The pilot was written by Michael Caleo, who was also the executive producer, while Universal TV, Davis Entertainment and Yellow Brick Road produced the show. According to various news outlets, the plot of the show revolved around "a tough, sexy but acerbic police detective using a wheelchair after a shooting" who "is hardly limited by his disability as he pushes and prods his hand-picked team to solve the most difficult cases in the city." The pilot episode was released for free early on September 10, 2013, via iTunes Store, Amazon.com, and Hulu.
The new Ironside received negative reviews. A summary on Rotten Tomatoes said, "Ironside is an unnecessary, lackluster remake that could be a decent police procedural if it wasn't so mundane and monotonous." Brian Tallerico of HollywoodChicago called it the "Worst New Drama of 2013" and awarded it 1 star out of 5, saying: " the most cliched, least believable, least fun, and just awful new drama of the year. It is aggressively bad. Avoid at all costs. Blair Underwood... deserves better than the horrendous, uninteresting writing here. should be a way to explore how our physical well-being is only one part of our lives and how we approach our work, even crimefighting. It’s not. It’s just manipulative drama that hopes to make you stand up and cheer by reminding you over and over again how tough its title character remains." Neil Genzlinger of The New York Times called the title character "an unpleasant combination of macho and brusque" and the handling of his disability "thuddingly didactic" and "one that is not doing real people with disabilities any favors". He called the storylines "bland", the reason for Ironside's disability "predictable" and the writing "plodding". Robert Bianco of USA Today gave the show 1.5 stars out of 4. He called it an "atrociously clunky" remake that "jettison whatever wit and intelligence the original possessed".
Controversy
Controversy arose over the decision to cast non-disabled actor Blair Underwood in the role of paraplegic Robert Ironside. Sons of Anarchy actor Kurt Yaeger, himself an amputee, compared the act to blackface, and said disabled characters should be played by disabled actors. Auti Angel, a paralyzed actress who appears in the Sundance Channel’s reality series Push Girls was quoted as saying "What are they afraid of? There are so many extremely talented individuals who are performing artists with a different ability." Larry Sapp, a disabled independent filmmaker, went as far as to boycott the show by starting a Facebook page called Don't Shoot Ironside. However, fellow Push Girls star Angela Rockwood says she is not opposed to Ironside because the drama, like her show, challenges perceptions of how those in wheelchairs should look and act. Teri Weinberg, executive producer of Ironside, stated that the role was cast with a non-disabled actor because the show features flashbacks to Ironside's life before he became a paraplegic, which "required an actor to be on their feet in their previous life".
