History YMMV / CriminalMinds

** BunnyEarsLawyer Detective [=McGee=] and ActionSurvivor Maggie from "Legacy" both have decent fanbases.
** BreakTheCutie kidnapping victims Brooke and Polly from "North Mammon" and Polly's concerned mother (who reaches out to the FBI) are considered compelling and underrated guest stars.

** Austin from 52 Pickup is liked by those who wish she'd been a recurring love interest for Reid. As well as the fact that she saved a potential victim from the [=UnSub=] based on the profile Reid gave her and her own observational skills (albeit at the cost of nearly becoming his new one).

** Many one-shot characters who show kindness and support to troubled and unhappy [=UnSub=]s (or their {{Morality Pet}}s) while also not trying to cover up or aid the killer's actions after coming to know or suspect what they are doing enjoy decent recognition and high esteem from fans for providing some good heartwarming moments in such a dark show. Such characters include Eileen from "Elephant's Memory," Bobby from "True Night," Julie from "Conflicted," and several of the eponymous bullying victims from "The Anti-Terrorism Squad."

** Austin from 52 Pickup is liked by those who wish she'd been a recurring love interest for Reid. As well as the fact that she saved a potential victim from the [=UnSub=] based on the profile Reid gave her and her own observational skills (albeit at the cost of becoming his new one).

* EvilIsSexy:
** Special mention goes to [[spoiler: Foyet]]. He was certainly not ugly, and after he revealed himself he became very suave and self-assured.
** On the female side of things, there's Megan Kane, Sydney Manning, and Cat Adams.

** "Minimal Loss": The FBI definitely did not screw up at Waco and those brainwashed cultists absolutely killed themselves, and the FBI [[ThinkOfTheChildren only wanted to help the children]].

* TheWoobie:
** Nathan Harris from ''Sex, Birth, Death'' turned out not to be the [=UnSub=], but he knew there was something mentally wrong with him (he was aroused by the idea of killing women, which terrified him) and got Gideon to do an analysis of his psyche. He later revealed to Reid he was feeling suicidal, and tried to kill himself in the coda before he was set to go to a mental hospital. Reid only just managed to save him.
** Samantha Malcolm, the [=UnSub=] from ''The Uncanny Valley''. Yes, she has kidnapped six women. Yes, she has killed three of them [[spoiler:accidentally]]. Yes, she paralyzes them. Yes, she needs a really '''big''' hug. You '''''will''''' [[TearJerker cry]] during her episode.
** And they've possibly out-{{Woobie}}d them all with Lara from "Heathridge Manor." Where to begin with her? Arm chopped off by her insane mother, forced to help her insane brother kill people, and at the end of episode it's revealed that [[spoiler:she herself has gone insane from all the trauma she's experienced... [[MaybeMagicMaybeMundane or perhaps her house is evil]]]].
** Bruce Morrison, from the Season 8 episode "All That Remains". [[spoiler:When your older daughter takes advantage of your potential mental disorder to frame you for DomesticAbuse, murders your wife, murders your younger daughter, and then further uses your mental state to frame you for both murders, all because [[ItsAllAboutMe she believed her younger sister was stealing attention from her]], you KNOW you're this.]]

* CompleteMonster: Enough of them for [[Monster/CriminalMinds their own page]], even!

* CriticalResearchFailure: More than a few.
** "Beyond Borders," the PoorlyDisguisedPilot for [[Series/CriminalMindsBeyondBorders a(nother) spinoff]], is set in Barbados. [[http://loopnewsbarbados.com/2015/04/09/criminal-minds-sets-episode-in-barbados/ Actual Barbadian viewers felt the only thing the show got right about the place was the flag.]] It didn't help that some StockFootage for an establishing shot of the island [[http://www.cairnspost.com.au/news/cairns/tv-show-criminal-minds-rips-off-footage-taken-at-port-douglas-for-barbados-episode/story-fnkxmkf4-1227303996714 actually showed Port Douglas]] - which is in '''Australia'''.
** "Machismo" fails Spanish naming customs hard, [[ConvictionByCounterfactualClue despite the (Mexican) victims' surnames being the BAU's key]] to learn the identity of the [=UnSub=].
** Although the show is set in Quantico, Virginia, the show seems to lack an ability to Google basic Virginia locations.
*** The episode "Birthright" takes place in Frederickburg, VA, which the show portrays as a rural, country area. Virginia viewers were quick to point out that Frederickburg is actually [[http://www.fredericksburgva.gov/ very urban and commercialized]].
*** The Season 7 episode "Dorado Falls" is perhaps the worst example of Virginia distances and locations. Garcia says that Charlottesville is "practically our backyard" in reference to Quantico, despite the two being about 80 miles apart. A similar distance issue comes up when the [=UnSub=] seemingly drives from Charlottesville to Bethesda to Quantico within half an hour -- despite the real-life drive being almost two hours.
** In Season 4's ''Amplification'', the [=UnSub=] is killing with a highly modified form of Anthrax. Among other errors, the most egregious of these is Morgan and Prentiss walking around the park where the bacterium was released without any protection, with the assurance that the hot zone was non-existent. Anthrax can survive for literally ''decades''. An entire island off the coast of England had to be quarantined from the 1940s to the 1980s after having Anthrax bombs tested on it during WWII, and was only declared decontaminated after having been sprayed with formaldehyde. Almost nobody wears a hazmat suit, and those that do don't keep the face masks on.

** "Machismo" could have been about a rough-looking female Mexican serial killer that gets away longer with her crimes in part because the police is occupied looking for a transvestite male and is not willing to admit -- because of their ''machismo'' -- that a woman is capable of such violence. In fact, this was ''exactly what happened'' in the real case that inspired the episode, the murders committed by Juana Barraza. Instead, we get an actual transvestite serial killer and the police failing to catch him simply because [[IdiotPlot they refuse to believe that serial killers can exist in Mexico]]. It seems neither Barraza nor [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_serial_killers_by_country#Mexico any of these others]] ever got caught in the ''Criminal Minds'' cinematic universe.

* AuthorsSavingThrow: In relation to the series' FranchiseOriginalSin, more recent episodes that have shown the [=UnSub=]'s face early have taken advantage of these aspects to create entirely original plots that make up for the early reveals. For example, in the Season 11 episode "Hostage", the [=UnSub=]'s face is revealed early because he's [[VillainBall actually captured early by the BAU]]. However, the rest of the episode is spent with the team having to break through the brainwashing said [=UnSub=] subjected a kidnapping victim to. In another example, it appears that the identity and motivations of the [=UnSub=] of Season 13's "Submerged" have been made crystal-clear when details of his killings and other relevant factors (such as a man arrested while searching for his missing adult son) are shown in the first two acts. However, in the third act, [[spoiler: viewers are dealt with a curve ball when it's revealed the [=UnSub=] is ''not'' the missing adult son like they were led to believe]].

* SugarWiki/HeReallyCanAct: All the time.

** Any character that points out all the weird ethical shit the BAU gets up to -- that several of them have been kidnapped or personally targeted by unsubs (several times for certain team members like Hotchner and Reid!), that several of them have a kill count that puts them ahead of most military servicemen -- let alone officers, that several members of the BAU have outright violated regulations in a variety of ways over time, will be treated as an antagonist. This is in fact how Strauss began before her HeelFaceTurn, she's presented solely as obsessed with her own career, when many of ther criticism of the BAU is legitimate.

** Reid's decision to [[spoiler:not report Lindsay's father for shooting the last teen that kidnapped her and murdered her best friend]] in "3rd Life" has ramifications down the line when [[spoiler:Lindsay thinks that Reid begging Jack to not shoot the kid means that she's entitled to destroying his life in season 12]], giving the lesson of "Sometimes mercy is the wrong decision." Even though [[spoiler:Jack keeps his promise to end his hitman lifestyle after he shoots the kid to protect his daughter from the same vicious cycle]], he fails to stop [[spoiler:Lindsay]] from going down an even darker path than he ever did in his only episode. [[spoiler:Jack, to our knowledge, has never kidnapped a paranoid schizoprehnic woman, framed an FBI agent that worked to save his life, and planned a suicidal bomb run. Perhaps incarcerating him would have sent Lindsay the message that violence has consequences even when it's done for love]].

* IdiotPlot: Several, but the more irritating examples come when the team acts like normal police officers, despite several of them being highly ranked and veteran FBI agents.

** Season 12 is consistently rated as one of the worst seasons due to (among other things) the wasted plot about the escaped serial killers from the previous season, the way Hotch is written out of the show, the Reid plotline's ArcFatigue, and [[spoiler:minor character Lindsey Vaughn's HeelFaceTurn.]]

** Any character who doubts the legitimacy or effectiveness of profiling is automatically wrong. Problem is, in RealLife, there is no empirical evidence whatsoever that it works. In fact, the real FBI profilers have never actually caught a single serial killer. One particular episode has a defense attorney in court doubt the BAU's work. Hotch responds by ColdReading the man. While this looks awesome -- and the judge falls for it, it's not what a profiler does -- Hotch had to resort to basically the same stuff phony psychics use, and had that lawyer been worth his salt, he'd have been able to use Hotch's own "performance" to discredit the entire BAU. That Hotch realized the attorney's phone vibrates in sync with results from the local race track is an astute observation, but does nothing to prove the BAU's profiles mean anything.

** In Season 4's ''Amplification'', the [=UnSub=] is killing with a highly modified form of Anthrax. Among other errors, the most egregious of these is Morgan and Prentiss walking around the park where the bacterium was released without any protection, with the assurance that the hot zone was non-existant. Anthrax can survive for literally ''decades''. An entire island off the coast of England had to be quarantined from the 1940s to the 1980s after having Anthrax bombs tested on it during WWII, and was only declared decontaminated after having been sprayed with formaldehyde. Almost nobody wears a hazmat suit, and those that do don't keep the face masks on.