Facts About Criminal Minds TV Series and Is the Show Based on a True Story

As we await the release of the final season of the crime drama TV series Criminal Minds, we would use this opportunity to dissect some interesting facts about the highly rated American TV show. Among the bothering questions that will be answered on this article is the question that have bothered the minds of the fans of the TV show, is Criminal Minds based on a true story?

About Criminal Minds

Criminal Minds was created by Jeff Davis. The TV show is of police procedural, crime drama, thriller, mystery and science fiction genres.

The show starred actors and actresses such as Mandy Patinkin, Lola Glaudini, Thomas Gibson, Shemar Moore, A.J. Cook, Matthew Gray Gubler, Kirsten Vangsness, Joe Mantega, Paget Brewster and many others. The show’s executive producers are Mark Gordon, Jeff Davis, Deborah Spera, Edward Allen Bernero, Simon Mirren, Chris Mundy, Erica Messer, Breen Frazier, Janine Sherman Barrios, Glenn Kershaw and Harry Bring. So far, 14 seasons of the show has aired, with a total of 314 episodes.

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The Mark Gordon Company, Entertainment One and Touchstone Television were the production companies of Criminal Minds for its first two seasons. ABC Studios joined in production of the show in its third season and have continued to be involved in the show till date. Paramount Network Television, CBS Television Studios and CBS Paramount Network Television has stock with the TV show from when it started till present.

The show’s distributors are CBS Television and Disney – ABC Domestic TV Worldwide. The former distributes the show in the United States while the Latter distributes the show worldwide.

The TV show centers around a team of FBI's Behavioral Analysis Unit Operating in Quantico, Virginia. What differentiates this show from other procedural crime drama is that it focuses on profiling its criminals rather than the crimes committed.

Is Criminal Minds Based on a True Story?

There have been reasons to believe that the crime drama TV show might just be based on a true life story. Anyway, producers of the show have come out to state that the show is not based on a true life story but rather, it gets some of its inspiration from real life criminals and criminal cases. The main characters on the show are all fictional and not linked to anyone in real life. Even though some episodes of the show might have been adopted from similar criminal cases in real life, characters names were changed to protect their real identities.

The first known episode which was inspired by a real life criminal was “Natural Born Killers”, the 8th episode of the show. The Criminal on this episode carried out crimes which were similar to the crimes carried out by Richard Kuklinski.

Next was on the show’s 11th episode titled “Blood Hungry”. On the episode, similar crimes Richard Trenton Chase committed were revealed and the criminal also suffered from paranoid schizophrenia just as Richard did.

On the 14th episode of the show titled “Riding the Lightning”, similar crimes committed by Fred and Rosemary West, the killer couple, were revealed. The couple would kill their victims and bury them around their home.

Other cases on the show where real life cases and criminals were portrayed and revealed are in the episodes “Unfinished Business” ( season 1 episode 15), “The Tribe” (season 1 episode 16), “Damaged” (season 3 episode 14), “Omnivore” (season 4 episode 18), “The Big Wheel” (season 4 episode 22), “To Hell…“ (season 4 episode 25), “Our Darkest Hour” (season 5 episode 23) and (The Thirteenth Hour” (season 6 episode 13).

Facts About the Crime Drama TV Show

• The first episode of the show aired on September 22, 2015, titled “Extreme Aggressor”.
• The last episode of the just concluded season 14 aired on February 6, 2019, titled “Truth or Dare”.
• The upcoming 15th season of the show is going to be the last season of Criminal Minds.
• The 15th season was supposed to premiere on July 16, 2019 but was shifted to 2020 with no exact date fixed yet.
• The 15th season will comprise of 10 episodes, bringing the total number of episodes to 324.
• The show’s 4th season has the highest number of episodes (26).
• Its upcoming 15th season would have the lowest number of episodes (10).