PILOT REVIEW: S.W.A.T.

S.W.A.T.

Starring: Shemar Moore, Stephanie Sigman, Alex Russell, Lina Esco, Kenny Johnson, Peter Onorati, and Jay Harrington

Based on the series "S.W.A.T." Created & Developed by Robert Hamner and Rick Husky
Developed by Aaron Rahsaan Thomas and Shawn Ryan
Written by Aaron Rahsaan Thomas & Shawn Ryan, Directed by Justin Lin

THE PREMISE
S.W.A.T. is another reboot, there's always a few in the new crop of shows every year. This is based on the moderately successful 1970s series and 2003 film of the same name. While it is basically still a cop show centered o a SWAT team, the show has tried to make itself a little more relevant for 2017 by commenting quite on a bit on the relations between the police and the community as led by Sergeant Daniel Harrleson (Shemar Moore).

THE REVIEW
Criminal Minds was a guilty pleasure of mine for many years (though I only watch sporadically now). I never thought it was a great show and I never thought it was well acted, but I still enjoyed it. One of my favorites on that show, though, was Shemar Moore and the show has never been the same since his departure in Spring 2016. I didn't think he was an amazing actor but he was charismatic and at least believable. The same holds true for S.W.A.T. but there's just not enough here to even make it a guilty pleasure.

For starters, the show tries way too hard to be more important than a procedural cop show. It really is transparently trying hard to be a show about race within the police community. But there's something just way to "CBS procedural" about it for that to actually work. Many times I have commented that a show doesn't always have to be about something important or different. If it's done well, it can be a standard procedural and do a really good job at it. Sometimes shows like that can even surprisingly wade into hot button issues effectively (Blue Bloods does this from time to time to solid results). But this kind of show is a little bit more annoying because it's failing at trying to be important.

There are some good things besides Moore. The action scenes were solid and there were some nice visuals in general throughout the episode. But the the cast was saddled with dumb dialogue and typical procedural elements (Moore's relationship with a colleague was especially grating). Like so many shows this season, there wasn't anything horrible or terrible about it. It was just a very "meh" show from start to finish. And it also begs the question, was the TV show or movie really popular enough to warrant a reboot?

WILL I WATCH IT AGAIN?
Probably not. It's not offensively bad but I don't have time for average shows like this unless they're guilty pleasures and this won't be.