If you’re looking for something that explores the paranormal with the same earnestness of the early seasons of Supernatural, but the intensity of a modern crime thriller like Hannibal, then there’s no better procedural to jump into than the aptly titled Evil. Although the program originally aired on CBS, it moved to Paramount+ for its next three seasons, as the Catholic Church assessors from different backgrounds and convictions investigate potential hauntings, miracles, and possessions. Evil is one of the more inventive shows to air on network television in recent years.
‘Evil’ Is an Innovative Take on the Exploration of Miracles and Demonic Possession
What happens when you stick a true believer, a skeptic, and an agnostic looking for a better explanation all together? Often, as you’d expect, folks come to different conclusions — and that’s precisely what made Evil so creatively engaging. As skeptical forensic psychologist Kristen Bouchard (Katja Herbers) and atheist technical expert Ben Shakir (Aasif Mandvi) are paired up with priest-in-training David Acosta (Mike Colter), the trio are tossed into a web of conspiracies and strange phenomena that, on the surface, appear to be unexplainable. Of course, that’s the whole point. The assessors’ entire job is to ensure that whatever new case they are working is not something that needs to be dealt with by the church itself (such as an exorcism), and that’s where the conflict begins. What begins as an intelligent network procedural that finds new and creative ways to explain away the supernatural quickly turns into a streaming series completely enveloped in the demonic world.
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Collider Exclusive · Universe Personality Quiz Which Iconic Universe Do You Belong in the Most? Star Wars · Lord of the Rings · Harry Potter · Game of Thrones · Star Trek
Five legendary universes. Five completely different visions of what the world could be — or already was. One of them is the world your instincts, your values, and your particular way of existing were built for. Eight questions will tell you which one.
🚀Star Wars
💍Lord of the Rings
🧙Harry Potter
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👑Game of Thrones
🖖Star Trek
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01
What gives your life its deepest sense of meaning? Every universe is built around a different answer to this question.
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02
Which kind of world do you most want to inhabit? The environment shapes who you become. Choose carefully.
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03
How do you prefer your conflicts resolved? The shape of a world’s conflicts tells you everything about its soul.
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04
Who do you want beside you when things get difficult? Your ideal companions reveal the world you were made for.
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05
What is your relationship with power? How you seek, wield, or resist power is the map of who you are.
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06
How does your universe treat good and evil? A world’s moral architecture tells you more about it than any map.
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07
What role would you naturally fall into? Every universe has archetypes. Which one fits you without trying?
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08
What do you ultimately believe about the future? The answer to this is the clearest window into which universe already lives inside you.
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Your Universe Has Been Chosen You Belong In…
Your answers point to the iconic universe your values, your instincts, and your particular way of seeing the world were built for. This is where you would find your people — and your purpose.
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A Galaxy Far, Far Away
Star Wars
You believe in the cause — in the idea that freedom is worth fighting for even when the odds are impossible and the empire is vast.
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You are drawn to the moral clarity of a universe where hope itself is a form of resistance.
You’d find your people in the Rebellion — a ragtag coalition of true believers held together by conviction more than resources.
Star Wars is fundamentally a story about ordinary people choosing to matter in an extraordinary conflict — and that is exactly your kind of story.
The Force may or may not be with you. But the will to use it for something larger than yourself certainly is.
Middle-earth
Lord of the Rings
You understand, in the deepest part of yourself, that the journey matters as much as the destination — and that the world’s beauty is worth protecting even at great cost.
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Middle-earth is a world of ancient wonder, deep friendship, and a darkness that only retreats when enough small acts of courage accumulate.
You would thrive here because you value the fellowship more than the glory — the road more than the arrival.
Tolkien’s universe rewards patience, loyalty, and the willingness to carry something heavy across a very long distance.
Those are not burdens to you. They are simply how you move through the world.
The Wizarding World
Harry Potter
You believe that love, loyalty, and doing what’s right are not naive sentiments — they are the most powerful forces in any world, magical or otherwise.
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The Wizarding World is a place of wonder hidden in plain sight, where learning is transformative and the bonds you form at school follow you into every battle.
You would flourish here because you take both the magic and the friendships seriously — and you understand that one without the other is incomplete.
Harry Potter’s universe ultimately rewards those who choose to stand for something even when standing is terrifying.
That choice — made quietly, without guarantee — is something you understand completely.
Westeros · The Known World
Game of Thrones
You see the world clearly — its power structures, its hypocrisies, its brutal arithmetic — and you are not paralysed by that clarity. You use it.
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Westeros is a world that rewards intelligence, adaptability, and the willingness to understand that every alliance is also a negotiation.
You would survive here — possibly thrive here — because you don’t confuse the world as it is with the world as you’d like it to be.
Game of Thrones is a story about what happens when the idealists and the realists collide. You are sharp enough to know which one lasts longer.
Winter always comes. You are already prepared.
The United Federation of Planets
Star Trek
You believe the future is worth building — that curiosity, cooperation, and the expansion of understanding are not just ideals but the most practical path forward for any civilisation.
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Star Trek is a universe where the questions matter as much as the answers, and where encountering something utterly alien is cause for wonder rather than fear.
You would belong here because you are fundamentally optimistic about what intelligence and decency can achieve — while being honest about how hard that achievement is.
The Federation is the universe’s most ambitious thought experiment: what if we actually got better?
You don’t just hope that’s possible. You think it’s the only thing worth working toward.
For four seasons, Evil fought to find the balance between faith and reason, recognizing at times that these perspectives can often be more linked than one might expect. The more the series — created by Robert and Michelle King — leaned into the otherworldly, offering a glimpse at other perspectives, like that of Sister Andrea (played by the endlessly talented Andrea Martin, who deserves her own spin-off) and Kristen’s mother and four daughters, the more we’re hooked on the entire premise. And that’s not to mention how detailed and disturbing each new demon is from the next. This isn’t exactly the type of CBS-to-Paramount+ drama you’d expect from the folks behind The Good Wife and The Good Fight, but its ability to command one’s attention and consider all possibilities is undeniable.
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‘Evil’ Got More Outlandish The Longer It Aired — but That’s What Made It Work
Evil struck an interesting balance between critiquing and defending the Catholic Church, offering both perspectives through the eyes of its leading cast members. This is, of course, not to say that Evil is a series that promotes religion exactly, but more that it uses belief as a tool to funnel interesting conversations about the relationship between science and faith, fact and theory, material and spiritual. One can debate the effectiveness of each episode in this regard (and the show could sometimes be quite disturbing), but it never wavered in its ability to speak to the psychology behind those who have faith and those who don’t. There simply has never been another show quite like it.
Across all 50 episodes, Evil knew how to both mesmerize and terrify its audience. From the CBS-based first season that weaned us into this strange world to the truly out-of-the-box final season that, at times, almost felt like a different show, Evil rarely pulled its punches. It’s no wonder that the King of Horror himself, Stephen King, was a heavy proponent of the series, even calling for a fifth season after its cancellation. While the horror program ended on its own terms, there’s no doubt that it could have gone on for a while longer. For those who have yet to enter the bizarre world of Evil, a great episode to start with is “S is for Silence,” the Season 2 classic that many still consider among the show’s very best — and a perfect one to revisit for fans of the series.
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