They really did cut it close in terms of this contract signing as shooting for season 7 of Criminal Minds begins in two weeks. As you can imagine the writers have been having a great deal of trouble breaking stories for these early episodes of season 7 as they were unsure whether Thomas Gibson would be back at all. Thankfully he will be, but it will be interesting to see how this will shape the start of the season, it is likely that they had alternative plots prepared if he was not to return or the opening episodes might be Hotch light.
The CBS executives clearly think that Thomas Gibson is vital to the cast as the deal that he brokered is pretty sweet, it is for 2 years and is worth mid-to-high seven figures with a signing bonus that has doubled his previous salary. After the mess that has been caused by previous cast failings with Brewster and Cook it is understandable why CBS have decided that Gibson is worth this much. There were already rumblings and petitions being drawn up by Criminal Minds fans if Gibson was to leave and many fans had commented that if he did leave then they would possibly stop watching the show.
One person who should always be asked his opinion on these matters is Criminal Minds co-star Joe Mantegna (David Rossi) who was optimistic that Brewster would return full time to the cast and when he was recently asked by TVLine whether he thought that the Gibson situation would have a happy ending he said: "I feel confident about it… that they’ll work it out. It’ll all be what it’ll be."
So it's official, the cast group shot for season 7 will look like the photograph above (with some different haircuts/costumes) and I'm sure that this is the news that fans of this show have been hoping for. Let's hope that next year there will be no contract issues/bad cast shake ups and that the only drama will be on screen and not off.
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