What Makes ‘SEAL Team’ Different From Other Military Shows
The long-running SEAL Team continues to defy the odds as the CBS series moves to Paramount+, awaiting its seventh season. While it may not be one of those shows you’ve heard much about, there’s more to this military drama than meets the eye. But in a world full of such shows, there must be something about SEAL Team that sets it apart from its military-centric contemporaries. As it turns out, the show has gone to great lengths to honor the real heroes it depicts, recruiting many US military veterans as both crew and cast members.
Starting in 2017, SEAL Team is actor David Boreanaz’s first major project since Bones ended, which has been on the air for more than a decade. In the series, he plays Jason Hayes, the leader of Bravo Team, a SEAL struggling to balance his duty to his country and his family. Alongside Hayes are the rest of Bravo Team, including Ray Perry (Neil Brown Jr.), “Sonny” Quinn (A.J. Buckley), Lisa Davis (Toni Trucks), CIA liaison Mandy Ellis (Jessica Paré), and second-generation SEAL Clay Spenser (Max Thieriot), who was written out of the series in season six in favor of his new series Fire Country.
But Hayes’ struggle to balance family life with his military duties isn’t something he has to endure alone. It’s the main conflict of the SEAL Team (alongside their weekly mission objectives), and it proves to be a challenge for each of them. Some of the characters have pregnant wives at home, others have children or lovers, but they all feel conflicted within themselves as they are torn between what they know they have to do and what they have to do at home. “One thing that makes our show a little more interesting is the fact that it follows family life,” executive producer Mark Owen, himself a Navy SEAL for 14 years, noted in a CBS special.
The concept of traveling between combat and “normal” life is a challenging one, but one that the members of Bravo Team were forced to embrace from the start. “That’s something we really tried to show through the show, the difficulty of that,” Owen explained. “I’ve lost a lot of friends in combat, but I’ve also lost a lot of people to suicide and dealing with a lot of things when they come home. It takes a lot of sacrifice, and that’s really why I think the show is so successful…” Compared to other military dramas like The Last Ship, Jack Ryan, and The Terminal List, SEAL Team explores realities that other shows can’t in a way that’s authentic and lasting. Part of what makes SEAL Team so authentic when it comes to this story is the people they used behind the scenes. In addition to executive producer Mark Owen, who wrote the memoir No Easy Day: The Firsthand Account of the Mission that Killed Osama bin Laden and was behind the original premise for SEAL Team, the show also uses a large cast of former special forces and US military personnel, namely consulting producers Mark Semos and Tyler Grey. Semos himself is a former SEAL, while Grey is a US Army Special Forces veteran, but both men are actively involved in the show. Semos, who sometimes plays John TJ Monero while also pulling triple duty, is one of the series’ most prolific writers alongside veteran Kenny Sheard. Likewise, Gray plays Trent Swayer and previously directed three episodes of the military drama. But the two aren’t the only veterans who have served on SEAL Team. “We have a lot of veterans involved, and it’s great to see the talent they bring,” Owen noted. In fact,
“What we’re trying to do as a team is create something that’s not real, obviously, but create something that feels authentic,” Tyler Gray told CBS This Morning in 2017, grateful to now be able to use his vast skill set in new and creative ways. Furthermore, it has previously been reported that the majority of the SEAL Team crew is comprised of U.S. veterans, a feat that not many shows can accomplish. “We hired close to 100 veterans… who have come on board our show and we love it,” actor David Boreanaz bragged, calling their presence a humbling experience. “Those guys—we don’t want to call them technical advisors; we want to call them producers—[were there] from the conception of the story to the end.”
Adding to the series’ significance, David Boreanaz paid tribute to the SEALs and those who fought for safety
extends to many of the stunts that the SEAL Team cast and crew undertake across the show’s impressive six seasons. “We [take] pride in putting ourselves in the elements and shooting it for real. [That means] we’re getting into a Black Hawk and going up—we’re not doing it on a green screen,” Boreanaz emphasized heading into Season 6. It’s SEAL Team’s consistent commitment to accurately explore all aspects of Bravo Team’s lives, from the home to the battlefield, and doing so with as much excitement, drama, and authenticity as possible that makes this show so impressive.
According to actress Toni Trucks, SEAL Team has received “This Is Our Six” certification from military personnel who have watched the show and approved it as an accurate representation of the heroes the show portrays. Not only is this a tough certification to attain given that it encompasses not just combat itself but the effects it has on each soldier, but it just goes to show that hiring people with that lived experience on a consulting and creative basis makes all the difference. “[The little things] are the things that we’re proud of. We want people to catch those things,” Trucks revealed.
