S.W.A.T. (2017)

[Director Justin] Lin’s aesthetic palette may be admirably fresh for broadcast, but when it comes to the nuts and bolts of characterization, S.W.A.T. can’t help but feel as stale as the show it’s ostensibly modernizing. [3 Nov 2017, p.56]

It’s a pretty pedestrian procedural.

A show that at times awkwardly seeks to contemporize and contextualize the material while still offering basic thrills of the busting-down-doors variety.

The new S.W.A.T. has become something other than a cops-versus-bad-guys drama. Now it’s an hour spent in awe of its star, Shemar Moore.

Heavy-handed in both its law enforcement and dialogue.

S.W.A.T. had a chance to do something different, maybe even provocative. So far, the same old-same old.

Give them credit for trying a different take on cop shows, but S.W.A.T. simply falls flat in every conceivable way.

Although it tries to carve out its own space, the series can’t really make itself something more than a standard cop show. It's a lesser rehash of the 1970s TV series and 2003 film, despite an exceedingly appealing star.

Of course every character is a cardboard cutout of a human being. The job of the show is to solve difficult problems in an easily understood way for the masses who are otherwise cooking dinner or checking their email. Complexity and shades of gray just get in the way. It's hard for the fellas to take care of business if you muck up the lines between good and bad.

S.W.A.T. is the most vapid, rah-rah ridiculous kind of cop show imaginable—a superhero fantasy that takes place in a Los Angeles populated by mustache-twirling villains and gorgeous, perfect-in-spite-of-their-flaws cops.