I have known about this 2017 series for quite some time and did not have the chance to watch it until recently. I saw its promotion on cable TV few times and noticed that it starred one of the person whom I knew from the famous long running Criminal Minds TV series and I felt it would be an interesting action series. Well I'll go more into details now.
Brief Story Line
The series focus on a unit of LAPD's Special Weapon and Tactics (SWAT) led by Sergeant II Daniel Harrison aka Hondo (Shemar Moore - Criminal Minds, The Young and the Restless TV series etc) with his team that consisted of the new hot headed Officer III Jim Street (Alex Russel - Chronicle, Carrie 2003 version etc), the only female Officer III Chris Alonso (Lina Esco - Free the Nipple etc), Officer III+1 Dominique Luca (Kenny Johnson - The Shield TV series etc), Officer III Victor Tan (David Lim), and Sergeant Deacon Kay (Jay Harrington - Benched TV series etc) in dealing with matters that required their expertise.
The unit was working under the leadership of Captain Jessica Cortez (Stephanie Sigman - Annabelle: Creation, Narcos TV series etc). Aside from Hondo's unit, there was also another unit led by Sergeant II Jeff Mumford (Peter Onorati - Civil Wars TV series etc) who sometimes would be deployed either as support team or the lead team.
Each episode would show the various situations where SWAT would be called into action.
End of Brief Story Line
This series was exactly like I hoped it would be. It was fast paced, got some nicely done action sequence with few quite spectacular for a TV series, plus some drama and a bit of romance. The first season was having 22 episodes which took longer than my usual time to finish as I am already accustomed to watching 8-16 episodes per season series nowadays.
Good thing that the series has interesting continuity. Many years ago I used to watch various police procedural or action series like CSI, Criminal Minds, Hawaii Five-O and several others. But after a while I stopped watching as even though it has interesting premise but the continuity was not really felt. They did not have a major arc story line and the series felt more like a one-off case solving kind which after a while became endless and sadly boring. This series however, showed plenty of screen time for the SWAT members including the people surrounding them which made us felt more connections to them. Obviously some got more time than others like the lead character Shemar Moore.
Another thing that made me hooked with the series was because the dynamic of the team was very lively. We got to see the banter between the young Jimmy Street and Victor Tan, or the sometimes tension between Deacon and Hondo, the challenges faced by Chris as the only female in SWAT or Luca's difficulty as the third generation of SWAT and many more. There was also large portion given to the captain. Though there was some peculiarity where the character Mumford was put as part of the main cast despite having little role meanwhile Commander Hicks (Patrick St. Esprit) who almost appeared in every episode was being guest star. Funnily enough, when I checked the detail of the series, these two swapped their roles as series regular and guest star.
I also mentioned above that the series had some good quality action sequence which were done quite seriously. I noticed that during raids done by the SWAT members, there were things they did which seemed to be specific for SWAT unit. It also made me realize that SWAT's job was very dangerous but their main duty was to provide support when situation required them and it did not include investigation (there was only very few episodes where brief investigation was done, though not a clear cut type like in police procedural genre series). One of the executive producer in the series is Justin Lin, a name that is becoming quite equivalent to the Fast & Furious Franchise.
The cases in the first season were quite diverse. Of all the 22 episodes, there were some which I felt stood out more than the rest, like episodes 10, 11, 20 and the season finale that was awesome and leaving me with the desire to continue to second season soon. Btw, this series was a remake of the 1975 series of the same title. This would probably explain the 70s sense I felt when I heard the opening theme. Oh there was also a movie remake in 2003 starring Samuel L. Jackson as Hondo and Colin Farrell as Jimmy Street. So it could be considered as quite popular.
Overall, I felt that this series was pretty entertaining. It was kept interesting with the dynamic of the team members plus quite balanced screen time for each personnel making us felt more attached with the characters. With some good actions and bit of drama (though not overly dramatic and probably a bit standard), it made the series felt quite complete for me. The minor flaw (if you could call it that) for me personally was the 22 episodes per season which took a bit of adjustment for a series with no really major story arc in place. Anyway, this would be interesting for fans of action series which has the kind of qualities mentioned above. But if you prefer police procedural type, then this would not fit that category. The choice is certainly yours.
Mike's movie moments rating: 4 out of 5 stars
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