Valor (TV series)


Valor is an American military drama television series created by Kyle Jarrow. The show was produced by CBS Television Studios and Warner Bros. Television, with Anna Fricke and Kyle Jarrow serving as showrunners. The series premiered on The CW on October 9, 2017, as part of the 2017–18 U.S. television season. In November 2017, The CW announced that it would not be ordering any additional episodes of the show beyond the 13 episodes already produced. On May 8, 2018, The CW cancelled Valor after one season.

Cast and characters

Main

Recurring and guest

  • Zeeko Zaki as Staff Sergeant Matt Darzi
  • Valarie Pettiford as Congresswoman Simone Porter, the Chairwoman of the United States House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence and widowed mother of 1LT Ian Porter. She is the point person for Washington in the Shadow Raiders' search for prisoners of war Sergeants Kam and Hendrix. She is later revealed as "Snake Eyes", the leader of the plot to sell uranium to Ukrainian terrorists.
  • Bryan Craig as Staff Sergeant Adam Coogan, a Delta Force operator and longtime rival of CPT Gallo; the two of them started their careers together before going their separate ways. It was later revealed the two feuded over a woman which created animosity between the two.
  • Mac Brandt as Sergeant Shane Dylan Hendrix, a member of Delta Force and fellow prisoner of war alongside Staff Sergeant Jimmy Kam. Sergeant Hendrix is killed trying to escape imprisonment.
  • Chelle Ramos as Staff Sergeant Zoe Cho, one of the first females to ever serve in the Special Operations community. After SSG Kam is taken as a prisoner of war, SSG Cho becomes CPT Gallo's and CWO3 Madani's crew chief. In "About-Face", SSG Cho is sexually assaulted by a Delta Force operator, but manages to fight him off; the operator was immediately transferred off the base and Cho opted to file charges against him.

Production

Development

The CW officially ordered Valor to series on May 10, 2017. The series was planned to air weekly on Netflix in the UK and Ireland beginning November 1, however it never arrived.

Casting

On February 17, 2017, Matt Barr was cast in the lead role as Captain Leland Gallo, a commanding officer and described as "an aging hipster meets flyboy", followed a month later by the casting of Christina Ochoa as his co-pilot Officer Nora Madani, "an intense and driven junior Army pilot who is a member of the Shadow Raiders special ops unit".

Filming

Filming for the series took place in Atlanta.

Reception

Critical response

The review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes reported a 24% approval rating with an average rating of 4.69/10 based on 17 reviews. The website's consensus reads, "Valors attempt to highlight an often overlooked segment of the armed services is undercut by a badly judged blend of military action and melodrama." Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, assigned a score of 39 out of 100 based on 10 critics, indicating "generally unfavorable reviews".