There was a lot of hype about building on The Equalizer franchise, especially as it looked like the Queen Latifah series was getting a sixth and final season. Titus Welliver landed the male lead in The Equalizer spinoff, but just days after the backdoor pilot aired, CBS decided not to go ahead with it.
CBS hasn’t officially stated why it isn’t moving forward with the new series. However, it’s easy to speculate, especially based on some of the comments about ending The Equalizer after five seasons and bringing a few other shows to an end.
The Equalizer backdoor pilot didn’t get the viewership hoped for
In the end, getting shows on the air is all about the money game. It needs to have potential to grow, and The Equalizer spinoff didn’t appear to have that. The beauty of a backdoor pilot is the chance to see how it could perform — seeing whether people are interested in the new characters.
You can ask Supernatural fans about how backdoor pilots can feel! They don’t always work, and it leads to creators having to go back to the drawing board. Sometimes, the end comes to the franchise with just one show, and that seems to be happening to The Equalizer.
According to TV Series Finale, the backdoor pilot for The Equalizer spinoff didn’t perform well linearly. While the total audience numbers tuning in live were relatively steady, the demo dropped by 20%. It then ticked back up the week after by that same amount, hinting that the target demo for the advertisers wasn’t interested in the new series.
CBS and Universal TV may have also struggled to come to an agreement
On top of that would have been the need to negotiate and license. Like The Equalizer, the spinoff series would have come from Universal TV. That means licensing figures, and those deals can be difficult to broker now. The shows aren’t performing as well as they used to, so the networks don’t want to pay as much. However, the studios producing the shows need to make money from them.
Negotiations failing is why The Equalizer was canceled after five seasons. There’s a good chance that with the uninterested viewer base and the cost of licensing, CBS decided that the show wasn’t worth the risk. It is disappointing for those who wanted to see more of this arc introduced in the backdoor pilot, but in the end, the networks are a business, and they need to run a profit to keep more shows on the air.
The Equalizer is available to stream on Tubi and Paramount+.
Stay up to date with the latest TV crime dramas news with Precinct TV.