In a brazen attempt to forge a network out of nothing but spinoffs of its most popular shows, CBS is aiming to replicate the success of Criminal Minds—that show about the flesh-mutilating cannibal murderers who lurk in every single neighborhood in the continental United States—by planting the pilot for a new series in an upcoming episode. The new, as-yet-untitled series won’t feature a batch of sexy FBI profilers hunting serial killers, but instead “will follow FBI agents helping American citizens who find themselves in trouble abroad.” Nevertheless, we can assume that most of those FBI agents will be unbearably sexy, as they resolve a different international contretemps on a weekly basis.
Criminal Minds: But I’m An American! (or whatever) will be executive produced by the Criminal Minds team of Mark Gordon, Erica Messer, and Nick Pepper, with the pilot written by Messer. It is the second attempt to expand the Criminal Minds brand, after the Forest Whitaker-fronted Criminal Minds: Suspect Behavior. That series also debuted with a backdoor pilot and ran for a 13-episode season in 2011, before being canceled due to weak ratings and a significant lack of shirtless Shemar Moore.
CBS’s lineup currently features two offshoots of its hit series NCIS—which itself emerged fully formed from the host body of the now-retired JAG—and will introduce the latest iteration of CSI, titled CSI: Cyber, in 2015. With all of these spinoff series, it becomes a real possibility that a cable network could soon subsist solely on syndicated episodes of the Criminal Minds, NCIS, and CSI family.