It was May 17, 2017. The Plaza Hotel’s Food Hall and adjacent spaces over multiple floors were packed with people for CBS‘ annual upfront party — an opulent display in the final years of broadcast dominance. Having won the lottery — beating the daunting odds of pilot season where hundreds of scripts vie for 20 so pilot spots and ultimately a handful of series pickups by a major network — the teams behind the new CBS shows were beaming. Except for the producers of military drama SEAL Team, who were not in a festive mood.
The reason was an effort by CBS brass to replace the female lead opposite star David Boreanaz in the pilot, Jessica Paré. There was already a red flag for eagle-eyed attendees at the network’s upfront presentation at Carnegie Hall earlier that afternoon when the main cast of SEAL Team walked onstage sans Paré. The absence spoke volumes as it was a broadcast ritual — if your pilot gets picked up, you are going to the upfronts — except if you get a call that you are being recast.
There was nothing official at the time, but the SEAL Team producers were very worried — word was that then-CBS CEO Les Moonves himself had suggested that Paré be replaced. A former actor himself, Moonves had remained closely involved in casting decisions, and he had the ultimate say on everything, determining the fate of shows and actors. (Moonves stepped down in fall 2018 following a string of sexual misconduct allegations.)
Knowing they were facing long odds because what Moonves said went, the SEAL Team creative and producing team including Boreanaz, who has been an exec producer from the start, made an impassioned plea and kept at it until Paré was safe. She remained a series regular for three seasons on the series, about an elite unit of U.S. Navy SEALs, until her character surprisingly left the unit after returning from its latest mission in Afghanistan in the Season 4 premiere, which aired at the height of the pandemic in December 2020.
Paré subsequently returned and has been recurring on the show, which is ending its run on Paramount+ this weekend after seven seasons across CBS and the streamer — a rare series that has done three or more seasons each on two different platforms.
A few months after Pare’s exit, SEAL Team faced another challenge in May 2021: it was forced to leave CBS to make room for spinoffs of crime franchises, NCIS: Hawai’i, CSI: Vegas and FBI: International, as well as medical drama Good Sam. Ironically, SEAL Team outlived three of the four series, with NCIS: Hawai’i and CSI: Vegas canceled earlier this year to make room for another NCIS spinoff, NCIS: Origins, along with other new shows.
While NCIS: Hawai’i and CSI: Vegas didn’t have options, SEAL Team moved to Paramount+ after four seasons on CBS. It’s not surprising that so few broadcast series have been able to do that successfully as it is not an easy transition, requiring major adjustments of the business framework, including budgets and salaries, as well as production logistics.
But, after a four-episode sendoff on CBS in fall 2021, the CBS Studios-produced SEAL Team migrated to the streamer, where it went on for three more seasons — and the cast and showrunner Spencer Hudnut were ready for more, with Season 7 not envisioned as a final chapter until word came last November that it would be the end. SEAL Team‘s 2021 broadcast goodbye was not permanent: two years later, the series was summoned back, with episodes from the original run on Paramount+ used as fresh broadcast fare in fall 2023 when film and TV production was delayed by the Hollywood strikes.
Helped by a loyal fan following and wide support among veterans, SEAL Team ran for seven seasons, a very respectable lifespan in this day and age, despite the show’s high cost and limited international sale potential given its focus on American military versus the more easily translatable crime, medical and legal procedural genres.
It is a rare series that has done well on linear and digital — it was the highest-rated CBS series to depart in May 2021, averaging 6.5 million that season. Just months later, It made Paramount+’s year-end list as the most watched original drama series on the platform for 2021.
Fittingly, SEAL Team hit another milestone before it its pending end, finally cracking Nielsen’s Top 10 of streaming originals in August with its two-episode Season 7 premiere.
SEAL Team also brought into the CBS/CBS Studios fold Max Thieriot. An original cast member on the show, he went on to pitch the studio a firefighter drama based on his experience growing up in Occidental, CA. That became CBS’ hit Fire Country, co-created, exec produced and starring Thieriot, which has become the network’s newest drama franchise; offshoot Sheriff Country, headlined bv Morena Baccarin, is set for a 2025-26 launch, and another spinoff, starring Jared Padalecki, is being eyed.
After a bumpy start and a challenging run, the Benjamin Cavell-created SEAL Team comes to an end Sunday as one of few series that bridged broadcast’s heyday and the streaming era. And who knows, it may beat the odds again and come back for that stand-alone movie, which was announced in 2022 but never heard of again.
