Criminal Minds Revival Still in Development at Paramount+

The hit series Criminal Minds came to an end on CBS in 2020 and less than a year later came news that a revival was officially in the works for ViacomCBS streaming service Paramount+. In the time since then there’s been a minimal amount of updates on what form this new series would take but at one point, just months after the new show was announced, franchise star Paget Brewster shattered the hearts of fans by saying that she believed the series was dead and not moving forward. Cut to now, as the Paramount+ day at TCA brought confirmation from the streamer that the show is still very much happening.

Paramount+ chief programming officer Tanya Gills addressed it during their executive session, noting: “We are still very much in development on ‘Criminal Minds.’ We’ll have more to share soon on that, but it is alive and well.” Speaking with Variety after the event, Nicole Clemens, president of original scripted series at the streamer, elaborated, noting they weren’t sure why Brewster made the claim that she did. “These things ebb and flow…As I mentioned, I came in in the summer and so it took a second to gear up and figure out, ‘What are we doing? ‘There’s not a hidden monster under the water there. It’s just been in its process, so it’s in development… We have always thought it’s a fantastic idea to have ‘Criminal Minds’ on the service, so that hasn’t changed.”

It’s never been outright said why the sudden interest in a revival of a show that had been on the air for 15 seasons and only off for a year came about but the streaming content arms race is perhaps where it all started. At the time that Criminal Minds was on television there wasn’t a Paramount+ (or its predecessor, CBS All Access) streaming service, which gave Netflix the opportunity to bring the show onto their own platform where it quickly became (and still remains!) a gigantic hit. Due to the deal signed at the time new seasons of the series routinely made their way onto Netflix, leaving Paramount+ without its biggest hit for some time.

As of this writing you can still watch 12 of Criminal Minds‘ 15 seasons on Netflix but Paramount+ is the only place where you can watch the entire series. Assuming the revival gets off the ground it will only further make Paramount+ the premiere destination for Criminal Minds fans.

In Criminal Minds, an elite squad of FBI profilers analyzes the country’s most-twisted criminal minds, anticipating the perpetrators’ next moves before they can strike again. Each member of the “mind hunter” team brings his or her expertise to pinpoint predators’ motivations and identify emotional triggers to stop them. The core group includes an official profiler who is highly skilled at getting into the minds of criminals, a quirky genius, the former media liaison who manages to adeptly balance family life and the job, and a computer wizard.

The series starred, among others, Matthew Gray Gubler, Shemar Moore, Kirsten Vangsness, A.J. Cook, Paget Brewster, Aisha Tyler, Adam Rodriguez, Thomas Gibson, and Joe Mantegna.