‘S.W.A.T.’: Shemar Moore Talks Second Uncancellation—Was Season 7 Finale Changed? (VIDEO)
“We won this fight,” Shemar Moore, star and executive producer of S.W.A.T., says after the CBS drama’s second uncancellation. And no one is happier than he is that the show is returning for Season 8, as you can see in the video above.
In May 2023, a couple of weeks before the Season 6 finale, CBS announced that the show would not be returning. “We kind of got blindsided,” Moore tells TV Insider. He was “numb, confused, a little bit pissed off, a little bit frustrated,” and that led to him the video calling it a mistake, which he carefully considered before posting.
“I watched it 12 times before I pushed send,” he says. “I’m not just making that number up; it’s a seven-minute video, so you do the math. I watched it to say, ‘Is this the right thing to do? Can I get in trouble? Am I going to get blacklisted? Am I being arrogant? Am I being bitter?’ My mother’s in heaven now, but she always raised me to own my dignity and never apologize for my truth, and I felt like I was being honest from a place bigger than myself. I wasn’t fighting for me. I was really honestly fighting for our show because I know how hard we’ve worked, and I know what it means to everybody.” He knows that “it takes a village” to make it work, and in this case, that is 250 to 300 people.
After that weekend, it was then announced that S.W.A.T. would be returning, for a final seventh season. Moore calls himself optimistic and shares that he spoke with the writers, showrunners, producers, crew, and cast and said, “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.” Well, they did just that because days after the series finale date was set, S.W.A.T. received its second uncancellation and pickup for an eighth season.
“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,” says Moore. “It’s business, and you can’t take it personal, but sometimes you do a little bit because you’re so passionate about something.”
There had been conversations happening. “I was talking to people who know stuff and they talk to the people at CBS and the people at Sony. It’s like, is it possible? Well, it’s not looking good, but maybe, there might be a little daylight,” he shares. “Up until literally 10 days ago, my team called me and said, ‘They’re interested. It doesn’t guarantee anything, but would you be willing to sign on?’ And I just sat with myself, and I was like, ‘You know what? It’s not about me. It’s about the show. It really is. I would love to be able to live my life and know that we won this fight.'”
Moore decided to sign on so the show could continue. “I didn’t ask for anything,” he says. “I had asked for nothing. All I asked for was, ‘Let this show continue. Let me be able to stand in front of my show, in front of my crew, and give them the good news before we go into a break.’ And that was granted.”
Bill Inoshita / Sony Pictures Television / CBS
News of the renewal came as the show was nearing the end of filming what everyone thought would be the end, and already, the team has said goodbye to two members (Alex Russell‘s Street and Kenny Johnson‘s Luca) and a third is planning to retire (Jay Harrington‘s Deacon).
“This is how determined and in sync the crew, but especially the writers [are],” reveals Moore, who adds that he doesn’t take his executive producer title for granted. “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.”
He also knows that he has the fans to thank for the show winning, with it trending on Netflix and the letters and emails sent to CBS and Sony. “All of that mattered, and CBS and Sony ultimately listened. That’s just a testament to the fan base. And that’s a testament to our show that it really feels like not just that we survived—and obviously, I’m biased—but we’re still growing,” he notes.
“People are still getting wind of our show and flocking to our show, so now maybe Season 8 will be the last year, and if so, that’s okay,” he continues. “That’s okay because we won this fight, this impossible fight. But maybe there’s [Season] 9, maybe there’s 10. We don’t know, but I know that all of us involved aren’t worried about getting canceled anymore. We’re so proud of winning, and we know nothing lasts forever. And one day, it will end. And if that’s after Season 8, we’re going to throw one hell of a party, hug it out, and then figure out our next chapters. But we don’t know until we get there.”
Not only is S.W.A.T. returning, but according to Moore, the episode count for Season 8 is 22. “They went full tilt with us,” he says. “Look, two cancellations, and now they’re backing us? That’s huge. And 22 episodes is no joke. I’m going to be talking to my knees every night going, ‘Come on, man, keep me upright, keep me upright.’ But it’s beautiful. All the adversity that we’ve faced, and to be granted a Season 8 and a full slate of 22 episodes, that’s great for the fans, that’s great for the crew that work so hard and have to provide for their families. There’s so many wins in S.W.A.T. staying alive.”
But for now, Moore gets to relax for a bit. “We defied the odds. We did something that in the Hollywood game does not happen very often at all, very rarely. And I’m really proud of it. And it is a good show. And the world has taken notice,” he says. “I’m just very, very proud. I’m tired. I need a couple months to regroup and get my Hondo swag back, but it was worth every bit of the fight.”
S.W.A.T., Fridays, 8/7c, CBS
S.W.A.T. (2017) where to stream
