Preview: CBS Reboots ‘The Equalizer’ After The Super Bowl

Tonight after the Super Bowl, CBS is rebooting The Equalizer, which originally aired on the network from 1985-’89 and later was reincarnated as a Denzel Washington movie series.

Now, it’s got a new star, Queen Latifah, and some new elements, including a teenage daughter reunited with the protagonist, a reunion that has its share of thorns.

CBS has high hopes for the program. It’s the first time since 1995 that a new scripted drama will bow after the Super Bowl, benefitting from the gigantic audience from the game.

It’s also historic in other ways. Latifah is just the fourth Black woman to star in a primetime network drama (and only the second on a show Shonda Rhimes didn’t create). The team behind the program wanted Latifah in the lead role from the start and plans to focus on her identity as a Black woman.

Lorraine Toussaint, who plays the aunt of Latifah’s character, Robyn McCCall, says the casting opens some exciting opportunities.

“I was a fan of the original franchise and the one with Denzel. I remember watching the TV show with my mom,” Toussaint says. “So I thought, ‘Yeah, to reinvent the show for a woman, and a woman of color—that sounds really interesting.’”

McCall is a single mother who lives with Toussaint’s character, Vi. The former CIA operative can’t quite adjust to “regular” life. She becomes a vigilante who metes out justice for those who need help.

“Unlike in the other franchises, where those men were dark and broody lone wolves conquering the world, this McCall left a family behind to do her work. Now she’s retired and come home, and she’s got a lot of repairing to do with the daughter she left behind in my care,” Toussaint says.

But Vi and Delilah, McCall’s daughter, don’t know what mom does for a living, further complicating her return home.

“McCall and Delilah need to find an inroads to each other, and oftentimes that’s through me,” Toussaint notes.

Toussaint plays an artist on Equalizer. In a fun twist, many of the works of art displayed on the show that Vi created were actually done by Latifah’s mom, an artist.

Equalizer will air Tuesdays at 9 p.m., following NCIS.