This week, there's a real buzz on the set and it has nothing to do with the upcoming episode or last week's ratings. This weekend members of our cast and crew are getting their Lance Armstrong on. Saturday is the 2007 Start to Finish MS Bike Tour. Twenty-three members of the Criminal Minds staff are getting up early and biking up the California coast to benefit the National Multiple Sclerosis Society. They've been looking forward to this for a long time.
Last year 12 of our crew members pedaled, and this year the number has doubled. The 12 riders from last year did not take very much time off before getting back to training and are taking it very seriously. The newcomers all have a varied range of experience and ability but have been riding every weekend. Every Monday tales of training mishaps and misadventures make their way to set.
However, the most important part of this ride has nothing to do with the performance of the cyclists. It's all to benefit NMSS. So in addition to those riding, many from the show are going to show their support. The ride is very personal to the cast and crew because it affects a member of our cast directly. Shemar Moore's mother (Morgan) was diagnosed with MS eight years ago. It was his idea to get Criminal Minds involved in the event. Many of the crew members were already involved in cycling, so it was a natural fit.
Some of the members are completing a 75-mile tour, others the 100-mile version. But, to show that we're embarking on this together, everyone is going to meet up at a mile marker 10 miles from the finish, after the last big climb, and ride to the finish line as a unified group. Kirsten (Garcia) and Paget (Prentiss) have even decided to show their support by buying bikes just to ride the last 5 miles with the group. We're also taking a couple vans full of supporters and our own staff photographers to document the whole event (hopefully I'll be able to post some of the photos here next week).
If you want to learn more about the event, the Criminal Minds group, or how to donate to our team, check out this link:
www.msevents.com/criminalminds
In other show-related news, Paget made a great appearance on Late Night with Conan O'Brien on Monday night. Obviously our show is a drama, so Paget hasn't had many opportunities to showcase a lighter side since joining the cast. But she has a comedy background, having worked on sitcoms before, and she even started out with her own comedic cable access show in San Francisco. Her appearance on Conan is a good representation of the high-energy, humorous personality we get to see on set every day. She had many distractions, including a fire alarm that went off in the middle of her interview, which she handled with her usual aplomb. Now, I'm never sure about the legality of clips on YouTube, especially those from non-Viacom-owned networks, so I'm not going to advocate anything. But I imagine if you were to type the words Conan, O'Brien, and Paget into the search bar on YouTube, it would be the only clip that shows up.
If there's anything you'd like to know about the process of making the show, an individual department, or the color of our lobby, let me know and I'll try to address it in future blogs.
Til next week, happy profiling....
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