Fan favorite star of Criminal Minds, Matthew Gray Gubler (Criminal Minds, Alvin and The Chipmunks), is set to star in the new CBS crime series under the working title Einstein. According to Deadline, Gubler will lead the series and be an executive producer.
The CBS pilot will have the production team behind Monk, with creator Andy Breckman and director Randy Zisk. Einstein is based on a popular German series, and similar to Monk, will be a drama with comedic elements. Breckman has written the pilot for the series, and Zisk will direct. Alongside Gubler, acting as a producer on the project, Breckman will executive produce along with Tariq Jalil.
Deadline reports the plot of Einstein as follows, “In it, brilliant but directionless, the great grandson of Albert Einstein (Gubler) spends his days as a comfortably tenured professor until his bad boy antics land him in trouble with the law and he is pressed into service helping a local police detective solve her most puzzling cases…Gubler’s Lew Einstein is a popular professor at Princeton… when he actually shows up for class. Irreverent and misguided, Lew’s genius and famous name weighs heavily on him but using his gift to help solve homicides may– finally– offer his life some direction and purpose.”
Many fans will see similarities between Lew Einstein and Gubler’s iconic Criminal Minds character, Spencer Reid, as both are geniuses with multiple doctoral degrees. Fans are ecstatic to see Gubler back on their screens after the ending of the original Criminal Minds series. Gubler was one of the only cast members from the original series not to return for the Criminal Minds sequel series that debuted in 2022, much to fan’s dismay. However, since Criminal Minds: Evolution and Einstein are both being produced by CBS, the stars may align in scheduling so that Spencer Reid can make a way to come back to Criminal Minds.
Not much is known about when the series will debut; however, audiences everywhere are getting excited to see Gubler on their screen again.