The Silence of the Lambs and perhaps long before, we have been fascinated by serial killers and the profilers who try to get inside their heads. To see evidence of the continuing trend, one needs only look toward the success of shows like Dexter. Of course, serial killers are not the only prey this FBI team pursues, but they are certainly the marquee item on the agenda. To be sure, there are equally disturbing subjects such as arsonists, bombers, kidnappers, and rapists to give the show a touch of variety, but let’s face it, it’s the killers that keep us tuned so attentively to Criminal Minds. But now after 15 seasons the series has come to an end, and we realize it wasn’t just the murderers we’ve been tuning in to see. The characters have become like a little family, and their stories were just as compelling over the years. Now Criminal Minds finishes with a brief 10-episode final run, and it’s out on DVD from CBS Home Entertainment.