CBS Renews ‘Evil’ for Season 2

Just a month after its premiere and after airing a total of just four episodes, CBS has officially renewed Evil for a second season, the network announced Tuesday. The renewal was made alongside full-season orders of fellow freshmen series All Rise, Carol’s Second Act, The Unicorn, and Bob ♥ Abishola.

“These terrific new series have attracted a passionate base of viewers and consistent ratings while delivering entertaining, inclusive and relevant storytelling every week,” BS Entertainment President Kelly Kahl in a statement. “They’re off to strong starts and are still being discovered on the many catch-up and playback options available to our viewers today. We’re proud of this freshman class and excited about their potential to tell more great stories and further expand their audiences.”

Starring Mike Colter (Luke Cage) and Katja Herbers (Westworld), Evil follows a orensic psychologist who teams up with a priest-in-training and a skeptical contractor to investigate the Church’s backlog mysterious supernatural phenomena such as supposed miracles, demonic possessions, and hauntings.

From The Good Wife creators Robert and Michelle King, the series premiered its 13-episode first season on the network in late September, drawing praise from not just fans, but also critics. Averaging 7.1 million viewers each week, Evil currently has an 82 percent audience score on Rotten Tomatoes and is rated 87 percent fresh among critics.

“Evil already succeeds, though, as a relentlessly clever mash-up procedural, merging psychological medical mystery with techno-crime and spiritual struggle. Its paranoia is far-reaching and very bleak,” Darren Franich wrote for Entertainment Weekly. “You quickly realize that every piece of technology on screen could be turned against our heroes: smartphones, virtual assistants, the air itself stuffed with invasive Wi-Fi. There’s a name for the place where demons can attack you from every direction for no reason, and it’s not ‘heaven.’”

“Evil is the best new broadcast show of the season by a considerable margin, and it will be very fun to watch it settle into itself and play with its form and tone even more, the way The Good Wife did,” TV Guide‘s Liam Matthews wrote.

Meanwhile, Matt Fowler wrote for IGN that Evil’s “existing ingredients work well, and the fact that the series could be just about anything moving forward creates an awesome air of promise.”

Evil airs Thursdays at 10 p.m. ET on CBS. The series is set to wrap up its freshmen season on Jan. 30, 2020, with Season 2 expected to arrive in the 2020-21 TV season.