CIA - Season 1 (2026) TV Series Review: CBS and Dick Wolf's FBI Spinoff Delivers Comfort Food Procedural With One Compelling Partnership

CIA Season 1 is a ten-episode crime drama thriller that premiered on CBS on February 23, 2026, with new episodes airing weekly on Mondays and streaming the following day on Paramount+. The series was created by Dick Wolf and carries his distinctive procedural franchise stamp, developed originally by showrunner David Hudgins before significant behind-the-scenes turbulence saw Warren Leight step in and subsequently exit as well, with FBI showrunner Mike Weiss ultimately taking the helm. The lead ensemble is anchored by Tom Ellis as CIA case officer Colin Glass and Nick Gehlfuss as FBI Special Agent Bill Goodman, supported by Necar Zadegan as Deputy Chief of the CIA New York Station Nikki Reynard and Natalee Linez (Tell Me Lies) as CIA analyst Gina Gosian. Jeremy Sisto, Missy Peregrym, and Alana de la Garza cross over from the FBI mothership in recurring roles. The show arrives after a troubled pre-production process that included the departure of actress Michael Michele, a mid-development recast, and two showrunner changes that pushed the series from its original fall 2025 premiere to a midseason slot.

The premise is a direct evolution of Dick Wolf's CBS franchise territory: a CIA-FBI fusion cell operating out of New York, investigating international threats, domestic terrorist plots, and geopolitical conspiracies. Colin Glass, a British-raised American agent with a leather jacket and a talent for operating in the moral grey zone, requires an FBI liaison to conduct operations on U.S. soil. Bill Goodman, the by-the-book agent assigned to that liaison role, could not be more architecturally opposed to his new partner if he tried. CIA is the latest entry in a franchise that has already cancelled two FBI spinoffs, FBI: Most Wanted and FBI: International, which makes this debut both a creative and commercial gamble for CBS. Whether the show can distinguish itself from the franchise infrastructure that produced it, or whether it simply adds another identical wing to a building that is already very thoroughly mapped, is the central question that the first season sets out to answer.

Narrative Arc and Pacing: Familiar Beats, One Intriguing Thread

The pilot episode, which is all that was made available to most early observers, establishes the show's procedural architecture with the crisp efficiency that Wolf productions have refined over decades of network television. A directed-energy weapon is used in a theft targeting a New York office building; the two leads converge on the scene from opposing institutional perspectives; jurisdictional friction generates the episode's primary dramatic fuel; the case resolves in the final act with a twist that satisfies on television logic if not always on real-world plausibility. This is the formula, and CIA executes it without significant deviation or ambition to deviate. What distinguishes the pilot's narrative from pure franchise boilerplate is a thread planted in its final minutes: a mole inside the CIA New York Station, which Goodman is asked to identify. This ongoing conspiracy element positions CIA for the kind of season-long arc that the best Dick Wolf procedurals use to maintain viewer investment across case-of-the-week episodes, and its presence suggests the writers have a structural plan beyond simple monster-of-the-week plotting.

Based on the available pilot, the pacing is confident and well-controlled. Network procedurals live or die by their ability to establish and maintain rhythm, and CIA does not suffer from the overstuffed, expository first episodes that plague many franchise spinoffs. The case moves efficiently, the character dynamics are established economically if not subtly, and the episode lands in a satisfying position by the closing scene without pretending the work of building the show is complete. Whether the season can maintain this pacing discipline across ten episodes without the filler that characterizes the weakest entries in the FBI franchise is a question the limited available material cannot answer, but the pilot does not signal any obvious structural vulnerabilities beyond the genre's inherent tendency toward predictability.

Thematically, CIA occupies what is arguably the most conventional territory in Dick Wolf's creative universe. The show presents American intelligence operations in an uncritical heroic register, with the CIA positioned as a force for unambiguous good against geopolitical threats that are colorful rather than complex. A subplot involving a Venezuelan asset rescued by Colin raises geopolitical dimensions that the writing treats as background texture rather than serious ethical territory. This is a deliberate creative choice rather than an oversight: CIA is not attempting the morally textured examination of intelligence work that shows like The Americans or Slow Horses produce, and comparing it to those benchmarks misunderstands its ambitions. It is aiming for something closer to CSI: Miami with better tailoring, and by that standard, its thematic simplicity is a feature rather than a limitation. Viewers seeking geopolitical nuance will need to look elsewhere; viewers seeking an efficient, propulsive spy procedural will find the thematic register perfectly calibrated to their expectations.

Character Evolution and Performances: Ellis Commands the Screen, Gehlfuss Has Room to Grow

Tom Ellis (The Thursday Murder Club) is the undeniable engine of CIA, and the camera's evident pleasure in his presence is not misplaced. His Colin Glass is, on the surface, a character Ellis has played in recognizable variations before: roguish, charismatic, rules-optional, more emotionally complex than the leather jacket implies. The comparison to his Lucifer years is apt but ultimately too simple, because the pilot does contain small but deliberate signals that Glass is more consciously performing the unorthodox agent persona than simply inhabiting it, a distinction that, if developed across the season, could give Ellis genuine dramatic range to work with. He controls every scene he occupies with the ease of someone who has done this long enough to make it look effortless, and his charisma is the show's most reliable asset in its opening hour.

Nick Gehlfuss faces the structurally harder assignment. Bill Goodman is the character who must travel the further distance over the season, transforming from a man who thinks entirely in procedural categories into someone who can operate in the moral ambiguity that Glass inhabits as a default. In the pilot, Goodman is efficiently established rather than richly drawn, his by-the-book orientation communicated through every available shorthand including his literal surname. Gehlfuss is a competent and experienced procedural actor whose Chicago Med tenure demonstrated real range, and the material should eventually catch up to his capabilities. The question is whether the writers will give him the complexity the premise requires rather than simply letting Glass continue to be the interesting one while Goodman provides institutional friction.

Necar Zadegan's Nikki Reynard is a compelling authority figure in the limited material available, bringing a specific gravitas to scenes that could easily devolve into management exposition. Her addition as a recast replacement for the originally announced Michael Michele is seamless from a viewer perspective, and she gives Reynard an intelligence and authority that makes her seem like a character with her own inner life rather than simply a convenient plot mechanism. Natalee Linez's Gina Gosian is, in the pilot, primarily a function rather than a person: the analyst who delivers information when the narrative needs it. Whether she will be given more to do as the season progresses is the most urgent question the supporting cast raises, because the show's stated ambition to keep its ensemble lean creates both an opportunity and a responsibility to develop the few characters it does have fully.

Direction and Production Value: Polished Network Craft in Service of Genre Expectations

CIA is produced with the efficient, high-gloss polish that characterizes the best CBS procedural productions. New York is used as a backdrop with the knowing competence of a franchise that has been filming there for decades, the city's visual vocabulary deployed to signal both institutional authority and the genuine danger of the threats being investigated. The pilot's opening sequence, in which a directed-energy weapon silently disables an entire office building while the perpetrator watches from across the street, is staged with a cold efficiency that establishes the show's visual grammar: clean, composed, professional. This is not a show interested in visual experimentation or the kind of stylistic identity that distinguishes prestige drama from network procedural, and its direction does not pretend otherwise.

The action sequences in the pilot are functional rather than spectacular, competently staged without the ambition or budget of the streaming spy thrillers that CIA will inevitably be compared to by younger viewers. A motorcycle chase and a steam room information exchange provide the genre textures the premise requires, executed with the kind of smooth professionalism that never risks embarrassing the network but equally never threatens to produce something genuinely surprising. The production design gives Colin's world a slightly elevated aesthetic compared to the FBI's more institutional environments, with Reynard's CIA station suggesting resources and sophistication that the FBI bullpen does not. This visual differentiation between the two agencies is a sensible production choice that helps the show carve out its own identity within the franchise.

The casting of Tom Ellis was clearly made with the camera's love for him in mind, and that calculation is proven correct within the first ten minutes. He photographs with the kind of commanding ease that makes certain actors immediately legible as leads, and CIA's visual approach makes no effort to conceal how much it is leaning on that quality. Costume design does the character shorthand work with blunt efficiency: Colin's leather jacket and Goodman's salaryman suit communicate everything the exposition then confirms. This is not criticism so much as an acknowledgment of the genre's priorities. CIA is not trying to make the audience work for its visual information, and within the procedural compact it is operating under, that transparency is appropriate.

Soundscape and Atmosphere: Genre-Standard with Franchise DNA

CIA's sound design and score are firmly within the procedural genre's conventional register, competent and functional without aspiring to the kind of distinctive sonic identity that would set the show apart from its franchise siblings. The score serves the visual pacing rather than augmenting it, cuing emotional beats and tonal shifts with the efficiency that network drama demands. There is no opening credit sequence that defines the show's atmosphere in the way that distinguishes premium cable and streaming spy drama; instead the show establishes its tone through the pilot's cold open and relies on the accumulated grammar of the FBI franchise to communicate what kind of show this is before it has earned that shorthand on its own terms.

The sound design in the action sequences is appropriately immersive without being showy, the directed-energy weapon's silent devastation in the opening sequence handled with effective restraint that makes it feel more genuinely threatening than louder approaches would have. The show's overall sonic atmosphere reflects its visual philosophy: clean, authoritative, professional, designed to deliver genre satisfaction efficiently rather than to create a distinctive viewing experience. For the audience CIA is designed to serve, this is exactly the right approach. For viewers who came seeking the sonic identity of something like The Americans or Slow Horses, there is nothing here that will persuade them to revise their expectations.

CIA Season 1 Teaser (2026) TV Series

Strengths and Weaknesses

What Works:

• Tom Ellis is a naturally commanding screen presence whose Colin Glass is the show's most reliable asset, deploying charisma with practiced ease while leaving room for the character's emotional complexity to develop across the season.
• The Ellis and Gehlfuss chemistry is the show's most promising element, their oppositional dynamic generating genuine dramatic friction that the pilot earns rather than simply announces.
• The mole-inside-the-station subplot planted in the pilot's final scene provides a season-long structural hook that distinguishes CIA from pure case-of-the-week procedural and gives long-term viewers a reason to stay engaged.
• Necar Zadegan's Nikki Reynard brings authority and intelligence to her role, making her a compelling presence in scenes that lesser casting would reduce to management exposition.
• The show's lean ensemble, built around four primary characters rather than a sprawling FBI-style bullpen, creates space for genuine character development if the writers commit to using it.
• The pilot's pacing is confident and well-controlled, establishing the format without overstuffing or over-explaining, a common pitfall of franchise spinoffs.
• The action sequences in the pilot, including an undercover steam room exchange and a motorcycle sequence, are staged competently within their genre parameters.

What Does Not Work:

• The buddy-cop premise is deployed without meaningful variation from genre convention, with both characters defined by shorthand so obvious that even their names carry the weight of explanation: a Goodman who believes in the Constitution and a Glass who sees through rules.
• Bill Goodman is significantly underdeveloped in the pilot, functioning primarily as an institutional obstacle to Colin's methods rather than as a character with genuine interiority, which places the entire dramatic weight on Ellis.
• The show's uncritical positioning of CIA operatives as unambiguous heroes, without engaging with any of the agency's documented historical or contemporary complexities, feels dated in the current political moment.
• Natalee Linez's Gina Gosian is reduced almost entirely to an information-delivery function in the pilot, a waste of a character who belongs to the show's lean ensemble and should therefore receive meaningful development.
• The pilot case feels simultaneously overly complicated in its exposition and undercooked in its resolution, the directed-energy weapon plot requiring considerable hand-waving to reach its conclusion.
• The troubled production history, which included two showrunner changes and a significant recast, is legible in the pilot's occasionally uncertain tone and the sense that the writers are still calibrating what kind of show this actually wants to be.
• The show's place in an already crowded CBS procedural schedule risks making it invisible to the very audience it needs to attract, distinguishable from its FBI franchise siblings primarily by its slightly elevated spy-genre aesthetics rather than genuinely different storytelling.

Final Verdict: Tom Ellis Is the Reason to Watch, Not the Show Around Him

Rating: 5/10 Stars

CIA is exactly what it advertises itself as: a Dick Wolf procedural operating within the established parameters of the CBS franchise, offering the reliable genre satisfactions of an odd-couple partnership, weekly case resolutions, and the comfortable assurance that the good guys will win. By those metrics, it is a functional and occasionally engaging debut. What it is not, at least not yet, is a show with a distinctive identity of its own, something that sets it apart from FBI in the way that, say, NCIS once distinguished itself from its predecessor procedurals by building an ensemble with genuine personality. The show's best elements, Ellis's performance and the Ellis-Gehlfuss dynamic, are promising enough to justify continued viewing, but they are resting on a foundation that the writers will need to develop considerably if CIA is to avoid the fate of its two cancelled franchise predecessors.

The audience most likely to be satisfied by CIA Season 1 is the core CBS procedural viewership that has sustained the FBI franchise for eight seasons, for whom the show's format familiarity is a feature rather than a drawback. Tom Ellis fans who followed him from Lucifer will find enough of what made that character compelling transferred into Colin Glass to make the transition worth their time. Viewers who value the reliable comfort of a well-executed case-of-the-week format and do not require their spy drama to engage seriously with geopolitics will find CIA a perfectly agreeable Monday night companion. The mole subplot and the ongoing dynamic between the leads give the season genuine reasons to stay engaged beyond individual episodes.

Those most likely to find CIA frustrating are viewers who came hoping for a spy thriller with moral complexity, political nuance, or visual ambition. Audiences who arrived expecting the show's CIA setting to prompt genuine engagement with the agency's historical or contemporary role in American political life will find the show's heroic framing actively irritating. Anyone fatigued by the FBI franchise's formula, or who found the cancellations of FBI: Most Wanted and FBI: International a reasonable editorial decision rather than a loss, will find little here to change their assessment of the brand. CIA's future depends on whether the writers can develop Goodman beyond his pilot limitations, give Gosian and Reynard the material their casting deserves, and build a season-long narrative around the mole subplot that justifies the investment. The pilot contains enough evidence of potential to make that possibility credible. Whether the writers seized it remains to be seen.

Watch or Pass: STREAM IT (for FBI fans and Tom Ellis devotees only)

Airs Mondays on CBS | Streams next day on Paramount+ | 10 Episodes | February 23, 2026 | Genre: Action, Crime, Drama, Thriller