Paget Brewster says the Criminal Minds revival is probably "dead"
A return for the 15-season CBS procedural was being plotted at Paramount Plus
Unsubs everywhere are breathing a sigh of relief this week, as star Paget Brewster reports that efforts to revive long-running serial killer-catching procedural Criminal Minds have now fallen apart. This is per Variety, which reports that Brewster—star of stage, screen, and that one video we can never stop thinking about where the cast of DuckTales talks about people doing the Naruto run at Area 51—dubbed plans to bring the show back on Paramount Plus as “dead.”
Criminal Minds ran for 15 seasons on CBS, serving as a stalwart soldier in a ratings army that also included the various NCIS shows, which are pretty much the only reason it wasn’t the ratings juggernaut on the network. The series starred a long rotating line of cast members across its decade and a half on the air, including Brewster, Shemar Moore, Thomas Gibson, Mandy Patinkin, and Matthew Gray Gubler, all of whom did their darnedest to turn these unsubs into knownsubs. (Is that the proper terminology? There are 324 episodes of this thing, so it’s not like we can be up on every single nuance—although its omnipresent repetition as part of various cable syndication packages might give us a decent shot.)
The show went off the air last February, but it took very little time for Paramount to start poking around at the idea of a revival, in hopes of getting a little more name recognition loaded up on the then-recently-rebranded Paramount Plus. (There’s also a true crime docuseries, The Real Criminal Minds, in the works, for people who thought all the show’s murders were simply too fictitious.) According to Brewster, though, who was responding to a fan inquiry on Twitter: “We think it’s dead. I’ll let you know if there is any progress but it seems unlikely. Which is a bummer.”
Variety notes that at least one source has told them that the show is still in “active development” at the streamer, though. So take heart, Criminal Minds fans: Your dreams of a 325th episode might still be within our collective grasps.