CBS clearly has high hopes for the reboot of “The Equalizer,” giving it a high-profile premiere after Super Bowl 2021 – TV’s most coveted timeslot.
That gives the series, starring Queen Latifah, a huge one-time audience that he will never approach again. CBS knows this, of course, but is confident that “The Equalizer” will attract a loyal core audience sufficient in today’s saturated TV landscape.
That remains to be seen, but Sunday night’s premiere gave us a pleasingly predictable drama in that kind of primetime formal network fashion. There’s nothing new here, at least not yet, but “The Equalizer” checks all the boxes, is well-acted with an appealing cast and has a strong lead character – which should be enough to ensure a decent shelf life.
The series reimagines the 1980s CBS series starring Edward Woodward and the 2014 Denzel Washington movie, starring Latifah as Robyn McCall, who has left the CIA after a great career that caught the bad guys . (Things going wrong in Venezuela are alluded to.) She got divorced and moved back to New York City, where her 15-year-old daughter Delilah (Laya DeLeon Hayes) lives with Robyn’s aunt Vi (Lorraine Toussaint), who cares for her. the teenager during her mother’s frequent (and prolonged) absence. This is not fully explained in the opener – nor are there several other contextual storylines – but I expect we’ll learn more about Robyn’s relationship with Delilah and with Aunt Vi as the series progresses. (Robyn’s cover story is that she has worked for a nonprofit for all these years.)
“The Equalizer” begins arrestingly by shooting a lawyer in a dark alleyway, an innocent young woman accused of gangland-style murder. That leads Robyn, who has officially retired, and her team of sidekicks – bearded (of course), iconoclastic computer hacker Harry Keshegian (Adam Goldberg) and Melody Bayani (Liza Lapira) – to a sleazy billionaire entrepreneur.
“You think you can buy and sell all over the world!” Robyn barks at him, a predictable line that’s not exactly Shakespeare, but hey, it makes its point. She then uses her crazy skills to solve the case and she’s a tough cookie, with an ingenious ability to get around every possible roadblock, complemented by her blasts of punches, karate kicks, punching in people’s heads … the usual things. We expect nothing less, and Robyn / Latifah delivers the goods (without breaking a sweat). It’s a throwback, but she’s “The Equalizer”, damn it, and announces her intentions to keep fighting for the good fight by the end of the episode.
Chris Noth also stars as William Bishop, Robyn’s former CIA colleague who now runs a private investigation firm in the city. We will no doubt see a lot more of him as ‘The Equalizer’ hits its normal time slot of 8:00 PM on February 14th. CBS is very good at this kind of numbered genre offerings – and, in this case, should give “The Equalizer” a chance to make its mark.
