continues to be a large presence in television with its . Its most recent season took major inspiration from a single question that created a frightening scenario.

How the pandemic helped resurrect ‘Criminal Minds’

as most fans knew it reached its conclusion on February 19, 2020. It ended its run with 10 episodes, which had been one of the least number of episodes the show aired since its inception.

Ironically, the popular police procedural would end after Covid-19 became a massive threat to the world. What fans perhaps didn’t predict was how much the pandemic .

Series showrunner Erica Messer confided to that it wasn’t too long after ended that she was asked to bring the show back.

“Late summer of 2020 is when I got the call asking if I’d want to do another version of I didn’t want to do another version, like a spinoff version, but I would do it if we could bring it back with our cast.

Then about a year later they were able to get deals going and then I’d say by January of 2022 it felt like all the deals were going to happen,” she said.

But with the series going in a new and darker direction, Messer felt changing its title to would be appropriate. The show took place after the pandemic, and saw some familiar cast members hunting down a new group of serial killers dubbed the UnSub.

What helped spark the idea was a frightening question that Messer randomly asked herself.

“That’s my paranoid brain in overdrive thinking, ‘What are serial killers doing during the pandemic?’ Why did I have that thought? I have no idea. But then I thought, ‘what if they’re talking to one another? What if they’re giving pointers?’ That’s what I pitched to Paramount and they said, ‘What’s wrong with you? And yes, please do that,’” Messer said.