Tom Ellis (Lucifer) has jumped from charming antihero to full-throttle network thriller lead, and his new cop series is already moving like a show that’s finding its lane fast. Built inside Dick Wolf’s broader FBI universe, the hook is pure binge fuel: a rule-bending CIA case officer is forced to work with a strict FBI agent on covert operations in New York, where every case is bigger than it first looks — terror cells, international plots, and the kind of geopolitics that turns procedural into pressure cooker.
The early chart story, as per FlixPatrol, is simple but clearly speaks that procedurals are loved in the US. The show was on the Paramount+ (Amazon Channels) Top 10 at #9 on February 25, then surged to #3 yesterday and holds #3 today as of February 27. That’s a quick climb that usually comes from strong sampling converting into steady episode-through. You also see spillover demand: it hit #6 on Amazon (U.S.) yesterday and is charting internationally as well. The show just landed at the #4 position on Neon TV in New Zealand today.
What’s driving the fast pickup for the Ellis’s show, titled CIA, is the odd-couple engine and franchise adjacency. Ellis plays the charismatic CIA operator Hart Hoxton, opposite Nick Gehlfuss as by-the-book FBI agent Bill Goodman, with Necar Zadegan and Natalee Linez rounding out the core team. Not to mention that there’s also crossover potential that keeps Wolf-universe viewers locked in.
Why Tom Ellis’s Fans Might Recognize More Faces Than They Expect
For those who haven’t followed Dick Wolf’s other shows, here’s the key: CIA isn’t built in isolation. It’s designed to sit inside a larger TV ecosystem where characters and cases can overlap, which means the show can pull in familiar agents, recurring villains, or shared mission storylines from other shows.
What this means is that fans might be jumping into CIA Season 1, for example, purely for Tom Ellis and the show’s core hook (CIA operator + FBI partner), with no prerequisite viewing. And if they end up liking the tone — case-of-the-week tension with bigger conspiracies, they can later simply branch out into the related shows in the same ecosystem, like FBI as well as the recently cancelled FBI: Most Wanted and FBI: International, which are built for shared-world crossovers and occasional character overlap.
CIA is available to stream on Paramount+. Stay tuned to Collider for more updates.
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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