Few showrunners have ever faced what Shawn Ryan did in the past few years while heading up CBS’ S.W.A.T. The drama was first officially canceled back in 2022, then was renewed for a “final” season, only for that decision to be reversed, eventually leading to the third cancellation announcement in March 2025. Here’s hoping that won’t be a pattern on everything he works on in the future, especially now that he’s landed quite a major follow-up project.
Also a co-creator on Netflix’s spy thriller The Night Agent, which will deliver Season 3 faster than expected to fans with Netflix subscriptions, Ryan is now heading up the new streaming series American Hostage. After working with the ever-studly and talented Shemar Moore for the past eight years, he’ll now have the — [checks notes] — also ever-studly and talented Jon Hamm slotted in for a lead role. At least for one season, as this project will utilize a high-octane anthology format.
upcoming 2025 TV show, and it’ll likely debut somewhere around mid-2026, though that’s just speculating. The plan is for production to kick off this fall in Winnipeg, Canada.
I was hoping that this official announcement would confirm more cast members joining Jon Hamm for the new show. The podcast co-starred the always excellent Carla Gugino, Dylan Baker, and Joseph Perrino, and each would be equally great in live-action, but scheduling is obviously a factor that would make or break such returns.
But I can’t imagine that anyone would balk at co-starring with Jon Hamm in a new streaming show if time allowed. He recently co-starred in Taylor Sheridan’s Landman opposite Billy Bob Thornton and Demi Moore, but that show’s Season 1 finale kind of took his character out of the equation, thus allowing the actor to jump into a new leading role.
With news also breaking the same day about Bill Hader potentially heading up a new drama series based on the Jonestown tragedy, there’s no end in sight to high-profile true crime cases. I wonder if that’s where Shemar Moore will pop up next…