User Reviews

If Reid is featured, I'm probably going to like an episode more. In this episode, I love how Reid switches into serious mode, almost vindictive, and then almost immediately he turns gentle and nurturing.

A lot of the episode is spent wheel-spinning as the team searches for the key clue. But then we spend some time with the victims. The suspense there is almost agonizing if it weren't for the fact that looking at the time left, you have some idea of how things will go at least until something bigger happens. And then it does. Once this episode starts rolling, things progress quickly.

Such a great episode! On a base level, there is something *so* disturbing about live human dolls that no matter how many variations of it have been already done, it never loses its creepiness. Combine it with good acting from the actresses of both the unsub and the dolls - harder than it at first thought seems - and brutally effective, if rather unimaginative direction combined with a disturbing score, and you have a winner. The surprise reveal in the plot works also well, even if it is of the "of course that happened to her when she was a child" type staple.

Unfortunately, this episode also shows exactly how inconsistent Criminal Minds is even on its *fifth* season. In the 1990s inconsistency was more of a rule than the exception to it, The X Files (No. Hyphen.) being the worst offender despite pioneers such as Babylon 5 airing simultaneously and showing how a series *should* be done. Almost two decades later, the show-runners of Criminal Minds seem half-stuck in the Reset Button era of TV when most shows, regardless of genre, have matured to ongoing *character* development, whether there is a Mytharc plot (the new BSG, Lost, Supernatural) or not (The Closer, House M.D., The Office, The Wire).

The Plot outline says, "Hotch struggles with his return to work." On Criminal Minds this manifests as Hotch not himself solving anything, just asking questions and giving orders. Yeah, that's a really dramatic struggle alright. Were Criminal Minds *truly* a Reset Button show, each episode could be rated as a completely separate subject, but since they *have* established continuity, the barely-there aftermath of Haley's death on Hotch's life hangs like a loadstone on this series, constantly denying it at least one star. Twenty years ago, this would have been a 9/10, but in the 2010s it is "only" an 8/10 - still, a clear improvement over the previous episodes.

A magnificently creepy and well-written episode that keeps the horror coming. Samantha is a wonderfully complex and disturbed villain, while her father is deliciously evil. I loved it, but I wouldn't recommend it for anyone who gets nightmares easily or enjoys playing with dolls. The scene where one of the "dolls" imagines her limbs dropping is particularly haunting, as is the confrontation between Reid and Samantha's father. Five stars.

Reid shows such range in this episode. He does the usual providing facts with context he takes on other roles too. He confronts the father of the unsub and is gentle and compassionate to one of the most sympathetic unsubs.

The literal living dolls the unsub obtains makes for a creepy but entertaining episode. You can just imagine what is going through the minds of the women as they watch the woman who took them.

Hotch is easing back into the role of leader . He's initially quite involved but is unseen in the final third of the episode in fact only Reid and Rossi have much to do in the later part which I enjoyed.

The bookends of the episode have Reid returning to playing chess which he at had played with Gideon. He explains to a chess buddy how Gideon's departure affected him and his deeper understanding of the game.

The title of this 12th episode in the fifth season is used in reference to the phenomenon whereby a man-made object bears a near-identical resemblance to a human being, that it can arouses a sense of unease or revulsion in the person viewing it. The "valley" part, refers to the large dip in comfort levels. You see, a lot of these worrisome attitude, in the fields of robotics and 3D computer animations. Nonetheless, in this episode directed by Anna Foerster, much of the story takes place, with the unknown subject's unhealthy obsession of turning, beautiful women into living dolls & the FBI's Behavioral Analysis Unit, being called to Atlantic City to try to solve it. Without spoiling the episode, too much, I have to say, 'Uncanny Valley" is a bit silly with its doll-collector concept. It's even funnier, that everybody, is so unaware that they're obviously dealing with somebody who has a thing for dolls. I really don't get the idiotic. Actually, I'm not sure why the FBI was needed on this one at all. Honestly, this case, could been solved just as easily using conventional police methods, if the local police put their brains, together. Anyways, it finally takes up nineteen minutes in, before a profile can be make, although it's kind of nonsensical, with its 1950's style of generalizing from the BAU. It was a bit over-stereotypical and outdated. After all, there are a lot of men who collect dolls and could be in the fashion & health care industry, these days. I guess, in their minds, men don't generally don't play with dolls, and if the victims aren't molested in any way. It must mean that the unknown subject or unsub is a woman, not a man. I found this type of thinking to be, a bit obsoleted. After all, the records, show that majority of kidnapping crimes, is committed by men rather than women. So, I don't get, how they first idea is that, of a woman. I get that, they wanted to do, something different, but the outrageous idea that women don't molest people is wrong. Women molest victims, too! I guess, they never heard of Melissa Huckaby, a real-life female kidnapper known for her crimes of molesting female children with muscle relaxants. However, since this episode was written by straight men like Jeff Davis, it was pretty predictable, who the unknown subject was, even before the first act. I also didn't like how the evidences was presented. The science in this show failed miserably, yet again with the idea of that a muscle relaxant can numb your own body, but your eyes. In truth, it would really be hard to keep a patient alive with the muscle relaxant, they use here, because the patient's diaphragm would be paralyzed too. Without, the use of an intubated respiratory ventilator, the patient's lung would collapse, turning the person's skin yellow, and then black, before dying out. It's not a good way to preserve people. I find this whole storyline to be just utterly fantastical and ludicrous. Don't get me wrong, it was very entertaining. I like the 1990 Misery style of suspense here, but it's far from being creepy like some of the other episodes. I get a lot more fright, looking at Little Miss No Name, than the living dolls, here. Still the make-up work is some of the best, I saw, yet from this series. One of the highlights of the episode was the battle of wits, between Dr. Arthur Malcolm (Jonathan Frakes) & Dr. Spencer Reid (Matthew Gray Gubler). While, the scene wasn't really needed, it was very evenly match. It's too bad, that Jonathan Frakes's role in this episode was short. I thought, his guest star role needed a few more scenes. The only thing, I didn't like, about this scene, was how Spencer Reid can get so much, out of Dr. Malcolm, by just making a lucky guess, at looking at his book shelf. It was a bit, too unrealistic. Yet on Criminal Minds, things like these, always recurred. I'm deeply surprised, how its loyal fan-base, hasn't yet, got tired of its recycle formula of the FBI solving the crime, while the local police force looks like morons. I guess, people like the team of characters, way too much, with their funny witting bantering and on-screen chemistry to the point, that they're willing to overlook the poorly scripted concept of a killer turning living people into dolls. I have to somewhat, agree with that. While, this episode can be, said to be Spencer Reid's episode, since he did, the majority of the work. Seeing characters like Aaron Hotcher (Thomas Gibson) back as the leader was great to watch. Overall: I thought it was a solid episode, with a few misses. I loved the whole off-the-wall idea of it, but the execution of it, wasn't well-delivered. It's one of the episodes, you can rewatch, in the background, without being too disturb, by its context. A chaser drink of an episode.

So if you give a paralytic, it stops your diaphragm from working. So they can't breathe. They'd all be dead quickly. At least try to get it right 🙄