Criminal Minds Renewed for 15th and Final Season
01/11/2019 | By Mace Parker
It's good news and bad news for Criminal Minds fans.
Criminal Minds is coming to an end after 15 seasons. CBS has renewed the long-running crime drama for a 15th and final season, to air during the 2019-20 TV season. The farewell season will consist of 10 episodes, which will film this spring and bring the show’s run to 324 total episodes. At 15 seasons, Criminal Minds’ run will match those of NBC’s ER and CBS’ CSI, with only Gunsmoke, L&O, L&O: SVU, NCIS and Grey’s Anatomy currently ahead of it on the list of the longest-running dramas ever. (Among scripted primetime series, that lands Criminal Minds inside U.S. TV’s all-time Top 20.) The series, which is currently filming the finale of its 15-episode 14th season, will remain in continuous production, shooting the 10 additional episodes right after to air during the 2019-20 broadcast season. “It’s really bittersweet, but I’m so, so grateful to CBS for giving us this heads-up,” showrunner Erica Messer tells TVLine of getting the final-season news. “I think one of my biggest fears was always, ‘Oh man, what if we don’t know’ and then they just don’t bring back the show? But they respect this series and the cast and the crew and the fans enough to end this properly.” The decision to pick up a final installment was made in late fall when Criminal Minds longtime executive producer/showrunner Erica Messer was breaking the stories for the final episodes of Season 14 and sought guidance whether to make the ending a season finale with cliffhanger(s) or a series finale. (The series spent last spring on the bubble, clinching a last-minute Season 14 renewal in May.) All the parties involved, CBS, ABC Studios and CBS TV Studios, got together and decided to extend the series to give it a proper ending. “We wanted to make sure Erica had the time and ability to write a season (14) finale that honors the characters and the fans,” said Reisenbach. “We discussed wanting to keep the show in continuous production so 10 felt like the right number for us to roll straight into and give Erica enough episodes to end the series the way she wanted to.” WARNING: THIS REST OF THIS ARTICLE CONTAINS SPOILERS. READ AT YOUR OWN RISK Criminal Minds will set the stage for its 15th and final season by giving us some good, and then a heap of evil. The Season 14 finale, airing Wednesday, Feb. 6, is “a great big one,” showrunner Erica Messer shares with TVLine. “Obviously we have our bad guy of the week, but there’s also the good stuff in life — like Rossi getting married, and… all kinds of things in between.” Can Messer elaborate on any of those happy “things in between”? “I don’t want to give much away, because I want this to be a ride for everybody,” she hedges. “But it’s going to be a must-see episode, for sure. It airs February 6, and then people won’t see us for a while, so you will not want to miss Rossi’s wedding… and everything that leads up to it.” What about season-ending twists that cast doubt on any characters’ fates, as Criminal Minds is famous to uncork? “There are discussions that haven’t been said aloud before,” the EP hints, “so that’s an interesting emotional cliffhanger, versus SUVs exploding.” “It’s a really full episode,” she adds, “and then we jump ahead in time, to kick off the final 10.” Criminal Minds‘ last blast of episodes will feature “a little more serialized storytelling,” Messer says, including “a bad guy that we meet toward the end of Season 14, who will be our main focus” in Season 15. Though Messer is mum on casting, she believes this character will prove “a worthy adversary” for the BAU during this farewell run. “As Rossi says, ‘He’s younger, faster and stronger'” than the team’s Supervisory Special Agent. “He’s a bit his Joker,” to use a Batman reference. “But as [fiancee] Krystall reminds him, the one thing that UnSub isn’t is smarter than David Rossi. He’s a worthy adversary because he does have a lot of things on his side, including being a truly twisted individual.” Messer also said that season 15 "will be concluding the 10 episodes with a showdown with that person,” she added. Also on tap for the final season are “a couple of personal stories that might be surprising to people,” Messer shares. “Certainly things that I feel the fans will be completely invested in.” Season 15 will include a two-part season opener, and will feature a major confession and a BAU member in jeopardy. Since it’s the final season, there will likely be memorable bad guys from the past 14 seasons making an appearance. “We have one in the works right now who’s a very memorable villain, but I don’t want to say too much if it doesn’t work out with casting,” Messer teased. There is also hope of bringing back fan favorite characters, including former cast members. Criminal Minds has seen several stars depart over the years, including original lead Mandy Patinkin, who opted not to return for Season 3, Thomas Gibson, who was fired in 2016 for an on-set altercation, and Shemar Moore, who now headlines another CBS drama, S.W.A.T. (Moore has since returned to Criminal Minds for a guest stint). Another popular cast member, Paget Brewster, rejoined the show after being away for a few seasons. “I am very hopeful that we can honor all of those characters who have been beloved and with this team, with the audience for years, but I don’t know what that’s going to look like; I don’t know the logistics of anything or the story. That won’t be shooting until the spring, so I have some time to think about it, but the hope is to be able to honor all of that history, all of those heroes who have come and gone.” Messer has been on Criminal Minds since the start, becoming co-showrunner in 2010 and sole showrunner the following year. She admits that the idea how to end the series has evolved over the years. “That journey has changed a lot from the early days on the show because I wouldn’t have anticipated all the changes that’ve happened. I also don’t know if I would’ve anticipated that we’d have 325 episodes by the time it’s all said and done. It’s such an honor to be part of a series for that long,” Messer said. She indicated that there may be no plans to kill off beloved characters in the final stretch. “These people are family and friends to us at this point,” she said. “I know it’s a drama, but I’m less likely to injure or write someone off in a way that says they’re not breathing anymore. I know a lot of shows, when they find out it’s going to be over, then characters are killed off or something like that. That’s not my instinct, mainly because I’ve been here for so long with all of these voices, I just don’t want that to be how it ends for them. So the jet won’t crash, I can tell you that.” Still, Messer believes that the finale, which she will co-write with Criminal Minds star Kirsten Vangsness, with series executive producer/director Glenn Kershaw directing, will be very emotional. “My gut is tearjerker probably because that’s how I’ll be feeling,” she said. “I think in honoring the series and saying goodbye, it’s probably going to feel like a little bit of a eulogy. So my guess is tearjerker more than anything else, that’s how I’d describe it.” Looking to making the last 10 episodes, “I think everyone will be really sad, and I know this cast especially is so fond of one another, they are truly a family,” Messer said. “Anytime anything comes to an end, there’s sadness, but this is an end of an era. Since 2005, that’s a long time in anyone’s life and career and everything else. So I think we’re all going to be sad about it for a while. We’re sad that it’s over, but also thankful that it happened.” Catch all new episodes of Criminal Minds on Wednesdays at 10/9c on CBS
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