Paramount Amends 'The Agency's Title to Include 'Central Intelligence'

When Paramount+ stole MobLand out from under Showtime less than a month before the series premiered, it probably wasn't as shocking as it felt. After all, Showtime is a legacy pay-cable channel, and Paramount+ is a struggling streaming service that will likely be first on the chopping block or merger table as soon as the pending Paramount+/Skydance acquisition closes in mid-2025. One of these needs to be shored up before that happens, and robbing Showtime to program Paramount is an easy option. Hence, hit show The Agency's sudden switch from Showtime to Paramount+ for Season 2, and its eyebrow-raising (and hilarious) title alteration.

Critics weren't impressed with The Agency's first season. (Well, our critic was, but only in how a cast this good could be made so dull.) However, the cast was enough to get viewers in the door, and enough of them stuck with it that the series was commissioned for a second season. But now Paramount+ is hedging its bets that more viewers can be convinced to tune in to the series by implying it's somehow connected to the two extremely popular series it receives from its sister broadcast network, CBS: CSI and FBI, but renaming it The Agency: Central Intelligence.

FBI's newest spin-off, FBI: CIA, may be hilarious to anyone who knows anything about how the bureaus work, but it's also bound to be a massive hit when it arrives on CBS and Paramount+ in late 2025. Adding "Central Intelligence" to The Agency will mean viewers will automatically group the series in with the hit procedural. Moreover, Paramount's marketing is notably using "Agency: CI" as the series' designated nickname, and no one would be shocked if viewers mentally add an "S" in there and think it's the newest variation on the long-running Crime Scene Investigation franchise.