CBS dumps “Equalizer” after five seasons
Queen Latifah’s reboot of the 1980s series ends after time period shift
The curtain has closed on Queen Latifah’s reboot of the 1980s crime drama as CBS canceled the series after five seasons.
According to the logline, Latifah played Robyn McCall,“an enigmatic woman with a mysterious background who uses her extensive skills as a former CIA operative to help those with nowhere else to turn.”
“Stepping into a kick-ass role like Robyn was everything I hoped it would be,” said Latifah on Instagram. “Shakim and I at Flavor Unit [her production company] are always excited to bring these kinds of roles and projects to life—and then we just hope you love them as much as we do. The Equalizer blew past every dream we had for it, and having the opportunity to do this for five seasons honestly feels surreal. Thank you to our amazing cast, crew, and producers and writers!”
Known as a groundbreaking female rapper, Queen Latifah transitioned into acting, appearing in the Fox sitcom Living Single and films such as Set It Off and Last Holiday. She also had two tours of duty as a daytime talk show host, though both attempts didn’t last more than two seasons. With Equalizer, Queen Latifah was only the fourth Black woman to headline a primetime drama.
Universal Television produced the show for CBS, but is not shopping around for a new home. After CBS canceled its reboot of Mangum P.I. in 2022, Universal shopped it to NBC for another season. NBC and Universal share a corporate parent in Comcast.
The Equalizer was a reboot of the earlier CBS show starring Edward Woodward as Robert McCall and premiered on September 18, 1985. CBS canceled the show after four seasons in May 1989 when the network was deep in third place and only slightly ahead of Fox in the 18-49 demographic. A month after its cancellation, MCA TV sold reruns of the show to USA Network at a time when cable networks were snapping up off-network dramas for hundreds of thousands of dollars per episode. A feature film was adapted from the show in 2014, with Denzel Washington in the lead, with a sequel released in 2018.
Queen Latifah’s version premiered after Super Bowl LV in 2021, occupying the Sunday 8 p.m. ET time slot for its first few seasons, but shifted two hours later to make room for Tracker this season, which debuted after Super Bowl LVIII last year. Equalizer became the first post-game series to achieve outright success since The Wonder Years for ABC in 1988 (Family Guy debuted after the Super Bowl in 1999, but Fox canceled it twice before returning for a more successful run in 2005).
The Equalizer was the last show on the bubble as CBS had already canceled freshman series Poppa’s House and The Summit, and veterans FBI: International, FBI: Most Wanted, and S.W.A.T. The network has ordered new dramas that are spinoffs of existing or defunct series: Boston Blue, a spinoff of Blue Bloods; and CIA, another spinoff from FBI. CBS also ordered episodes of a single-camera comedy DMV, which could spawn comparisons to the 1964 CBS sitcom Many Happy Returns, for obvious reasons.
Since September 2023, Queen Latifah’s The Equalizer has aired in weekend syndication mostly on CBS stations, including CBS-owned WBBM-TV in late-night time slots through CBS Media Ventures, which holds domestic syndication rights. It is unknown whether the show will return in off-network broadcast syndication next season.