Criminal Minds: Beyond Borders

Did You Know?

• A backdoor pilot for the series aired as a Criminal Minds episode titled 'Beyond Borders' on April 8, 2015.
• The series originally intended to premiere on March 2, 2016, but was pushed back to March 16, 2016.
• In Australia, the series premiered on the Seven Network in April 2016.

Characters

Jack Garrett (Gary Sinise) is a Senior Supervisory Special Agent and International Unit Chief with 20 years of FBI experience. He is married to Karen (Sherry Stringfield) and they have six children, including son Ryan and daughter Josie. Clara Seger (Alana de la Garza) is a Senior Supervisory Special Agent, Linguistics Specialist, and Cultural Anthropologist. She took a sabbatical from the FBI in 2013 after her husband Brad, a fellow agent, died, and traveled globally before rejoining the IRT in October 2015. Matthew Simmons (Daniel Henney) is a Supervisory Special Agent and Special Operations Agent, married to Kristy (Kelly Frye) with four children under age three, including sons Jake and David and twin daughters. His prior Special Ops experience sharpened his profiling skills. Russ Montgomery (Tyler James Williams) is a Supervisory Special Agent and Technical Analyst who maintains a positive attitude and liaises with victims' families in the U.S. while the team is abroad. Mae Jarvis (Annie Funke) is a Supervisory Special Agent and Medical Examiner, initially an FBI medical examiner before joining the IRT to bypass international bureaucracy; by season one she became a fully qualified field agent. Karen Garrett is Jack's wife and mother of their six children. Josie Garrett (Brittany Uomoleale) is their middle daughter. Kristy Simmons is Matthew's wife and mother of their four children.

Reception

The first season received generally unfavorable reviews. Rotten Tomatoes gave it a 20% approval rating with an average score of 3.5/10 based on 15 reviews, the critical consensus calling it reliant on familiar franchise elements with an undertow of xenophobic paranoia. Metacritic assigned a score of 28 out of 100 from 11 critics, indicating generally unfavorable reviews. Critics and viewers criticized the series for inaccurate depictions of countries. The A.V. Club labeled it bland and xenophobic, while Slate and USA Today described it as jingoistic, particularly in the context of Donald Trump's 2016 presidential campaign rhetoric. After the episode "Cinderella and the Dragon" set in Singapore, the network faced backlash from locals over misleading representations, with blogger mrbrown and the Singapore Tourism Board posting satirical responses.