Special Ops: Lioness

Force Recon Marine Cruz Manuelos is tasked with befriending the daughter of a terrorist financer who is on the CIA’s kill list.

Lioness was announced in September 2020 as part of a Paramount+ programming slate unveiling.[6] In February 2022, Zoe Saldaña was cast to star in the series, and joined as an executive producer alongside Nicole Kidman.[7] Laysla De Oliveira joined the cast the following month.[8] In June, Sheridan took over as showrunner of the series from Thomas Brady following the conclusion of the show's writers' room.[9] Casting continued in September, with the additions of Dave Annable, LaMonica Garrett, James Jordan, Austin Hébert, Jonah Wharton and Hannah Love Lanier.[10][11] In January 2023, Kidman and Michael Kelly joined the cast alongside Morgan Freeman.[12][13][14]

Filming began in Mallorca in January 2023.[15] In May 2023, it was announced that the series title was changed from Lioness to Special Ops: Lioness[16] although the title card remained unchanged.

Andrew Lockington composed the soundtrack for the series, having previously worked with Taylor Sheridan in Mayor of Kingstown. Lakeshore Records has released the series' soundtrack.

The series is loosely based on the premise of "Team Lioness", where in Iraq in 2003 the decision was made to send female soldiers out with patrols, aiming to stop insurgents from using women to smuggle material because male US soldiers found it difficult to search Muslim women. These teams found themselves in direct combat situations, in violation of the Combat Exclusion Policy (changed only a decade later), which hindered the soldiers from getting veteran benefits after service.[17][18]

The review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes reported a 53% approval rating and an average rating of 6.1/10, based on 32 reviews. The website's critics consensus reads, "Zoe Saldaña provides the energy of a Lioness, but these Special Ops are largely derivative and unconvincing."[19] On Metacritic, it has a weighted average score of 56 out of 100 based on 19 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews".[20]

Reviewer Mike Hale, writing for the New York Times, wrote that the show "turned out to be a moody, suspenseful, textured genre piece with characters you cared about," and that "Sheridan found a form, the action thriller, that suits him better than the western soap operas and contemporary crime dramas that he has produced up to now." Initially, when only screening the first episode, Hale wrote the show "looks like an awful lot of other counterterrorism thrillers, with a visceral punch to its action and a ticky-tacky, backlot feel."[21][22] Also based on the first episode, Variety criticised it as "cliché" and "shameless military propaganda".[17]

• Official website on Paramount+
• Special Ops: Lioness at IMDb