The TV Column

History Channel debuts action-packed SEAL drama

Walton Goggins stars in the new History Channel military drama Six. The series debuts at 9 p.m. Wednesday.
Walton Goggins stars in the new History Channel military drama Six. The series debuts at 9 p.m. Wednesday.

TV, it seems, is always looking for rugged all-American heroes to get us through the tough times.

There's even a cable outfit, American Heroes Channel, that offers such inspiring series as Patriots Rising: The American Revolution, and Against the Odds.

Ryan Phillippe's Shooter (which ends its first season at 9 p.m. today on USA) is about a highly trained Marine sniper and Afghanistan veteran who is called back into action on the home front.

The forthcoming 24: Legacy, which debuts on Fox immediately following the Super Bowl on Feb. 5, will deal with a former Army Ranger who finds he and his old squad members have been targeted for assassination in retaliation for the death of a terrorist.

All the above are action-packed and using today's headlines for episode fodder.

Which brings us to the latest military combat drama series. Six premieres at 9 p.m. Wednesday on History Channel. It's rated TV-MA (mature audiences) because of adult language, violence and sexual situations.

I've seen four episodes of the eight-episode first season and can testify that it quickly gets the adrenaline pumping and heart racing.

"Six" refers to U.S. Navy SEAL Team 6, an elite anti-terrorism unit best known for killing Osama bin Laden, and stars Walton Goggins as its leader, Richard "Rip" Taggart.

Goggins is worth the price of admission with this series. The actor is consistently brilliant in everything he does, from The Shield and Justified to Sons of Anarchy and Django Unchained.

In Six, Taggart and his team are sent on a seemingly standard covert mission in 2014 to eliminate a Taliban leader in Afghanistan. The mission becomes complicated when they discover an American citizen working with the terrorists as a jihadi fighter.

Taggart makes a questionable decision that does not end well. He was on SEAL Team 6 for 17 years. Then he was out.

Two years later, Taggart is working private security in Nigeria and is captured by the terrorist group Boko Haram and it's up to his former team to find and rescue him before, well, you don't want to know.

The series, which is inspired by actual events, strives to capture the camaraderie found among America's warrior elite. Far more than simple mercenaries, the highly trained teams display a superior degree of patriotism and sense of justice in a cold, cruel world.

They also sometimes pay a heavy psychological toll attempting to balance complex personal and professional lives.

"This is the most elite fighting force in the world," Goggins says in a History Channel interview. "You don't do what these guys do without real consequences."

Barry Sloane (Saints & Strangers) stars as new team leader Joe "Bear" Graves. Others on the team are Jaylen Moore (Homeland), Kyle Schmid (Copper), Juan Pablo Raba (Narcos), Edwin Hodge (Chicago Fire) and Donny Boaz (The Great Debaters).

TV Land. And now for something completely different, although some teachers might consider the classroom a sort of combat zone.

The second season of the adult comedy Teachers debuts at 9 p.m. today on TV Land and continues to follow six befuddled teachers at the Chicago-area Fillmore Elementary School as they return from summer break.

Created by the ensemble comedy troupe The Katydids, the series will have you questioning your memories of your first teachers. What, exactly, went down behind that teachers' lounge door anyway?

Fair warning: This is a cable show airing later at night. Adult stuff happens. For example, an elderly grief counselor is sent to console the kids following the death of their pet iguana. She also dies in front of the class. Ouch.

The series is rated TV-14 for language and sexual situations.

Teachers is followed at 9:30 by the new series Throwing Shade. Based on the current events podcast that began in 2011, co-hosts Erin Gibson and Bryan Safi discuss everything from politics to celebrity gossip and "treat them with much less respect than they deserve."

43rd People's Choice Awards, 8 p.m. Wednesday on CBS. Do you like awards shows? Here's another one honoring "the best" in pop culture. Host Joel McHale helps the network kill two hours of prime time live from the Microsoft Theater in Los Angeles.

Leading all nominations: Captain America: Civil War with seven.

For our purposes here, the TV shows nominated for favorite are The Big Bang Theory, Grey's Anatomy, Outlander, Stranger Things and The Walking Dead. Regular readers already know my choice.

The TV Column appears Sunday, Tuesday and Thursday. Email:

[email protected]

Style on 01/17/2017

Upcoming Events