'Seal Team' Is Upping the Game on Dramatic Television

If you've watched CBS' Seal Team since the beginning this past September, by now, you've noticed the missions are getting more difficult, more intense, and, as evidenced by the recent death of Clay Spenser's friend, no one is safe. And it's that intensity that has Indie Wire saying the David Boreanaz-led drama is another hit, and is a shoo-in for a second season renewal.

The winter premiere on January 3rd took the team into Yemen for an all-out hour-long action feast. Series star Max Theiriot, who portrays Clay Spenser, called it his favorite episode of the season so far.

“In this, you basically are thrown right into the action and the whole thing takes place there, so it’s a really powerful episode and it’s beautifully shot.”

The episode starts with a teenager getting shot by Spenser insider her own home, and as she lies dying on the kitchen table, the team has to turn the house upside down to find a phone that's being used to transfer information that has resulted in the death of dozens of Americans.

With doubts as to whether the house is the right one and time running out before sunrise and the team needs to leave, each member of the family is questioned over and over in a desperate attempt to find the cell phone. No one is willing to cooperate and Spenser's looking at a girl's death being on his hands, making this a "don't look away" episode.

A.J. Buckley, who portrays Sonny Quinn, calls this a "stand-out" episode, going on to say that it was "beautifully shot."

I love all the episodes, but I think this one stands out for so many reasons. It’s a mission that takes place in real time where we’re given an objective and the second the doors are kicked open at the beginning of the episode, we have 45 minutes to get in, get the intel and get to the exit. Within that 45 minutes, things go wrong. During the filming of the episode, we actually shot it in sequence. For those who don’t know, when you shoot a TV show, it’s all out of order and you don’t know what the order of the show is. This one was shot in order and it required your intensity to be ramped up. This episode is so beautifully shot, the pace is there and the intensity is there. I’m so proud of this particular episode.

And the preview for the January 10 episode looks just as dramatic, taking the team on a death-defying journey with a nuclear warhead. So there's no sign of this series slowing down.

Executive Producer Sarah Timberman made no bones about the fact that the series isn't shying away from the gritty realities of the military and what servicemen and women encounter both in the field and when they return home. And she also issues a warning to viewers already getting attached to team members. No one is safe in a war zone, and that's where these guy head every episode.

“We’re going to tell the stories about the toll that this war takes on people that do it personally. We’re not going to whitewash the fact that more of their marriages end in divorce, people come home missing limbs and – at some point – someone who’s critical to our show may not make it through. We hope to tell the stories responsibly.”

The producers and writers of Seal Team have created a series that is both gritty and powerful. While each episode employs slices of humor, there is never a doubt that this is a show about serious topics.

In spite of the fictional characters, watching this series is like getting an inside glimpse into the real life of Navy Seals, both their hardships and their joys. This isn't escapist drama; it's an edge-of-your-seat portrait of reality which is hurtling this drama into the history books for high-quality television.

Seal Team airs on Wednesday nights on CBS.