What David Boreanaz Reveals About SEAL Team’s Impending Loss?

What David Boreanaz Reveals About SEAL Team’s Impending Loss?

Death is part of the job for SEAL Team—an inevitability that’s sure to come up in Wednesday’s penultimate episode on CBS. Here, star and co-executive producer David Boreanaz talks about directing the “sad” moment when a Bravo member meets his creator. He also touches on whether the team is looking forward to moving to Paramount+ in the fall and whether they might finally let loose a few swear words.

How’s the past month or two been? Have you all been hanging a little on the fence about whether SEAL Team will be renewed?

DAVID BORANAZ: No matter what show, there’s always that feeling when you get to the end of the season, whether you’re going to be renewed or not. We’re a very, very strong performer for CBS, especially on a night like Wednesday night. And if you ask me, I’m biased and I think we’re the best show on television that’s not on cable. We’re really pushing the envelope of what we can do. Coming out of this year because of the pandemic, it adds to the anxiety.

How do you feel about moving to Paramount+?

I think the biggest thing for us about moving to a platform like Paramount+ is that it puts us in the game. Look at Amazon, look at Netflix and the success of their shows and what you can’t do on network television. There’s a lot of standards and conventions that we have to adhere to that we really don’t want to adhere to. It’s a surprising place sometimes, because we really want to be honest and sincere with these episodes. It allows us to go darker. I’m not saying we’re going to change the wheel, because we’ve built great characters. It’s just a matter of changing things and doing some things that are going to be fun. We’re making that transition right now. We’re going to be working until the third week of July because we have to do four episodes for the previous channel [to air in the fall]. I think that’s a good stepping stone for us. It allows us to sell that transition.

So you’re going to be able to scream, ‘Holy shit, I got shot! ‘

[Laughs] Oh my gosh. I’ve been in television for over 20 years and now I can swear? But it’s not about swearing. You have to earn those moments. I think they’re going to be easier to earn on streaming. We can actually do that now and that’s really exciting. I’m excited about that.

You’re directing tonight’s penultimate episode. What can we expect?

There’s going to be a loss, one of the Bravo guys. It’s sad. Knowing that was coming for a while, it was tough as a director to deal with. It pretty much defines who they are, what they sacrificed their lives for. That’s the sad part, and it’s going to be something that’s going to resonate with the team leading up to the end of the season. We’re going to have to deal with that after being stuck in this mission. It gets crazy at the end of these episodes, with all these characters dealing with their own personal issues. There’s also going to be some romances at the end of the season, there’s going to be people deciding whether or not to stay on Bravo, and for my character, Jason, there’s going to be a mental health issue that he’s going to be sneaking up on. It’s going to be interesting to see how the fans react to that.