The Equalizer reboot misses what’s important about the classic series

The Equalizer reboot is in development at CBS, but the new version misses the mark on everything that made the original Edward Woodward series memorable.

The Equalizer is the latest TV series getting a reboot, but early details paint a picture of something completely different from one of the most underrated series of all time.

According to media reports this week, CBS is working on an Equalizer reboot from producers Terri Miller and Andrew Marlowe with Queen Latifah in the title role as a retired spy who uses her skills for private citizens in need.

Nothing about that sentence has anything to do with the original series, which aired on CBS from 1985 to 1989 and was one of the decade’s best shows. Edward Woodward won a Golden Globe Award and was nominated for four Emmys for his portrayal of Robert McCall, the former agent for an intelligence organization known only as “The Company,” who helped ordinary folks in the most dire of circumstances.

The series began and ended with Woodward, who was already an established legend before he assumed the role. He starred in the British spy series Callan from 1967-1972 (and in its follow-up film in 1974 and TV-movie in 1981) and played the title role in the critically acclaimed war film Breaker Morant in 1980. So by the time McCall came around, Woodward had already inhabited previous roles similar to the character’s own past life.

Beyond that, he was someone uniquely talented. Every time Woodward appeared on screen, he did so with integrity and class. In his hands, Robert McCall was someone to be feared when it was necessary, but more importantly, a character to be respected and even admired. He could play the killer instinct that had been part of McCall’s earlier years, but also the compassion and sadness of his present day. In many episodes, he was warm and even witty. Woodward developed every side of the character and portrayed all of them brilliantly.

That was what set The Equalizer apart. It wasn’t just a vigilante show. It was character-driven, and series creators Michael Sloan and Richard Lindheim wrote a hero who felt truly heroic. He was one for whom violence was a last resort—he solved problems with his intelligence and experience as much as he’d go for his gun, and he never lost sight of the fact that everyone (even the villains) were human beings. McCall worked differently and stood for something different than what we’ve seen on TV since.

The writers surrounded him with other equally human characters, from the victims of the week who called his newspaper ad to the people in his life, including sidekick Mickey Kostmayer (Keith Szarabajka) and his former colleague known only as “Control” (Robert Lansing). It felt like these were real people who were genuinely trying to do the right thing, and whom we could always root for, even when they made mistakes—which they were allowed to learn from.

A standout in the series was William Zabka as McCall’s son Scott, who was estranged from his father at the start of the show, but audiences got to watch them learn to understand one another and make each other better. In fact, the Equalizer reboot missed a huge opportunity there. Zabka is gangbusters in Cobra Kai and would have been the perfect star of a revival with Scott dragged into his father’s old business and learning the full scope of Robert’s lengthy past.

The last character, but certainly not least, was New York City. The Equalizer truly immersed the viewer into New York and took full advantage of its setting in every episode. It gave the series an atmosphere that few shows can claim. With the writing staff combining the crime drama, spy thriller, and vigilante genres, audiences got a series where there was more than one way to fix a problem with plenty of dark corners, alleys, subway stations and other setpieces.

All of this added up to a series that was perfectly cast, wonderfully written, and quite perfect for its time. An Equalizer reboot automatically misses the latter, and it’s hard to imagine it hitting the former.

Queen Latifah is an excellent actress, but she’s best in comedy, and very few people have the talent and presence of Edward Woodward — and if the lead character doesn’t have that gravitas, that feeling of someone we’d trust with our lives, the whole show is lost. Zabka or Chris Vance would have been a better fit. The latter is another English actor with action experience and the ability to play both light and dark sides of the same character.

Marlowe and Miller are best known for Castle, which was a much more light-hearted crime drama than The Equalizer ever was. Their most recent series, Take Two, wasn’t very different from Castle and only lasted one season. Tonally, they don’t feel like a match for a show that was intense and dark and only used humor in appropriate doses.

And how will they approach the stories? Will they simplify this down to another buddy-cop procedural like those aforementioned prior shows? McCall often worked alone or with different people — Kostmayer was only “also starring” in 56 of The Equalizer‘s 88 episodes. And another hook of the original series was that it didn’t inhabit just one genre because Robert McCall never tackled two problems in the same way. He was versatile and so were the situations he found himself in.

The Equalizer was a remarkable show, so it’s understandable why someone would want to bring it back. But that doesn’t mean it needs to come back. One only needs to look at the property’s recent history to see that.

The show has already been reworked once, into a pair of movies starring Denzel Washington. They had very little to do with the series either, but at least Washington’s version of McCall was vaguely recognizable, and his screen presence made the character formidable. Even then, he still couldn’t reach the original. And if someone of his stature couldn’t pull it off, that’s pretty telling. If nothing else, the films at least made an attempt.

This TV reboot isn’t trying to bring back an established property — as currently constituted, it feels like the only thing it’s preserving is the name. And The Equalizer deserves better.

The classic Equalizer series is available on DVD. Find the latest Deeper Cut every Wednesday in the Entertainment category at FanSided.