Criminal Minds fans received their first unexpected treat when it was announced back in July 2022 that the long-running CBS crime drama was being revived for a 16th season, dubbed Evolution and to stream exclusively on Paramount+.
And then, midway through Evolution‘s run, the series was renewed for another season. When might it premiere, and what all do we know about this ostensible 17th (or is it second?) season?
Criminal Minds: Evolution found the BAU’s elite profilers going up against “their greatest threat yet” — Elias Voit, an UnSub who had spent the COVID pandemic cultivating a network of serial killers. The team in question was comprised of franchise vets Paget Brewster (as Prentiss), Joe Mantegna (Rossi), A.J. Cook (JJ), Kirsten Vangsness (Garcia), Aisha Tyler (Tara) and Adam Rodriguez (Luke), while Friday Night Lights vet Zach Gilford played the aforementioned Elias.
The Season 2 (or is it Season 17?) pick-up came in January 2023, just as Criminal Minds: Evolution returned from a holiday break. “We love the show,” Tanya Giles, chief programming officer of Paramount Streaming, told TVLine. “Obviously it’s a franchise that we are very, very partial to.”
Here now is everything we know about the next season of Criminal Minds….
“Everybody in the main cast is coming back,” Criminal Minds showrunner Erica Messer told TVLine during a February 2023 finale post mortem Q&A.
Social media posts shared by the cast in mid-January 2024 confirmed that Brewster, Mantegna, Cook, Vangsness, Tyler and Rodriguez are indeed all back at the BAU.
Will LaMontagne Jr.’s cancer scare during Evolution‘s first season was inspired by a similar ordeal that cast member A.J. Cook’s real-life husband Nathan went through in 2019. Luckily for JJ’s husband, it turned out he only had a treatable, inflamed thyroid, so “next [season], hopefully, he’s going to be OK,” said showrunner Erica Messer. “But he’s not necessarily out of the woods forever.”
That “not necessarily” now carries a different weight, in the wake of franchise vet Josh Stewart sharing on X in January that “sadly, my days of playing Will LaMontagne Jr. are over.” He added a note to inquiring fans, “You guys have been the absolute best.”
(Paramount+ reps did not respond to TVLine’s request for comment on Stewart’s social media post.)
Though Voit was outwitted and captured in the February 9 finale, he last was seen as a prisoner receiving a VIP visit from… someone… who clearly is curious about his knowledge of Gold Star, a top-secret something that the U.S. government clearly has been keeping on the way-down low.
“You have not seen the last of Elias,” Messer told TVLine, explaining in other interviews that she envisions Voit as sort of the revival’s Hannibal Lecter character.
Indeed, Zach Gilford, who plays Voit, will be back as a series regular — as will Ryan-James Hatanaka, who played person of interest/Garcia’s person of interest Tyler Green.
“[W]e really liked giving Garcia that messy relationship,” showrunner Erica Messer told our sister site Variety in February 2023. “We just completely bought that she would break up with him after that betrayal, but that maybe it isn’t over. Maybe this is her person. We want to keep exploring that.”
It was established very early on in Evolution that Special Agents Spencer Reid and Matt Simmons (played by OG cast member Matthew Gray Gubler and Criminal Minds: Beyond Borders transfer Daniel Henney) were away on an undisclosed “assignment.”
“It’s a little bit of a mystery what Reid and Simmons are up to,” showrunner Erica Messer told TVLine ahead of Evolution‘s debut, “but they’re certainly not forgotten…. [They] are not gone gone.”
Regarding the actors’ absences, Messer said back then, “Our hope is that the team members we ended the series with on CBS will be able to come back and play at some point, but everybody does have other projects.” (Henney, for example, has been busy filming The Wheel of Time.)
Speaking again with TVLine in February 2023 and with a look ahead to Evolution‘s next season, Messer said, “It’d be amazing” to get Gubler and/or Henney back. “I’m not giving up hope on that. But I do know that everybody has these lives outside of our show, and that’s the tricky part. We shoot [10 episodes] in such a short little window, whereas before with a 22[-episode] order and nine months of shooting I’d feel confident to say, ‘We’ll find a way to get them in.'”
At the time TVLine last spoke to Messer, the writers room for the new season had only been open for a few days. But this much is known:
* The aforementioned Gold Star mystery will be revisited. “It’s sort of like, ‘We thought we knew everything, we thought we know all about the [Sicarius] network and Voit and all this stuff.’ So for Voit to drop that bomb, and to have it mean something to [ill-fated FBI deputy director] Bailey, it’s our jump-start into the next season, for sure.”
* Whereas Evolution‘s maiden run focused on Voit, a singular UnSub, “We’re going to do a hybrid” the next time around, Messer told TVLine. “In the first four episodes [we’ve outlined] so far, two are a little bit serial[ized], and two are not.”
Franchise front woman Paget Brewster had requested that Emily Prentiss not have a personal subplot — specifically no romance — during Evolution‘s first season. “She was like, ‘Prentiss is married to her work, let’s embrace that,'” showrunner Erica Messer explained to TVLine.
But for the upcoming season, “Yup. We sure do” have a Prentiss story on tap, Messer told us. “Absolutely.”
Though the new season was greenlit back in January 2023 (and the writers room opened up not long after), what was then just a looming Writers Guild strike slowed the procedural’s roll.
Originally, a source told TVLine, the new season was to start shooting in April 2023, but then the studio got nervous about a possible WGA strike, so they put a pin in pre-production. “June” was penciled in as the new start date, but the WGA strike soon enough became a reality, kicking off on May 2 and lasting 148 days.
SAG-AFTRA also went on strike (in mid-June), so that was two guilds that needed to hammer out new deals with the AMPTP before cameras could even think about rolling on anything.
Finally, series front woman Paget Brewster shared that filming would begin on Jan. 16, so mayyyybe we will get a summer 2024 release — or later?
Though there is nothing close to a guesstimated premiere date for Evolution‘s new season, showrunner Erica Messer confirmed for TVLine back in January 2023 that fans would be getting another 10 episodes.
Eventually.
Want scoop on Criminal Minds: Evolution, or for any other TV show? Email your question to InsideLine@tvline.com, and it may be answered via Matt’s Inside Line!
Has there been any talk about Shemar Moore, given SWAT will be entering its final season?
I know given the strike and season 2, season 3 (if renewed) is still a ways away, but I can hope can’t I?
Pretty sure his character was written off so he’d become a family man.
it was but as a kid gets older sometimes the character comes back when the child can start taking care of themselves alil bit. but u are correct his character did leave to b a family man..
Another thing for that last paragraph: Paramount+ has also reversed renewals before #SaveProdigy
Honestly, I would bet that Criminal Minds is one of the shows on Paramount+ that we don’t have to worry about. SNW has the entirety of season 3 banked at the scripting level and they’re confident enough about SEAL Team to be running last season’s P+ episodes on CBS itself in the fall. If they run into a further scheduling logjam, I would expect that one of P+’s newer non-Trek shows might get an unexpected pink slip rather than one that’s been around for sixteen seasons already simply because Criminal Minds does fit into the network’s own demographics as what used to be called a Utility Player. If they need to call up Criminal Minds to do some duty on the network ala SEAL Team, it’ll happen, and that will give them more impetus to keep the season 17 renewal (and that’s what it really is), and, likely, season 18 and beyond.
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Just up it to 16 episodes a season, Paramount! Give them more room to fit Reed and/or Simmons in!
Yeah, in some form it will get shot. Sounds like scripts are ready, just waiting on actor strike to be over. CBS SHARES OWNERSHIP, and gets domestic syndication so airing on cbs if needed should be easier.
Still no Hotchner (Thomas Gibson). Sorry, will not watch.
Tbh, I did not miss Gibson/Hotch for a single episode. And I doubt the crew did.
No need to wear shin guards anymore! Always a good day
Hotchner was cut from the show due to Thomas Gibson’s attitude.
As for shemar Moore (derek Morgan) it would be fun to see him make a return but not as a member of the BAU. Maybe if they were to have something bad happen as a result of his previous work with the BAU. As for Gray-gubler (spencer Reid) I think if he’s going to make a return then that would definitely bring viewer count up due to the amount of people who refused to watch evolution season 1 (season 16 for whole show) because of his absence. Reid is a MAJOR part of JJs life as well and with everything going on with will it does make sense for Reid to make a return even if in a purely emotional support role for JJ, Will and their kids.
I just want to if, when and what channel? I had to purchase Paramount and you haven’t finished the show.
Y’all
l suck for not honoring fans who can’t afford all these streaming platforms. Criminal Mind belonged to us!
Love the programme can’t wait for season 17 to come to disney already watched seasons 1 to 16 and now rewatching it
No Luke and Garcia together? Nah.
What about Hotch???? Please tell me he’ll be back at some point?
The odds of Thomas Gibson being brought back are slim to absolutely none. His was a firing that came after repeat warnings and at least one suspension. I would say that it might be a mutiny if he came back.
Yeah, as much as I liked Hotch, and he was my favorite after Reid. I liked him even better than Derek, Thomas Gibson does not deserve to come back after the way he treated people. You have to be a decent human to get my vote.
Again, I want so badly to watch, but I didn’t like much about last season. And I’m SO MAD still about the Garcia/Alvez story line being pretty much completely ignored and it invalidated the “series finale” last time. So no, I doubt I’ll be watching, but I hope those who still like watching it enjoy the next season.
If only CBS would air S16 on CBS for us who do not get every streaming platform out there….just saying.
They couldn’t if they wanted to. Too graphic and way too much profanity for FCC to approve.
I love Criminal Minds!!! It is such a thought provoking show with incredible twists and turns. The writers are excellent and the actors are fabulous!!!! We all age but the actors know age is just a number. Talent lasts forever!!!
Love Criminal Minds the fan needs more shows in the season. Hope it will be a long running show again.
I’m a big fan of the Criminal Minds shows and on so keeping my fingers crossed that they will be back!!
Sure wish Thomas Gibson would return
I’m an avid criminal minds watcher. Watched all episodes over and over and over and over again, Each time I see something that I have not seen before. That makes it look like a new part added in. Love all all cast , especially Reid, Morgan and Garcia.
I keep checking to see when season 17 is being aired. Hope Reid does come back. Nothing like having a know it all.
Please please please bring the show back and make more than 10 episodes. But 10 is better than 0!
What month in 2024 will it be back
It just started filming.
Very interesting. I thought we were done with Tyler (or at least Penelope seemed to be). I liked his character.
Josh Stewart posted on X (formerly Twitter) on January 17, that is days of playing Will LaMontagne are over and he wouldn’t be returning to Criminal Minds. I was hoping it was a joke, but it seems true.
Why are they making only 10 episodes but makes us wait 2 or more yrs for another season I want these shows to go back to 20 episodes, this is ridiculous. I love criminal minds I’ve rewatch the show from start to finish multiple times, every episode holds up, except I hated that they made JJ tell Reid that she loves him and then put her husband through cancer scare that was stupid.
I think they kill of Will 💔 so that Reid and JK can eventually get together. ❤️
Why do they always have to kill off one of the spouses of a happy couple? I love Will and JJ!
I really hope Garcia and Luke get together.
You’ll get higher ratings if you bring back “Hotch!” Thomas Gibson was a real GI man. The show tanked without him. Bring him back, please!!!
Absolutely love Crimìnal Minds and have been a fan from day. I know it will eventually end; pray it’s no time soon! Thank you for this incredible show!!!