I note this series as a big budget movie version opens on August 8, 2003, starring Samuel L. Jackson (is he in almost everything, or what) and LL Cool J. This series ran for only a year and a half in the mid-70's, and had a reputation as one of the most violent shows ever. It starred Steve Forrest (Mommie Dearest) and a then-unknown actor named Robert Urich.
I have never seen any episodes, and even with the movie release date approaching, no channel that I know of runs it. If any one remembers any details on this series, please post.

I picked up the DVD set of this show. Feeling nostalgic, I guess. Don't know how great it was as a show, but I always loved watching Robert Urich and Mark Shera!

I made a rather odd observation. This show was apparently canceled after the second season in response to one of the periodic outbursts about violence on television. Also, on later series, S.W.A.T. units would be portrayed (for example, on T.J. Hooker) as trigger-happy fools who don't really care how much damage they cause as long as they get them bad guys. However...in this series, the violence was actually well controlled. In practically every episode, there's some comment about not shooting unless it's absolutely necessary, and about how the safety of hostages is paramount. In fact, they had an episode where they did get a trigger-happy cop in as a substitute for the wounded Deacon Kay, and the younger cops on the team were absolutely outraged that his actions forced them to do shooting that they felt could have been avoided. After the sharpshooter, T.J, was forced to kill a criminal to save his hostage, the trigger-happy sub said that "it had to be done". T.J. angrily replied that the Lieutenant "talks guys like that down a couple times a week!" Perhaps he was exaggerating, but the point was that S.W.A.T. (in actually, not necessarily in the episodes we saw) tended to rely more on negotiation that shooting. I really don't understand how it got such a bad rep.