‘Criminal Minds: Evolution’ Was Birthed From a Single Paranoid Idea
Criminal Minds continues to be a large presence in television with its current revival show Evolution. Its most recent season took major inspiration from a single question that created a frightening scenario.
How the pandemic helped resurrect ‘Criminal Minds’
Criminal Minds as most fans knew it reached its conclusion on February 19, 2020. It ended its run with 10 episodes, which had been one of the least number of episodes the show aired since its inception. Ironically, the popular police procedural would end after Covid-19 became a massive threat to the world. What fans perhaps didn’t predict was how much the pandemic would impact the series’ 16th season.
Series showrunner Erica Messer confided to Deadline that it wasn’t too long after Criminal Minds ended that she was asked to bring the show back.
“Late summer of 2020 is when I got the call asking if I’d want to do another version of Criminal Minds. I didn’t want to do another version, like a spinoff version, but I would do it if we could bring it back with our cast. Then about a year later they were able to get deals going and then I’d say by January of 2022 it felt like all the deals were going to happen,” she said.
But with the series going in a new and darker direction, Messer felt changing its title to Evolution would be appropriate. The show took place after the pandemic, and saw some familiar cast members hunting down a new group of serial killers dubbed the UnSub. What helped spark the idea was a frightening question that Messer randomly asked herself.
“That’s my paranoid brain in overdrive thinking, ‘What are serial killers doing during the pandemic?’ Why did I have that thought? I have no idea. But then I thought, ‘what if they’re talking to one another? What if they’re giving pointers?’ That’s what I pitched to Paramount and they said, ‘What’s wrong with you? And yes, please do that,’” Messer said.
What Erica Messer wanted to avoid with ‘Criminal Minds: Evolution’
Many have noticed quite a few differences between Criminal Minds and its revival counterpart. Being on the streaming network Paramount +, the show so far has maintained its 10-episode format. It also features more personal storytelling and insight into the lives of its characters. Not only its agents, but its killers as well. This new direction was one of the reasons why Messer titled the show Evolution in the first place.
“The word ‘evolution’ didn’t come into play for us until we were well into production. It was just Criminal Minds Season 16 for a very long time. And then it was, ‘Hey, we want to call this Evolution. That was a natural merging in that they wanted to set it apart so that it doesn’t get lost in the 324 episodes of the original. As Evolution, it gets to stand out a little bit more,” Messer said in an interview with Looper.
But with its growth, Messer wanted to make sure that the show didn’t end up losing its identity.
“I didn’t want us to be unrecognizable. We joke that our show has ages 12 to 112 watching us. So even with the [foul] language, it’s there but we didn’t want to be gratuitous with that either. When it feels appropriate to drop something more than ‘damn,’ then we do it. But we didn’t want to all of a sudden sound like The Sopranos,” she said.
Why ‘Criminal Minds’ was canceled
The show’s original final season wasn’t the end of a natural run. The network Criminal Minds was airing on at the time, CBS, decided to cancel the series. Which Messer was disappointed with.
“None of us wanted it to end creatively,” she said. “We felt there were plenty more stories to tell. The cast was in such a groove and everybody loved being here.”
There were several reasons why the show might’ve been canceled. Some speculated that a decline in viewership facilitated its fate. Additionally, Variety reported that a senior staff member allegedly harassed and abused his staff members with little consequences at the time. But a concrete reason for the cancellation has never been given.
