Parents' Guide to

Criminal

By Martin Brown, Common Sense Media Reviewer

age 16+

International cop drama has unique format, formulaic cases.

TV Netflix Drama 2019
Criminal Poster Image

A Lot or a Little?

What you will—and won't—find in this TV show.

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age 12+

Based on 1 parent review

whatdidyousay
whatdidyousay Adult
September 27, 2020
age 12+

Age 12+

I honestly don’t know why this show is rated MA. It is not a terribly bad show. Though your child has to be mature enough to watch such show. I thought it was incredibly educational and the acting is wonderful. Totally recommend if you are into documentary type acting.

This title has:

Great messages
Great role models
Too much violence
See all 1 parent review

What's the Story?

CRIMINAL is a Netflix police procedural show split into four different series, each taking place in a different country: Britain, France, Germany, and Spain. Each series includes 3 standalone episodes, which are all shot in a single location that shows 3 different areas of a police interrogation -- the interrogation room where the suspect is held; the room on the other side of the one-way mirror where detectives watch the interrogation unfold; and the hallway and stairs right outside the interrogation areas. In each of the 12 episodes, a team of police officers from their respective country interrogate a suspected criminal until they elicit a confession.

Is It Any Good?

Our review:
Parents say (1 ):
Kids say (1 ):

As a formal exercise in police procedural television, this could be very exciting. Seeing police work under similar circumstances in different countries opens up a lot of possibilities for either character studies (as in Columbo or Law & Order: Criminal Intent, where we already know who committed the crimes) or illuminating cultural differences in justice systems. However, Criminal opts for neither of those possibilities. Instead, the show drags out run-of-the-mill setups similar to those that have been used on police procedural shows for the last 20 years. Though it's entertaining, the viewer ends up learning next to nothing about either the characters or the different country's settings.

Talk to Your Kids About ...

  • Families can talk about interrogation. What kind of tactics do the police use to elicit confessions in Criminal? How do the police officers adapt their tactics to different suspects?

  • Why do you think Criminal creators chose to break up the series into different countries? How do the interrogation practices differ by country? Do you think these differences say anything about the cultures of those particular countries?

  • Could you predict the outcome in any, or all, of these cases? What are some of the things the writers could have done to make the stories less predictable?

TV Details

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