A double dose of crime-fighting action is coming to CBS’ Monday nights in the 2026 TV schedule with the long-awaited arrival of CIA, replacing Watson after FBI Season 8. While not quite a spinoff as closely tied as FBI: Most Wanted and FBI: International were in their day, CIA’s Nick Gehlfuss and Tom Ellis are working in the same world as Missy Peregrym and Jeremy Sisto over on FBI. The Chicago Med alum opened up to CinemaBlend about playing the honest half of the show’s odd couple, and why the primetime pairing is perfect on Monday nights.
CIA follows the partnership of Special Agent Bill Goodman (Nick Gehlfuss) and CIA Agent Colin Glass (Tom Ellis) when the former is recruited to join a secret task force between their agencies, and their approaches could hardly be more different. Jeremy Sisto will even cross over to the new series following wedding bells ringing on FBI the hour before. Yes, FBI will start out the back-to-back block on Mondays at 9 p.m. ET, followed by CIA at 10 p.m. ET. (Both shows will be available streaming with a Paramount+ subscription.)
The new series will be Nick Gehlfuss’ first return to network TV after a guest stint on his old One Chicago stomping grounds in the fall, at which point he shared that he was “on cloud nine” filming CIA. Just ahead of the new show’s premiere, he weighed in on the “perfect” pairing with FBI, citing NBC's One Chicago elsewhere in the Dick Wolf TV universe as proof of what works:
I think it's perfect. It's what the One Chicago franchise does really well. It's two entities that work together in real life, so airing them back to back, even when we're not running the same storyline, it'll feel like we're all in the same world. Interestingly enough, though, [real-life] FBI and CIA really only started working together after 9/11, so they haven't worked together that long. And I think that's probably why they have their opinions. There's this rivalry between the two.
One Chicago Wednesdays have been mainstays for NBC ever since Chicago Fire, Chicago P.D., and Chicago Med started airing together in 2018. CBS took the same approach when three FBI shows were airing, and now CIA is getting the FBI lead-in.
As an actor who spent eight years on Chicago Med as an NBC series regular and accumulated nearly forty guest appearances between Fire and P.D. as Dr. Will Halstead, Gehlfuss certainly knows what he’s talking about. He went on:
You know, Jeremy Sisto has come on over and helped us with his presence, and I love him already. He's awesome, and his process is great as an actor. We have a wonderful relationship through our characters. That's causing a friendship outside of cameras, I guess, at the same time. But it's a secret mission that Bill and Jubal are actually on, and no one else really knows about this, which makes for a fantastic check in and updating sessions along the way.
With the FBI winter premiere wrapping just moments before the CIA series premiere picks up, viewers will certainly get some continuity between the shows with Jeremy Sisto as ASAC Jubal Valentine. While Bill and Colin are sure to be at the center of the action, the trailer gives some clues about the role Jubal will play in the premiere. Take a look:
After playing a doctor with a tendency to go rogue for the better part of a decade on Chicago Med, what is it like for Gehlfuss to play a strait-laced FBI agent whose last name is quite literally “Good man”? The actor shared what Bill brings to his side of the odd couple vs. Colin:
[Bill] would like to think [he brings] reliability, honesty, a moral compass, certainly a process that enforcing the law requires. But he's being thrown into a world he's never been a part of before and really goes against all of that. Some of that is necessary at times, some of it is not required ever. It becomes a debate, I guess. Should it be required, or shouldn't it? And that's, I think, going to be one of the wonderful parts about this series… I think it's gonna be very relevant and relatable to a lot of people. These two schools of thoughts and ways of being. It's the yin and yang of life, and this pairing of these two guys is really a brilliant concept.
It’s clear from just his comments that CIA isn’t going to just be FBI 2.0, which is more of an ensemble show with multiple partnerships in action. Still, with thirteen episodes in this first season, a lot could shift from the early dynamic once the two men (possibly) get used to each other. I do think it’s safe to say that Agent Bill Goodman isn’t a carbon copy of FBI: International’s Agent Wes Mitchell, who was played by Gehlfuss’ former on-screen brother, Jesse Lee Soffer.
Tune in to CBS on Monday, February 23 for the series premiere of CIA at 10 p.m. ET, pitting the Chicago Med alum against the devilish Lucifer vet in primetime for the first time. It will follow the Season 8 winter premiere of FBI. You can also stream the episodes the next day on Paramount+.
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