Dante Alighieri’s detailed journey into Hell, Purgatory, and Heaven is both captivating and inspiring to readers. So much so that the Divine Comedy is cemented in modern day culture as one of the great classics of the 14th century. It is no surprise that many creators today have it as an inspiration for video games, movies, and TV series. One particular TV series, Criminal Minds, used the actual book as a plot device in one of its episodes instead of merely borrowing lines from cantos. Still, the episode Burn is not a faithful recreation of the Inferno; many changes were made during development. In some cases, large portions of the text were outright removed. This paper takes a look into the revisions producer Jeff Davis made when molding the Inferno to fit comfortably into the messages, expectations, and time constraints of Criminal Minds. 

I grew up watching procedural crime shows, and I still hold a soft spot for them to this day. Learning that one such show featured Dante’s Inferno made me a little giddy. I was a little disappointed with the actual episode itself; the plot was a little thin, and they simplified Dante’s Inferno drastically. However, when I went through other research papers on other shows and movies, I realized my disappointment in how the Inferno was portrayed was pretty common; it seems like no one in the film industry has managed to use large portions of The Divine Comedy without falling short one way or another. I guess there is no way to recreate Dante’s work in a way that honors the spirit of the books.