‘Criminal Minds’ season 10 spoilers: Work begins on spin-off pilot

While there will be a new episode of “Criminal Minds” airing on CBS Wednesday night, there is a significant reason to look a little bit further down the road. After all, there is a spin-off pilot airing later this year, and we have a first-look photo of one of the actors arriving on the scene.

This image below was posted on Twitter by star Joe Mantegna, and it features himself alongside Gary Sinise. The former “CSI: NY” star is set to play on the lead on the new show, which revolves around a division of the FBI with a focus on international crime-solving. This team helps Americans living abroad deal with major crises; it is an ambitious concept, but also one that is not necessarily guaranteed to work.

The last time “Criminal Minds” had a spin-off was when they attempted to launch “Suspect Behavior.” While it did manage to get on the air, it was canceled at the end of just one season. The challenge here is creating a concept that viewers can buy into, and also devote time to watching in addition to the flagship show. You cannot guarantee that you are going to get any new viewers, so you really have to focus here first and foremost on getting your devoted fans to watch.

If nothing else, the presence of Sinise should be a benefit. This is a man who is very familiar to CBS fans already, so that should help to draw in viewers. Also, you have Anna Gunn trying her hand at another TV show and she has quite a bit of success even though not everyone loved the character of Skylar on “Breaking Bad” (we are not one of those people, we loved her).

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