SWAT star Shemar Moore reacts to the show unexpectedly being renewed for season 8. The 2017 action series, which follows Los Angeles Police Department Sergeant Daniel "Hondo" Harrelson (Moore) and his unit, has now surprisingly twice survived cancellation. SWAT season 7 was not originally planned to happen, only for the decision to be reversed. More recently, with the series finale just weeks away, CBS shifted course and announced that the show would return for an eighth installment.
In an interview with TV Insider, Moore talked about the surprising renewal of SWAT season 8. The Criminal Minds alum discusses preparing himself for the idea that his time as Hondo would soon be over, reflecting on how “it’s kind of a miracle” that the CBS series will return. In the quote below, Moore also shared how the upcoming season 7 finale works as a farewell without needing to be changed:
We won this fight. Let’s go out swinging. Let’s just make 13 incredible episodes. So if it is over, we can feel proud of what we’ve accomplished, but if we do it so well and we just keep that fight alive, maybe at the end of this, we can give them something to think about. I’m super, super geeked. I’m so excited, so proud, humbled, and I’m still pinching myself because it’s kind of a miracle. It’s business, and you can’t take it personal, but sometimes you do a little bit because you’re so passionate about something. What’s crazy is we’ve had to change nothing—absolutely nothing. We wrote this show to where it could be a farewell goodbye. When you get up to the finale, you’ll see when you watch it, you’ll go, oh, this was their way of saying goodbye. But it was also our way of saying we could still keep going. We said, this will either be our goodbye or this will be our new beginning.
Why SWAT's Cancellation Was Reversed (Twice)
SWAT Continues To Deliver Strong Ratings
Despite the show's strong ratings, the key issue that led to the first cancellation of SWAT is that the action drama is a co-production between CBS and Sony at a time when networks are favoring complete ownership of their properties. According to reporting, Katherine Pope (the head of Sony TV) called CBS and co-producers at CBS Studios to explain that Sony could not reduce its licensing fee. This meant that CBS would have to increase the payment to renew SWAT for season 7. As networks also want to cut costs, this wasn't a favorable option for CBS.
CBS later returned with an offer to increase its licensing fee, in exchange for a shorter 13-episode season, but Sony declined the offer. But per the reporting, after the cancellation was heavily criticized on social media, what ultimately helped to bring back SWAT for season 7 was that series creator Shawn Ryan reportedly did not know about Sony's offer. Ryan, a veteran of TV shows who created The Night Agent, agreed to the reduced episode count and finding ways to work with a relatively tightened budget. This agreement led to the show getting uncancelled and brought back for season 7.
SWAT season 8 is once again the result of negotiations that had been ongoing for weeks before the official announcement. Although specific details about the negotiations are unknown, the push to keep the Shemar Moore-led series ongoing is heavily impacted by the ratings it garners. The CBS drama brings in more than 8 million viewers an episode when taking viewership over 35 days into account, which represents an 11% increase from the previous year. It also performs well outside the U.S., providing international sales for Sony, and is a reliable performer on streaming. The show's success, and the audience support, likely incentivized the co-producers to find a solution.
Source: TV Insider
