Development
Reid is a genius and autodidact who graduated from a Las Vegas public high school at age 12. He has an IQ of 187, an eidetic memory, and can read 20,000 words per minute (an average American adult reads prose text at 250 to 300 words per minute). He holds a Ph.D. in Mathematics from Caltech, in addition to a Ph.D. in Chemistry, as well as B.A.s in Psychology and Sociology.
Reid is 23 in the pilot episode, having joined the unit when he was 22. His fellow team members almost always introduce him as Dr. Reid. Hotch revealed in the first season that Gideon insisted on introducing him as Dr. Reid because Gideon feared that, because of his age, Reid would not be taken seriously as an FBI agent. This was a genuine concern, both for in-universe and for audience acceptance, since in real life the minimum age to become an FBI Special Agent is 23, with at least three more years to obtain Supervisory Special Agent status, and appointments to the BAU usually not occurring until after at least eight to ten years in the FBI. Also, while filming the pilot, the show's FBI consultant informed Matthew Gray Gubler there was nothing realistic about his character.
Before Gubler was cast in the role, the character was originally envisioned as more like Data from Star Trek. However, the producers liked Gubler's softer interpretation, despite telling the actor he was wrong for the part. After several callbacks, he was hired.
During October 2012, series creator Jeff Davis tweeted Reid was originally envisioned to be bisexual, but the network shut the idea down by the fourth episode where Reid develops a crush on his colleague, Jennifer "JJ" Jareau.
Read more about this topic: Spencer Reid
Famous quotes containing the word development:
“The work of adult life is not easy. As in childhood, each step presents not only new tasks of development but requires a letting go of the techniques that worked before. With each passage some magic must be given up, some cherished illusion of safety and comfortably familiar sense of self must be cast off, to allow for the greater expansion of our distinctiveness.”
—Gail Sheehy (20th century)
“On fields all drenched with blood he made his record in war, abstained from lawless violence when left on the plantation, and received his freedom in peace with moderation. But he holds in this Republic the position of an alien race among a people impatient of a rival. And in the eyes of some it seems that no valor redeems him, no social advancement nor individual development wipes off the ban which clings to him.”
—Frances Ellen Watkins Harper (1825–1911)
“Sleep hath its own world,
And a wide realm of wild reality.
And dreams in their development have breath,
And tears, and tortures, and the touch of joy.”
—George Gordon Noel Byron (1788–1824)