Ground has been laid for an unexpected collision of fanbases with the announcement that Heated Rivalry sensation Connor Storrie has been cast in the upcoming season of the police procedural Criminal Minds: Evolution, which unveiled season 19’s guest stars and release date on Tuesday.
Although Paramount+, which revived CBS’ long-running Criminal Minds series in 2022, didn’t reveal details about Storrie’s character, including which episode he would appear in, our guess is that there will be a group of viewers tuning into the premiere on May 28 just because he's on the cast list. And more than likely, many of them will be encountering the series, which follows a group of elite FBI criminal profilers who specialize in tracking down serial killers, for the first time.
While there are a number of network procedurals that have attracted LGBTQ+ viewers over the years — including Law & Order, which has a long-standing lesbian viewership thanks in no small part to Mariska Hargitay, and Ryan Murphy’s more recent first-responder series, 9-1-1 — Criminal Minds has historically inspired a quieter, fandom-driven queer following.
Perhaps most importantly, Criminal Minds is exactly the type of network crime episodic that courts chiseled-faced stars looking to attract more eyes for one reason or another. In its original iteration, the show guest-starred the likes of a young Evan Peters, James Van Der Beek, and Finn Wittrock, beloved actors like Sterling K. Brown and Michelle Trachtenberg, and its fair share of female stunners, including Bellamy Young. It’s never featured someone quite as provocative as Storrie, whose gorgeous visage is accompanied by a lusty queer fanbase ready to consume just about any type of media the often-shirtless actor appears in.
The show – which has a central cast led by Joe Mantegna, A.J. Cook, Kirsten Vangsness, Aisha Tyler, Zach Gilford, and RJ Hatanaka — also isn’t new to propping up queer actors and storylines. Vangsness has long been open about her sexuality, and last season, Criminal Minds featured an engagement between Tyler’s Dr. Tara Lewis, a recurring character from the original series, and out actress Nicole Pacent’s brand-new Rebecca Wilson, a lawyer who has otherwise been at odds with the bureau. And there’s nothing more LGBTQ+ audiences like to see than a dose of positive representation, especially in a romantic plotline.
“In the show's 18-season run, my character, Rebecca Wilson, is the first recurring LGBTQ+ character who is neither victim, nor villain," Pacent, speaking on behalf of herself as well as the show's queer viewership, told Out in an exclusive statement following the Criminal Minds episode featuring the engagement.
"Despite the extraordinary personal and professional circumstances they find themselves in as colleagues at the FBI, Tara and Rebecca so clearly love, respect, and fight for each other, and their chosen family so clearly loves, respects, and fights for them right from the jump,” she said. “The result, I have found, is what I have been fighting for all these years: Queer people and queer love normalized for a mainstream audience, and written in a way that makes our community feel seen, supported, and included in shows that mean so much to them.”
With good looks, heartwarming vibes, and a binge-worthy backlog of episodes ready to go, Criminal Minds may just be lucky enough to become a regular weekday watch for a new, very powerful group of TV fans.
