Criminal Minds revival hopes to bring back season 12-15 cast

Last Updated on July 30, 2021

Criminal Minds is aiming for a potential revival on the Paramout+ streaming service and one of the stars of the original series is shining a light on who may be invited to come back.

Paget Brewster, who played Emily Prentiss on the popular CBS series, was speaking with "ComicBook.com" about her new animated series Birdgirl but she also spoke on where the Criminal Minds revival is in terms of its development. Brewster revealed that they're trying to get the specifics to work and that cast members from season 12 through 15 were approached for the new series:

"We're very thankful that they came to everyone who was in the cast for the last four seasons — they came to all of us and said, 'would you all come back?' And every one of us who can, who isn't already signed on to another show, we've been negotiating this. We're all hoping that it would happen and that we would be on Paramount+ as a streaming show, which would be a very different platform from what we had as a CBS show on network TV. We're doing our darnedest, and everyone's trying to make this happen. We really enjoy each other, and we really enjoy how much our fans like the show. Now we have all these new fans, who have been binging it on Netflix, in a different age group. When people used to say to me, 'You're on that show Criminal Minds,' I'd say 'yeah, your grandma watches it.' Now it's a whole new generation and we have teenagers watching. It's crazy."

Criminal Minds, which follows members of the FBI's Behavioral Analysis Unit,  went through a lot of cast changes during its 15 season run but by the last four seasons, the series starred Brewster, who actually began her run during season 2, Matthew Gray Gubler, AJ Cook, Kirsten Vangsness, Aisha Tyler, Adam Rodriguez, Daniel Henney, and Joe Mantenga. Should all these major players not be too busy to come back, that's a nice amount of former cast members that could return and get fans excited for the revival.  There is also the option to bring cast members back from earlier seasons such as Shemar Moore's Derek Morgan but logistics would need to be worked out since he currently stars on CBS' SWAT.

The Criminal Minds revival is still in the negotiation phase but Paramount+ seems very interested in bringing the show back. Criminal Minds continues to have a strong showing via streaming and regularly ranks among the top shows in Nielsen's weekly rankings. The revival will be a bit different from its parent series as it will focus on one case over the course of an entire season but fans will likely give the revival a shot in any form. Especially if some of their favorites return to the fold.

Which Criminal Minds cast members would you want to see return for the revival?