‘Criminal Minds’ season 11 spoilers: What is the current episode order?

Let’s be honest here: We are still far from “Criminal Minds” season 11 coming on the air, so there is still plenty of time for things to change. With that being said, what we’re hearing now is that the CBS series may have its shortest overall episode order in some time.

According to a new report from SpoilerTV, the series is going to be running for just 22 episodes, which would be its shortest overall episode order since it just had 20 installments back during the 2007-08 season, which was impacted heavily by the Hollywood Writers Strike. Why the shorter order tentatively? It’s hard to say, but we would chalk some of it up perhaps to everything from the show’s cost to the long-tenured actors wanting to do some new things to maybe even star AJ Cook’s pregnancy, and the show wanting to make sure that she has some time away. We thought for a time that the series was going to have to worry about writing around both Cook and Jennifer Love Hewitt, but the latter chose to leave the show outright after just a single episode.

“Criminal Minds” season 11 has the luxury of telling a variety of different interesting stories, and given that the “Beyond Borders” spin-off has also been officially greenlit, maybe there will be something resembling a crossover or two at some point along the way. Granted, you do have to remember here that this is still a spin-off in transition, given that they have already lost Anna Gunn from the cast.

As for when season 11 premieres, you can anticipate it going back on the air come Wednesday, September 30. It will be a week later than the rest of the fall season (or at least the part CBS is launching at first) thanks to the “Big Brother 17” finale.

You can read some other news right now when it comes to “Criminal Minds” over at the link here. Want to get even more great scoop via email? Then just sign up for our official CarterMatt Newsletter. (Photo: CBS.)