Shemar Moore, S.W.A.T.
Bill Inoshita/CBSS.W.A.T. Exiles has had a weirdly lengthy journey to the small screen, after the show that spawned it — CBS’s S.W.A.T. — was canceled and un-canceled twice before the network eventually gave it the permanent axe in spring 2025. But instead of putting down the franchise entirely, Sony TV decided to try this spin-off series that only retains one main character — Shemar Moore’s Hondo. Moore had lobbied loudly and frequently for the original series to return after each cancellation, and his starpower is the chief reason it returned, and probably a big reason the spin-off is happening at all.
With S.W.A.T. Exiles essentially being a sequel series that caves a bunch of money by cutting out most of the long-term cast members, it apes a nearly identical move made with Blue Bloods, a CBS show that ended in 2024 that had been around forever. That series moved star Donnie Wahlberg from New York City to Boston for a new spin-off called Boston Blue that left Tom Selleck and company behind in the Big Apple. S.W.A.T. Exiles, by contrast, is still keeping Moore in L.A., which would make it hypothetically very easy for former cast members to pop in at any time.
Let’s see what we know so far about S.W.A.T. Exiles.
S.W.A.T. Exiles latest news
The spin-off series finally has a network and a premiere date. S.W.A.T. Exiles will air weekly on Starz beginning Sept. 25. Season 1 will run for 10 episodes.
S.W.A.T. Exiles expected premiere date
S.W.A.T. Exiles will premiere on Sept. 25 on Starz, with new episodes dropping weekly thereafter. For most of its development, S.W.A.T. Exiles had been a show without a network to air it, but on June 30, Starz revealed that it had acquired the rights to the show.
What will S.W.A.T. Exiles be about?
After a big mission goes wrong, Hondo is called out of retirement to run a new, experimental S.W.A.T. unit made up of young and inexperienced folks. Hondo will have to work extra hard to relate to the new squad given the large generation gap — it’s likely that Sony took inspiration from the recent Bad Boys movies, which have a similar story bent and were also Sony productions.
In a lengthy interview with Variety, Sony TV boss Katherine Pope described the spin-off like this:
“It’s a bit of a take on the culture generation clash of Gen X versus Gen Z. Where Hondo is all about duty, hierarchy, and chain of command, the Gen Zers are a little more like, ‘I might need to take a mental health day. I want to talk about it. I want to understand it.’ It’s kind of our take on Top Gun Maverick. How do you actually learn from each other? How do we build bridges around not just generational divides, but all forms of divide? There’s a lot of division going on in our world. If we just took some time to listen and to try and be part of a team, and what that really means, it would probably be better for all of us.”
It’s worth noting that Hondo was definitely not retired at the end of the S.W.A.T. finale, so you can probably expect a multi-year time skip.
S.W.A.T. Exiles cast and crew
S.W.A.T. Exiles will be run by Jason Ning, who recently served as showrunner on Fox’s Lucifer. Shemar Moore will play the lead role of Daniel “Hondo” Harrelson, and he’ll be in charge of a new group of Gen Z squaddies played by Lucy Barrett, Adain Bradley, Freddy Miyares, Zyra Gorecki, and Ronen Rubinstein.
TVLine had a scoop back in the summer about the characters those folks will be playing. They described these new characters like so: “a charismatic, Black former Marine from South Central; an undercover cop with a questionable shooting in his past; an amputee who was at the top of her class at the academy and refuses to ride a desk; a tactical prodigy with a disruptive lack of social skills; and a former beauty queen who now works as a law enforcement ‘influencer.’ “
The first character is the most intriguing of the group, because it actually describes Hondo himself — it could be that Hondo will see this person as a younger version of himself that he can mentor.
Hondo won’t be the only one The folks coming back from the main series are Jay Harrington’s Deacon Kay and Patrick St. Esprit’s Commander Robert Hicks, who Sony says will pop up in the first episode of the new series, presumably to bridge the gap between the two stories. Whether they’ll pop up again later in the series is not known.
S.W.A.T. Exiles cast list
What the heck actually happened with S.W.A.T.?
S.W.A.T. was canceled for a third time following its eighth season in March 2025, and this time there was no rescue from CBS, Sony, or anyone else. So despite the fact that the series ended with the squad intact, and without any kind of real ending, the story of Twenty Squad has come to an end.
The reason for the switch to a spin-off series is probably an issue that studio bookkeepers are always wrestling with — the longer a series runs, the more expensive the returning cast becomes as main cast members typically receive a pay bump with each new season. When S.W.A.T. was rescued from cancellation last year, it also dumped some longtime cast members to slim down those costs a bit. Apparently that wasn’t enough.
The announcement of the spin-off series, and the news that Shemar Moore would be the only cast member coming back for it, was a surprise not only for fans but for the S.W.A.T. cast members being left behind. S.W.A.T. star David Lim posted on Instagram that he and the others felt “brushed aside” by the news.
“I’d be lying if I said the rollout of the new spin-off didn’t sting. It was tough to see it announced just two days after our finale — with no mention of the cast who helped build S.W.A.T. from day one. After 8 incredible seasons, it felt like we were brushed aside when there could’ve been a moment of reflection and recognition — for the people who built this show, and for the impact it had on so many.”
Moore responded by calling himself “the Tom Brady of S.W.A.T.” and compared the move to a spin-off with football teammates being traded.
“Just like in sports, Tom Brady might be the quarterback, but people get traded. Tight end gets traded, the right running back gets traded, the receivers get traded, but the teams keep on pushing with their quarterback, and I’m that guy. So proud, so grateful. Not going to apologize for nothing. Busted my ass for 31 years to do what I do, and excited about the future.” It’s not the best metaphor, because when football players are traded to another team, they still have a job.
Where to watch S.W.A.T.
All eight seasons of S.W.A.T. are streaming on Netflix.