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Training Day," the TV show, is not a remake or a reboot of "Training Day," the 2001 movie for which Denzel Washington won an Oscar and Ethan Hawke was nominated.

It's sort of a sequel.

Executive producers Will Beall and Antoine Fuqua (who directed the movie) have put two new characters in the same situation 15 years later.

"One of the first things we talked about was not redoing the movie," Beall said.

There are similarities. The movie was about rookie cop Jake Hoyt (Hawke), who teamed with dirty cop Alonzo Harris (Washington). Before it was over, Alonzo was dead.

In the TV show (Thursday, 9 p.m., CBS/Ch. 2), another young, idealistic cop, Kyle Craig (newcomer Justin Cornwell), teams up with a morally ambiguous veteran, Frank Rourke (Bill Paxton, "Big Love").

But while Frank pushes the limits and breaks the rules, he doesn't murder Russian mobsters, steal millions from drug dealers and try to have his new partner killed.

That was Alonzo.

The LAPD leadership worries that Frank may be too much like Alonzo; Kyle has been assigned as his partner to spy on him and report on his unorthodox methods.

"The beauty of it is you get to explore, a little further than you can in a movie, about what's too far and what's not too far when it comes to doing the right thing," Fuqua said.

Frank has "a gunslinger code of honor. He's tough, but he's fair," Paxton said.

And the relationship between Frank and Kyle is part father and son, part "buddy thing." That was definitely not true in the movie.

Kyle is "a different character, different take on it," Cornwell said.

Fuqua compared the original "Training Day" to "Heart of Darkness" — Alonzo went "deep upriver" and lost himself, whereas Frank has "gone upriver and made it back."

"He's not setting his partner up to be killed," Paxton said —an important distinction.

But the TV series is by no means a journey into darkness. There are plenty of laughs in the midst of the suspense and gunfights.

"It has much more humor than the movie," Fuqua said. "I mean, if I'd had more time in the film, I would have put more humor in it. But in a show like this, you can have that. And you can have a lot of fun."

The new "Training Day" is hardly revolutionary. It's the latest in a long line of dozens — hundreds? — of buddy-cop shows, although these guys don't start out as the best of friends and are, at best, rather uneasy partners who don't approve of each other.

The producers didn't altogether deny reports that Hawke might make a guest appearance, though they seemed to throw water on that fire. "But there are a few characters from the movie that cross over," Beall said.

Noel Gugliemi is in the pilot as Moreno. Tom Berenger will reprise his role as Stan Gursky. And the Three Wise Men (a trio of high-ranking cops) have a "great scene" with Cornwell in which they're "like the [expletive] witches in 'Macbeth,' " Beall said.

But Washington won't be making an appearance. First, he's a big movie star. And, second, his character is dead. But he was curious.

Fuqua wasn't involved in the day-to-day production of the series; he was, among other things, directing the 2016 remake of "The Magnificent Seven" — in which Washington starred. And Washington asked Fuqua about the show.

"He knows I love that world," Fuqua said. "He says, 'So you get to explore more of that. That's great.' "

Scott D. Pierce covers TV for The Salt Lake Tribune. Email him at spierce@sltrib.com; follow him on Twitter @ScottDPierce.