Criminal Minds: What’s old is new again — and improved — on CBS’ Criminal Minds, which on Sept. 21 will enter its seventh season armed for bear, with both A.J. Cook and Paget Brewster restored as series regulars.
At a Television Critics Association soirée last week, TVLine huddled with Brewster and Kristen Vangsness (aka Prentiss and Garcia) to cheer on Minds‘ fan-facilitated reunion, when before you knew it Cook (who plays JJ) joined in the revelry as well [see photo]. You kinda had to be there to feel the love going ’round, and that’s what I hope this transcript of our festive four-way delivers.
TVLINE | Kristen, did you even get a chance to miss Paget?
KRISTEN VANGSNESS | Yes. Hell yes. I got the chance to miss her in a big, huge way. I was already grateful and appreciative for both her and A.J. I didn’t need to be more so!
TVLINE | What is the feeling like on the set going into the new season — is it as if you “got the band back together”?
PAGET BREWSTER | It felt like the band’s back together, yeah!
VANGSNESS | For me, having been there, it was sort of like, “Well, that was totally unnecessary.” It was what it was, and it was great to have Rachel Nichols there… [but] now [Paget and A.J.] are back because they need to be back. They’re a huge partt of the show.
TVLINE | Joe Mantegna and I spoke about how the fans’ voices have been heard, which is nice to have happen once in a while.
BREWSTER | And from what I can tell, for maybe the second or third time ever, as far as actually getting a network to change its mind about what it doing. It’s certainly nice being on the good end of that! [Laughs] But yeah, unfortunately a mistake was made when A.J. and I were let go. Rachel [Nichols] did a great job, and then when we were brought back Rachel was let go. So frankly, it was a lot of unnecessary firing, which is a shame, but … Rachel is going to be in huge movies [including Conan the Barbarian, opening Aug.19], she’s on the cover of Maxim, she’s totally hot….
continued here: http://www.tvline.com/2011/08/criminal-minds-brewster-cook-vangsness-preview/
