What to Watch Friday, September 25: ‘S.W.A.T. Exiles,’ ‘Outlander: Blood of My Blood’ & College Football

Friday is a little lighter than Thursday's premiere pileup, but there's one obvious headliner: S.W.A.T. Exiles finally premieres today on STARZ, bringing Shemar Moore back as Daniel “Hondo” Harrelson after eight seasons of S.W.A.T.. STARZ is also keeping Friday busy with a new Outlander: Blood of My Blood and the Season 1 finale of Fightland.

Sports fill out much of the rest of the evening. No. 5 Indiana hosts Northwestern on FOX, Rutgers gets a Friday-night home game against Howard on Big Ten Network, and MLB heads into its final regular-season weekend. NBC also has Dateline, USA has WWE SmackDown, and HBO closes the night with a new Real Time with Bill Maher.

TV Cave Top Pick: S.W.A.T. Exiles

Hondo is officially back. S.W.A.T. Exiles premieres today exclusively on STARZ, with Shemar Moore returning to the role he played for eight seasons on CBS. This time, Hondo isn't simply leading another version of 20-Squad. He's been pulled back into action and handed an experimental unit made up of recruits who haven't exactly followed the traditional path into S.W.A.T.

That gives the spinoff a reason to exist beyond simply finding another way to keep Hondo on television. The veteran leader now has to mold a group of inexperienced personalities into an actual team while dealing with an institution that isn't necessarily convinced this experiment should survive. And after S.W.A.T. spent approximately nine lives surviving cancellations, revivals and another cancellation, Hondo landing at an entirely different network somehow feels perfectly on brand.

Friday, September 25 TV Schedule

Time (ET)	Show	Network/Streaming	Tonight
Streaming	S.W.A.T. Exiles	STARZ	Series premiere, “Clean Entry”
7:00 PM	Howard at Rutgers	Big Ten Network / FOX One	Friday college football
8:00 PM	Northwestern at No. 5 Indiana	FOX / FOX One	Big Ten opener for both teams
8:00 PM	Outlander: Blood of My Blood	STARZ	S2E2, “The Veil of Time”
8:00 PM	WWE SmackDown	USA Network	New episode
8:00 PM	Deadliest Catch	Discovery	New Season 22 episode
9:00 PM	Dateline NBC	NBC	New episode
9:00 PM	Scariest House in America	HGTV	Season 3, Episode 2
9:00 PM	Fightland	STARZ	Season 1 finale, “You Won’t See Me Coming”
10:00 PM	S.W.A.T. Exiles	STARZ linear channel	Series premiere broadcast
10:00 PM	Real Time with Bill Maher	HBO / HBO Max	New episode

Outlander: Blood of My Blood Continues Season 2

Outlander: Blood of My Blood follows last week's Season 2 premiere with Episode 2, “The Veil of Time.” The Jacobite Rebellion continues to complicate Brian and Ellen's lives while Julia and Henry dig further into the mystery surrounding the stones at Craigh na Dun. STARZ's schedule has the episode airing at approximately 8 PM ET tonight.

Season 2 has barely begun, but the prequel is already pushing its two central couples back into circumstances considerably larger than their romances. Of course, this is Outlander, so “can these people just be happy for five minutes?” remains one of the franchise's most reliably unanswered questions.

No. 5 Indiana Opens Big Ten Play

College football takes over FOX at 8 PM ET when Indiana Hoosiers football hosts Northwestern Wildcats football. Indiana enters the matchup 4-0 and ranked No. 5 after shutting out Western Kentucky 38-0, while Northwestern comes in 2-0 following a 41-7 win over Colorado. FOX confirms tonight marks the Big Ten opener for both teams.

New Jersey viewers also have a local option an hour earlier, with Howard visiting Rutgers at 7 PM ET on Big Ten Network. So yes, Friday has quietly become a college-football night too. The fall television schedule apparently looked at Saturdays and decided they were getting entirely too much attention.

Friday may not have Thursday's avalanche of premieres, but S.W.A.T. Exiles gives the night a major scripted launch while Outlander: Blood of My Blood, Fightland, Dateline, SmackDown and college football keep the rest of the schedule moving. Hondo has survived CBS, multiple cancellations and now a network change, so at this point, betting against that man seems unwise.