SEAL Team showrunner Spencer Hudnut has explained how the series would have continued without lead actor David Boreanaz after season 7 if the show had continued. The SEAL Team series finale saw Jason (Boreanaz) stay with Bravo Team, finally able to forgive himself for the number of people he’s had to kill throughout his many years of missions. While the show ends with his overseas missions set to continue into a future the audience won’t see, Boreanaz was actually planning to leave the show in season 7 had it not been the final stretch of episodes.
Speaking with Collider, Hudnut revealed he never knew Boreanaz was planning to leave SEAL Team after season 7, also revealed he had five weeks to plan out the series finale when it was revealed the show had been canceled. However, the showrunner revealed that if Boreanaz had left, the newly introduced Drew (Beau Knapp) and other, younger members of Bravo would have taken over as the core characters. Check out what Hudnut had to say below:
The short answer is that he and I did not have that conversation, ever. I found out in November that this will be the last season. I understand why he probably came to that decision on his own. But the truth is, I started breaking Season 7 in January of 2023. The writers showed up in February and March. Leading up to the strike, we had the whole season broken and we probably had about seven scripts in the works. We came back in early October, we basically had nine scripts done, and I was starting to fiddle around with the season finale.
And then, when I was told in early November that was the end of the series, we were five weeks from starting production. I was losing all the writers in five weeks, and we were already locked in to go to Colombia. So, it really gave me only about three acts of the finale to land the plane.
Of course, I was aware that BRAVO Team has been around for a long time. With Season 7, it would be unlikely that everyone would continue forward, so the main characters were already on their journeys of starting to find their off ramps. My goal was to get more seasons. That’s why we introduced the character of Drew. I’ve gotten a lot of messages on social media about, “Why would you introduce a character when you only have 10 episodes left?”
Drew was there to be a bridge character, much like Omar, in case the baton needs to get passed to the next generation of BRAVO Team, to really build those guys up as the season progresses, to a point where people are really interested in those guys, in case they take a more prominent role. As much as I never would want to do a SEAL Team episode without David, part of the job is to keep the show going. That was a challenge that I thought we would face, but we’re not.
What Hudnut’s Plans After Boreanaz Departure Would Have Meant For SEAL Team
With no more episodes of SEAL Team leaving, the show has settled on a finale that brings Jason full circle, leaving him in Bravo’s leadership position as their global operations continue. However, Hudnut’s plans indicate this wasn’t always going to be the case, with the leader and potentially other senior members of the team slowly falling to the wayside as a new generation of soldiers took over. This approach would have allowed the series to carry on far beyond season 7, demonstrating how there will always be people on the team who carry out important missions.
Although SEAL Team season 7 didn’t get a chance to explore this concept thoroughly, the finale was still a fitting end to Jason’s story that also allowed other characters to shine through too. This includes Ray (Neil Brown Jr.) becoming the Head of Warfighter Heath, alongside Sonny (A.J. Buckley) and Davis (Toni Trucks) getting their happy ending. While the ideas that would have fit had Boreanaz departed never came to fruition, the show still managed to offer a parting glance at the many characters who helped define over the course of several years.
Our Take On How SEAL Team Would Have Continued Without Boreanaz
Despite the fitting ending, though, it could also have been interesting to see how SEAL Team would have evolved after the departure of its leader. This would have brought some of its younger members to the forefront, offering them further development as some of them, like Drew, began to take on more leadership positions within the team. That evolution would have been an intriguing direction for the series, making the series finale bittersweet, knowing what could have been.
