News / Published 2026-10-31

Criminal Minds: Evolution Will End With Season 20 on Paramount+

Paramount+ will end Criminal Minds: Evolution with its 20th season in 2027, Deadline and Variety reported on 30 October. Deadline traces the call to new leadership under Casey Bloys.

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THE SHORT VERSION

  • Criminal Minds: Evolution will end with its 20th season on Paramount+, Deadline and Variety reported on 30 October; the season is set to air in 2027 with no premiere date announced.
  • Deadline reports the decision was recent and is the first cancellation under the Paramount+ team led by Casey Bloys, and that Season 20 finished production before the call was made.
  • Erica Messer, the showrunner, said in a statement carried by both outlets that the team is suddenly navigating the end of this chapter and will celebrate the show's legacy with Season 20.

Paramount+ will end the show with season 20

Criminal Minds: Evolution will end with its 20th season on Paramount+, Deadline reported on 30 October, and Variety reported the same outcome the same day. Season 20 is scheduled to air in 2027; Variety says no premiere date has been set. The season will be the show's fifth on the streamer, after 15 on CBS, and Deadline describes the ending as the close of a run across two incarnations on two platforms.

Deadline reports that Season 20 finished production earlier this fall, before the decision was made. That timing means the final run was shot without a planned ending, and Deadline's own summary is that the season “will not give fans a proper ending”. Neither report mentions a two-part finale, an extended episode or reshoots, and neither says whether the cast and crew were told before the story broke.

Deadline traces the call to new leadership

Deadline is the only one of the two that addresses why the show is ending. The outlet writes that it hears the decision was made recently, and that it is the first official cancellation for the Paramount+ leadership team under Casey Bloys, co-chair and chief content officer for Skydance Direct to Consumer. Deadline does not say which executives signed off on the call, and Variety does not mention the leadership change at all.

According to sources cited by Deadline, the call came on the recommendation of the previous Paramount+ regime, which in March gave the series an early Season 20 renewal ahead of the Season 19 debut. Variety's account carries no reason for the decision; it records that the show was revived for Season 16 in 2022 and that Season 19 aired between May and July this year, and it reports the ending as something the outlet learned rather than as an announcement.

A Top 10 series and an open cost question

Deadline reports the series is still performing well and currently sits in Paramount+'s Top 10. The outlet says the decision may be tied to how that performance measures up against cost, or to the nature of a broadcast-style series on a streaming service. Deadline names it as the last of its kind on Paramount+, after the platform's continuations of SEAL Team, Frasier and NCIS: Tony & Ziva. Neither report carries a per-episode or per-season budget figure.

Deadline also quotes Jane Wiseman, Paramount+'s former head of originals, who left the company last week in the wake of the merger. In August she said she and her team were “big fans” of the show and that she was open to more series in that mold. The same report notes that HBO Max, now a Skydance sibling, has a model for broadcast-shaped dramas: 15-episode orders, procedural elements and a yearly cadence at streaming-level budgets, with The Pitt as its example.

The showrunner's statement

Erica Messer, the showrunner and executive producer, gave both outlets the same statement. “It’s hard to put into words what ‘Criminal Minds’ has meant to all of us who have been fortunate enough to be part of this extraordinary journey, first on CBS for 15 seasons and then on Paramount+ for five,” she said, adding that while suddenly navigating the end of this chapter she is filled with gratitude for the cast, writers, directors and crew. She also thanked the fans whose loyalty, in her words, has kept the show going for two decades.

Deadline reads the statement as a sign that Messer’s statement, in Deadline’s reading, indicated that the cancellation decision was sudden and likely unexpected. The statement does not name an executive, a reason or a date, and it does not call Season 20 a finale. Both outlets carry the same text, and it is the only statement from the show in either report; neither carries a response from Mantegna, Cook or the other leads.

Twenty seasons, tied for fifth on the drama list

Deadline puts the combined run at 20 seasons, 15 on CBS and five on Paramount+, and notes that the total ties the show for fifth among the longest-running drama series. The four ahead of it are Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, Law & Order, NCIS and Grey's Anatomy. Deadline calls it remarkable that all four are still on the air, and its count assumes the combined run stays at 20 seasons.

Variety frames the same number differently, counting the 2022 revival as Season 16 and the current run as the 20th. It describes the show as following the FBI's Behavioral Analysis Unit, a team of profilers tasked with analysing and capturing the country's most dangerous criminals before they strike again, and notes that Evolution picks up after the events of the original, which ran 15 seasons on CBS.

The cast, the producers and what is unanswered

Both reports list the same cast: Joe Mantegna, A.J. Cook, Kirsten Vangsness, Aisha Tyler and RJ Hatanaka, with Adam Rodriguez and Paget Brewster. Messer executive produces with Breen Frazier, Chris Barbour, Glenn Kershaw, Stacey Hardt and Mark Gordon, and the series is produced by 20th Television and CBS Studios. Neither outlet reports new contracts, a spin-off or a feature-length close for the franchise.

What neither report supplies is a premiere date beyond the 2027 window, a statement from Paramount+ or CBS, or any figure behind the cost question. Neither says whether another buyer could pick the show up, and neither describes a finale plan. Related coverage on this site includes the renewal of The Diplomat for season 5, Matthew Weiner's exit from The Chairman and the Ghosts season 6 Halloween special.

Sources & reporting limits

  1. 'Criminal Minds: Evolution' To End With Season 20 On Paramount+ — Deadline
  2. 'Criminal Minds: Evolution' to End With Season 20 at Paramount+ — Variety
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