Joe Mantegna as David Rossi and Zach Gilford as Elias Voit in CRIMINAL MINDS: EVOLUTION – Season 4 | ©2026 ABC Studios /CBS Studios Inc / Michael Yarish

CRIMINAL MINDS, the procedural drama following the F.B.I.’s Behavioral Analysis Unit (B.A.U.) as they track and capture serial killers, premiered in 2005 on CBS, where it aired for fifteen seasons. Canceled in 2020, the show returned in 2022 on Paramount+ as CRIMINAL MINDS: EVOLUTION.

However, the series’ creatives and cast – current regulars are Paget Brewster as unit chief Emily Prentiss, Joe Mantegna as veteran agent (and bestselling author) David Rossi, Kirsten Vangsness as the unit’s tech guru Penelope Garcia, A.J. Cook as agent Jennifer “J.J.” Jareau, Aisha Tyler as psychiatrist Dr. Tara Lewis, Adam Rodriguez as agent Luke Alvez, RJ Hatanaka as the unit’s newest agent Tyler Green, and Zach Gilford as incarcerated but (maybe) rehabilitated genius serial killer Elias Voit – consider CRIMINAL MINDS: EVOLUTION to be a continuation of rather than any kind of reinvention of the original CRIMINAL MINDS, and therefore count EVOLUTION as Season 19.

However it is calculated, CRIMINAL MINDS: EVOLUTION is in the middle of its fourth season on Paramount Plus, with new episodes dropping Thursday nights. Season 20 has already been announced.

Erica Messer has been with CRIMINAL MINDS since the beginning. She was a writer/producer on the CBS iteration and has been the showrunner and one of the executive producers since it became CRIMINAL MINDS: EVOLUTION. She also created the 2016-2017 spinoff, CRIMINAL MINDS: BEYOND BORDERS. Messer’s other previous writing and/or producing credits include ALIAS, CHARMED, and THE O.C.

Messer gets on a Zoom call with Assignment X to talk about the evolution of CRIMINAL MINDS to talk about some of what we’re seeing in Season 19.

We start with a big-picture question. Given that the real-world F.B.I. has gone through some unexpected developments in the past year, did the CRIMINAL MINDS: EVOLUTION creative team have discussions of how to deal with it on the show?

Messer replies, “I feel like we’re quite often reflecting challenges that are happening in the real world, but also aware that our show is watched at different times, so we can never really tie it to the latest. I feel like in Season 19, we were shooting it at a time when a transition of power had just happened, and we were using phrases [in the scripts] like, ‘We don’t have a lot of fans in this administration’ and things like that, which I think was our way of saying there have been changes once again, and we’re in the middle of some of those conversations.

Joe Mantegna as David Rossi and Zach Gilford as Elias Voit in CRIMINAL MINDS: EVOLUTION – Season 4 | ©2026 ABC Studios /CBS Studios Inc / Michael Yarish

“But we didn’t want to point to anything too egregiously, and I think that’s just the history of the show. We’ve never really done that. I feel like it was EVOLUTION that really acknowledged for the first time a shared trauma that the world has had, which was COVID, right? And all the changes that happened after that. But yeah, we didn’t want to replace Clark Gregg [who recurs as F.B.I. Director Ray Madison]. We really like him as our Director of the F.B.I., so I’ll leave it at that.”

Speaking of really liking actors in their roles, did Messer and the other creators know when their characters were introduced in Season 16 that they’d be keeping Gilford’s Elias Voit and/or RJ Hatanaka’s Tyler Green?

Voit started as the master of an online network of fellow serial killers, and a prolific murderer himself, who suffered a traumatic brain injury at the end of Season 17 that rewired his instincts and is now trying to help the B.A.U. solve cases from inside prison. Both Voit and the B.A.U. are disgusted that, once he was identified, the media made him famous. Meanwhile, Green has gone from a vigilante (who had an affair with Garcia) to a B.A.U. team member.

“Oh, my gosh. Those guys – the short answer is, we didn’t plan on keeping them past that first season of EVOLUTION. It’s just a testament to who they are as performers and people that are lovely to work with that really kept them employed all this time, and then, as a result of really enjoying where we were going with those characters, then it was like, ‘Okay, this is our world right now, how else are we going to examine a serial killer every which way?’ We talk about knowing them inside and out, and we’re going to really get a chance to do that.

“So, with the first two seasons [of EVOLUTION] being about that Gold Star case [a government experiment that produced a number of young serial killers], it really left a lot of other stories on the table, like the whole network that Voit had. What happened to those people? And because we were so focused on Gold Star – rightfully so, we needed to solve that – it allowed that third season to be like, ‘Oh, yeah, there’s this whole network of serial killers we still need to catch, but now the guy who was the leader of them doesn’t even remember being a bad guy.’ Well, that’s a problem, right?

“And so, for this season, we were dealing with a killer who was always working in the shadows and now he’s a household name. So, it was really that journey that excited us, for Zach especially, for us to see all the sides of an investigation of a killer, who normally, the B.A.U. would have walked away from by now but, as Tara Lewis says in the premiere, ‘You are a living resource, and we, like it or not, we need to communicate together.’ And so, that felt like something fresh and new for our team to do, again, not just for an episode, but for a whole season.

CRIMINAL MINDS: EVOLUTION – Season 2 and/or Season 17 | ©2024 Paramount+

“And RJ is so connected to Zach’s storyline, and he came in to us in an unexpected way, and had his unexpected journey with Garcia, and it felt like, ‘Do we let this guy come on the team when there’s been a relationship before?’ And we thought, ‘Well, once again, it’s a challenge, because we’ve never done that. We’ve never had any team members in a romance [with each other].’ And so, because Garcia was very clear, when that relationship ended, that she had borders and walls up, and now we’ve been able to explore what that is, to work with someone who you know intimately, and how that looks for the rest of the team, who also are aware of that relationship. So, again, just exploring things that we hadn’t been able to do in the broadcast version.”

Voit had previously so traumatized Rossi that Rossi had hallucinations of Voit talking to him. Rossi has recovered from this, but now Voit’s id is speaking to him in the guise of Rossi – and not necessarily the benevolent real Rossi we’ve come to know.

Did Mantegna ask the writers to do something to let him play an evil, if imaginary, version of Rossi?

Messer laughs. “It was definitely the flip side of what we had done when Rossi was seeing Voit. But it really was also born out of, Rossi doesn’t want to go visit Voit. He’s done. He doesn’t want to have anything to do with him. But Joe and Zach are so good together, they were like, ‘Okay, but if Rossi doesn’t want that, that means Joe and Zach aren’t going to be in scenes together. Unless, now it’s Voit’s turn to hear the angel or devil on his shoulder.’

“So, it was born out of, we love Joe and Zach together so much that it probably started there and, ‘How do we make that happen without betraying Rossi, who doesn’t want to visit with Voit?’ And then it was like, ‘What if we just did the flip of what we’d done before?’ So, it was really because those two guys are so good together.”

A lot of the CRIMINAL MINDS: EVOLUTION cast members have also directed series episodes. “I feel like Season 19 is probably the last season of that for a while, because we only have ten episodes [per season], and when we have a number of cast directing, then it has a ripple effect into all of the episodes, whether it’s story or releasing them for prep and shoot and post and all that. So, Season 20, we’re not doing that.

“Basically, all of the cast who had directed in the CBS version, Joe, Aisha, Adam, and A.J. had all raised their hands to direct in the streaming version, and it seemed like that would be fine, and it was, and they delivered incredible episodes. And because of that, Zach raised his hand and said, ‘I’ve shadowed before, but I’ve never had a chance to direct.’ And so, Zach got a shot as well.”

However, it’s difficult to surmount the logistical challenge of having an individual who, as a director, needs to plot out a shot list with a script at the same time that, as an actor, they’re needed on set, knowing their lines and blocking.

“It becomes a lot of moving parts to try to make that happen in a ten-episode order. Season 19 had Adam and Zach [directing]; the season before had Aisha, Joe, and A.J. So, yeah, we were trying to spread it out over a couple of seasons. They’re all talented filmmakers. Everybody’s been in front of the camera for so long that they certainly know best practices behind the camera, too.”

And what would Messer most like people to know about this season of CRIMINAL MINDS: EVOLUTION?

“I think that they’re going to be really interested in this continued journey that the B.A.U. is on, and of the new challenge when you’ve got a killer that everybody knows about, and they have fans. So, it’s not a great thing for investigators.”

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Article: Exclusive Interview: Executive producer and showrunner Erica Messer on Season 4 of CRIMINAL MINDS: EVOLUTION

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