Although it took a while — and a few showrunners — to get it off the ground, the latest FBI spin-off has been a rousing success for CBS so far. 8.4 million viewers tuned into the premiere of CIA during its first week across television and streaming, according to Nielsen. It's nothing short of a relief and another feather in the cap of Dick Wolf, given the journey it took to get here. Beyond losing both David Hudgins and Warren Leight at the helm, the procedural also endured a slow casting process before finally finding its leads, and it lost original star Michael Michele not long after filming began. Add in the departure of executive producer Eriq La Salle, and the diagnosis initially seemed grim, especially after it was delayed from the fall to February.
Still, showrunner Mike Weiss helped rally the series and create what's now poised to be an FBI universe mainstay. The network has now officially rewarded CIA with an early Season 2 renewal after just five episodes. FBI Special Agent Bill Goodman (Nick Gehlfuss) and CIA Agent Colin Glass (Tom Ellis) will be back and working together again for the 2026-27 television season in what marks CBS' second quick renewal of one of its freshman series following the Yellowstone spin-off Marshals. Mayor of Kingstown star Necar Zadegan and Tell Me Lies alum Natalee Linez also star.
CIA primarily follows Bill, who's brought into a highly secretive new FBI and CIA joint task force and paired with Colin, who's just about his polar opposite. While Bill was always taught to do things by the book, Colin is a loose cannon who isn't afraid to bend the rules to get results. With their vastly different skill sets and approaches to the job, though, they make for a surprisingly perfect team. Season 1 has seen Bill learn the ropes of this murky world the CIA operates in throughout New York, uncovering terrorist cells, international plots, and more from the cover of darkness. Their task is always to keep the country safe, all without anyone ever knowing what exactly they did to do so.
'CIA' Is About to Take on a Deadly New Case
It's far too early to know what Season 2 will bring, but there's still plenty to look forward to with the show's inaugural run. Tonight's episode, "Deep Cover," will see Bill and Colin assigned to a case involving a cyber engineer who was killed in a targeted attack alongside her family. They're thrust into a race against time to find and bring down the group responsible before they can harm anyone else. Looking ahead, expect more crossovers from the flagship series as the season goes on, too. FBI's Jeremy Sisto has already appeared in the premiere, but both Missy Peregrym and Alana de la Garza are also lined up for guest appearances in a two-way event that will also send Zadegan to their New York offices.
CIA airs Mondays at 10 p.m. on CBS and Paramount+. Stay tuned here at Collider for more following its Season 2 renewal.
CIA Season 2's Fate Officially Decided By CBS After Rocky Season 1 Production
The fate of CBS' new FBI spinoff series, CIA, has now been decided.
CBS confirmed that CIA has officially been renewed for season 2, following impressive viewership numbers from its series premiere. According to Paramount, the premiere episode saw 8.4 million multiplatform viewers via broadcast and streaming within the first seven days of its release.
Ratings for the first three episodes of the series showed a 39% improvement on Monday at 10 p.m. compared to the same timeslot in fall 2025.
Behind the scenes, though, CIA has had a rocky production. FBI: Most Wanted showrunner David Hudgins was initially in charge of the series, but Warren Leight later replaced him. That wasn't the end of the turnover, though, as he eventually departed, along with executive producer Eriq La Salle. Mike Weiss, who was the showrunner on the original FBI series, was hired as the CIA showrunner.
All of this turmoil, plus Michael Michele's departure from the cast, caused production delays, and CBS decided to give CIA a mid-season 2026 premiere after previously announcing it would debut in fall 2025.
CIA stars Tom Ellis and Nick Gehlfuss as CIA Agent Colin Glass and FBI Agent Bill Goodman, respectively, who are tasked with working together on a secretive joint CIA/FBI task force. The two agents couldn't be more different, with the latter a rule-follower and the former more mischievous in nature.
While on the job together, Glass and Goodman stay in the shadows as they solve domestic and international crimes away from the eyes of the public.
Before CIA, Ellis was best known for his role as Lucifer Morningstar on the Fox/Netflix drama Lucifer, while Gehlfuss has starred in The Newsroom, Shameless, and Chicago Med (another Dick Wolf-created series).
Their CIA co-stars include Necar Zadegan and Natalee Linez. Zadegan, who plays Nikki Reynard, will guest star in the March 30 episode of FBI season 8, in which the Deputy Chief of Station is called in to help following a double homicide. The episode will mark Maggie Bell's return to the team after suffering a major loss.
Wolf created the hugely popular Law & Order and One Chicago franchises on NBC, and then went on to create the FBI crime procedural franchise for CBS. The first FBI series debuted in 2018 with star Missy Peregrym and is currently airing its eighth season.
Two years later, the first spinoff, FBI: Most Wanted, launched and aired for six seasons. FBI: International followed in its footsteps and aired for four seasons.
CIA, which currently has a 63% critic score and 51% audience score on Rotten Tomatoes, marks the third FBI spinoff, with Wolf, Weiss, Ken Girotti, Paul Cabbad, Nicole Perlman, David Chasteen, Anastasia Puglisi, and Peter Jankowski serving as executive producers.
CIA airs Mondays at 10 p.m. EDT on CBS.
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