The Equalizer

The concept of "show, don't tell" was completely lost on the writers room. Every character had to describe every other character as "the best of the best", "the best the agency ever had", "the best I've ever seen".

If you have to tell your audience someone is the best, then they are probably not. The writers are just getting in their own way with excessive dialogue when some simple staging would allow viewers to come to their own conclusions., Instead, we're being TOLD everything.

Also, Queen Latifah is a good actress. She is, however, remarkably miscast in this series. The writers aren't writing to her strengths-- rock solid persona and strong delivery. Instead, they're trying to portray her as a seasoned fighter and are putting her in scenes where she's shown being physically violent. Those scenes fall flat due to the excessive jump cuts needed to compensate for the actress' lack of natural physicality. The classic 80's series did this well-- writing for McCall as a seasoned veteran in his late 50's vs. a modern spec ops warrior. As such, the original McCall used intimidation more than direct physical violence as his key weapon.

This series could be saved but it needs some heavy reworking. Right now it feels like "Equalizer in Name Only". Branding this as a remake of the original series is a disservice to all involved. Instead, create a brand new character for your very talented lead and stop trying to retread the past.

This is just not good television. The jump cuts are annoying, there is no believability in Queen Latifah being a seasoned fighter, and even for a network procedural, the writing is generic and over-the-top-hammy at best.

To be fair, my parents like this show for what it is, so I decided to watch the 1st episode with them. And yikes.

It has some likable people ( stand-outs being Tory Kittles and Adam Goldberg) but it just feels like a series trying to be something rather than actually being it.

The only thing I was waiting for was to see Oprah show up as Queen Latifah's sidekick. Now, I'm always willing to give just about anything a try and judge for myself if something is good or not. I've certainly watched enough movies and shows that weren't nearly as bad as other critics made them out to be. I've also watched enough movies and shows that weren't nearly as good either.

Itunes had a "free episode" gimmick going with several new CBS shows. I guess CBS is trying to find a way to enhance their ratings. Perhaps they should focus on their racist decisions instead, such as giving Grace Park and Daniel Dae Kim inferior pay compared to the rest of the cast of Hawaii Five-O.

Now, I've always liked Queen Latifah, but for this series, she's badly miscast. Even after watching the pilot episode, I just couldn't buy the fact that she's a former operative with "a special set of skills," which would almost certainly mean that she would have had to have been a member of special forces. Much of her dialogue exchange with Chris Noth is about "old times" on various missions. In short, we aren't given a plausible explanation that explains her skill set, especially given her age. By the way, only as of February 2020 has a woman been set to pass the Special Forces Qualification Course.

The writing isn't very good, which is evident in the overused number of times that cliched lines are given. Also, what is the point of blasting girlie hip-hop music everytime Latifah mixes it up?

However, Latifah's performance is good, as is much of the rest of the cast. I also found her style of parenting refreshing as well.

The Equalizer would have been much more enjoyable had they focused on her intelligence of being able to out-think her opponents (which she does do a few times) and less on her--unbelievably--mixing it up like some Denzel Washington/Jason Bourne wannabe. In other words, make the show unique and give it its own identity instead of trying to imitate and copy everything that has already been done.

I watched the 1st episode hoping to rekindle some of that magic from the 1985 TV series starring Edward Woodward. Everything about that series was stellar, including the electrifying theme music composed by ex-Police Stewart Copeland. Everything about this remake is the opposite. The plot's simplistic beyond credibility, the protagonist hardly finds herself in any life threatening situation, and because everything from point A to Z appears as contrived as a 10-piece jigsaw puzzle, there's no suspense to speak of. Sad. I had expected much more from this and from 'Clarice'. Thank goodness for WandaVision. My opinion is based on the first two episodes.

We've quite enjoyed it. It's nice to get a series that wraps up a storyline almost every episode. But there are some big red flags that mean it's a poor show tbh.

Firstly the main character can't hold a gun properly! It's hilarious. She'd last about 3 seconds as her arm flies back and she hurts her shoulder 😂🤷‍♂️

Then I'm not quite sure what's happened in season 4 but it has gone downhill fast! Ouch.

It's now very preachy and predictable. In one episode a random woman showed up in their holiday home hiding in their house. They didn't kick her out they decided to trust her and helped to solve her mother's munchausen syndrome by proxy! Honestly you couldn't make it up. So random so unbelievable. The Aunt and daughter stories used to be nice. Now they're annoying Nd very preachy. The writing is terrible.

A dscntshow is getting worse - such a shame.

I'm switching off.