Show: The Unit (CBS)
Episode: Series Premiere
Originally Aired: Tuesday, March 7th 2006
Rating: 3 out of 4 stars
Quick Synopsis: A secret special ops military team and their missions.
Long Synopsis: A secret team of special ops military guys headed up by Jonas Blaine (Dennis Haysbert: 24, Now & Again) that goes in covertly to save hostages, take out terrorists and the like. Others on the team are newcomer Bob Brown (Scott Foley: Felicity), Max Gerhardt (Max Martini), Hector Williams (Demore Barnes) and Charles Grey (Michael Irby). The man who sends them on their mission is Col. Tom Ryan (Robert Patrick: The X-Files, Terminator 2). Some of the Unit has wives at home including Molly Blaine (Regina Taylor: I’ll Fly Away), Kim Brown (Molly Marie Anderson) and Tiffy Gerhardt (Abby Brammell). You also see what the women in these soldiers lives deal with as their husbands are deployed around the world at a moments notice. David Mamet the man behind such movies as Spartan, Heist, Wag the Dog, The Untouchables and the award-winning playwright of Glengarry Glen Ross is the creator of The Unit. Shawn Ryan who created The Shield and has written for TV shows like Angel and Nash Bridges is an executive producer. Eric L. Haney who is the author of Inside Delta Force: The Story of America’s Elite Counter-terrorist Unit is a technical advisor, writer and producer.
Review: The Unit is really good dramaction. I thought it balanced the lives of these soldiers at home with what they do when deployed. It gives the show more realism as many of the men and women who do this type of stuff do have families and are risking their lives each time they go out to do their job. Without this aspect of the show it would lose some of the drama and be just another action show. If it was just guys going out and shooting and blowing stuff up it probably wouldn’t be as interesting.
This was a good solid introduction to the show and the characters that inhabit it. The action sequences were great except for when Jonas is heading down the isle of the plane taking out the terrorists. The way it was shot kind of bothered me and seemed to come out of nowhere. I know they were trying to show that he was locked in to what he was doing and the situation he was in but it almost seemed like fancy camera work for fancy camera works sake. But that is a minor quibble.
The only other minor quibble was with part of the story of the women back at the base. As I would have thought that a wife of a soldier who has been accepted into an elite special forces group would have had a little better understanding of what her family was getting into before they arrived at the base.
All in all though it was good and will be added to the weekly lineup of TV shows that I watch regularly for as long as CBS keeps it on the air. Two other shows from CBS that I also liked, Love Monkey and Threshold, were prematurely removed from the airwaves so you never know. The ratings started out much stronger for The Unit than those two so maybe it will be sticking around for a while. With the pedigree of the people behind it and a strong ratings showing for the premiere it looks like it will.
Did you watch the series premiere of The Unit? What did you think about it? Leave your thoughts in the comments.
