Pilot Review: The Equalizer

 

The Equalizer (Sundays at 8:00pm on CBS)

It's easy to understand why CBS ordered The Equalizer, a remake of its 1980s series and the subsequent film series starring Denzel Washington, without the show ever having filmed a moment of footage. It's in their procedural wheelhouse; it comes from the creator of Castle, which ran on ABC for nearly a decade; and the cast features a true star in Queen Latifah, surrounded with a host of notable supporting players. Honestly, it's a no-brainer; pandemic or not, The Equalizer was never going to slip through CBS's fingers.

And that can make for a sure bet in terms of audience, but it doesn't always make for a winning series, creatively.

What was likely new and exciting in 1984 isn't either in 2021, but in this current moment of global tragedy and anxiety, that's okay. The Equalizer's familiar plot points and action-film style can be comforting. We follow Latifah's Robyn McCall, a former intelligence operative who's retired to raise her teenage daughter. She hasn't completely tapped out of the life, though, and a few minutes into the pilot, she's exchanging secret notes with ex-CIA director William Bishop (Chris Noth) at the Wonder Wheel. There, she saves a girl on the run from the cops from being raped by a shady counterfeiter. Sensing that she can do some good, Robyn works to clear the girl's name and is soon back in touch with fellow former operatives Melody (Liza Lapira, NCIS, Unbelievable), a sniper, and Harry (Adam Goldberg, The Hebrew Hammer), a hacker. They hunt bad guys and save the day and yada yada you know the rest.

It's a basic premise. It's a basic episode. With any lesser pedigree behind it, The Equalizer wouldn't stand out in the slightest. But fortunately for CBS, Queen Latifah is here, and when you have someone of that caliber and wattage leading your series (and helping steer the ship as a producer), you can bet that the quality will automatically be elevated. And that is absolutely the case in the pilot. Latifah is assured as Robyn, tough when she's out trapping villains and kicking ass but warm when she's giving her Black, just-arrested daughter The Talk (and no, I don't mean the birds and the bees). It's a great performance by broadcast television standards. And with a star of Latifah's magnitude, the rest of the production must match her, and for the most part, it does. The action sequences are genuinely thrilling, especially the first fist fight (which, visually, reminded me of the 2014 film's quick-cut, shoot-em-up style). And the overall production value, from veteran director Liz Friedlander's angles and camera movements to special effects that look like they cost more than an entire season of some reality shows, match the cinematic quality you'd expect from a show lead by a big star. From that perspective, The Equalizer's pilot is never boring or second-rate.

Where those elements come into play are in the moments where you can't help but remember you're watching yet another CBS police procedural. It may be led by a woman, a Black woman at that, but this is still a cop show with a formulaic structure and characters that, while played by wonderful actors, are like any character on any NCIS or CSI iteration. Queen Latifah, Chris Noth, Liza Lapira, and Adam Golberg aside, this is a show about a person who takes down criminals with the help of some friends. You don't get more generic than that. (It's possibly why the original series was a middling ratings performer that many don't know even existed; if you're under 40 and familiar with the the title, it's almost certainly because of Denzel Washington and not Edward Woodward.) In that respect, The Equalizer fits comfortably into the CBS schedule of comfort food and background noise.

Depending upon how such shows make you feel, these formulaic elements can be a help or a hindrance. Creators Andrew W. Marlowe and Terri Edda Miller wrote a script that, while often quippy and never slow, could have easily been an episode of Castle or many, many other shows. In terms of audience, that means you can drop in and out of The Equalier with relative ease. Miss a week? Oh, well, it doesn't really matter. You know what you missed. But in terms of extended interest, it's a structure that has proven unpopular with younger and binge-minded viewers. Who wants to binge thirteen or more episodes of a show when they all have the same basic outline? It's a format that can be viewed as blissfully uncomplicated or detrimentally simplistic.

All of this is to say, if you're here for Queen Latifah and/or her able and exciting supporting cast, The Equalizer will satisfy. But if you're here for something thrilling or exciting, a twist on the traditional procedural, The Equalizer disappoints. Despite its attempts at being socially conscious, the show, itself, doesn't rise above its old-fashioned trappings.