The Unit: Season One

2006
Created by David Mamet
Produced by Shawn Ryan
Starring Dennis Haysbert, Scott Foley and Robert Patrick

When trying to form an opinion and word a response to a show like The Unit, two things are forced to butt up against one another like two billy goats: the desire to enjoy and like a show like The Unit, and the the actual show called The Unit.  When The Unit was on paper last year, there couldn't have been anything more exciting: thanks to a bullet in the throat, Dennis Haysbert wouldn't be returning to 24.  David Mamet had just written another brilliant episode of Shawn Ryan's The Shield, and all three would be teaming up with Robert Patrick to make a hardcore show about the US Special Forces.  Imagining a show like that, reading about it on the web...it still seems incredibly exciting.  So why is the real thing so bad?

When trying to enjoy an episode of The Unit, there's an attack coming from two fronts, an attack that, in all 13 of the first season's episodes, succeeds beyond all imagination.  The first front is the portions of the show that focus on the wives--miscast across the board, the wives of these men all seem to begin every day with amnesia, forgetting what it was they bought into when they chose to marry men far more obsessed with their military lives than anything a family might provide.  Each episode contains at the very least one, and often more, scene where the viewer is left confused, asking oneself, "Why did these women marry these guys?"  The argument "because they were in love" doesn't work--by the end of the first episode it's clear that any sort of romantic emotion has been left behind by these men years ago, and that their loyalty and faith (and, quite possibly, all physical attraction) reside totally in the men they work alongside.  Beyond that, the women fill their days with so little beyond talking about these men who don't seem to care that much about them that they seem barely human at all: after a few episodes, it's like watching a doll house stand up and move around on it's own while the children who rule it are outside playing.  The women behave as if they're so devoid of any desire or want beyond their pretend relationships that it becomes impossible to care for them at all: the only possible explanation for their behavior would require for The Unit to reveal that all these women are robots.  Their behavior makes that little sense.  (They are also such a terrible bunch of actresses a kinder viewer might hope that they were actually built out of a broken Sony Aibo.)

Of course, part of the problem (and maybe all of it) with them women on the show can be dedicated solely to one man: David Mamet.  After all, all other major problems with the show are definitely his. 

Mamet's writing hasn't captured anybodies imagination in a while, (excepting people who like to pretend they actually laughed at State and Main) and The Unit is no exception.  Stuttering out bizarrely autistic conversation and creating new metaphor/cliches out of whole cloth, every character on the show has to suffer it at some point.  While veterans like Haysbert and Patrick are able to grimace out enough world weariness and disgust to make the dumb cowpoke language relatively comprehensible, Mamet's success rate for idiocy remains in his favor for every episode he writes.  His stamp of pointlessly obvious deus ex machina remains throughout even the episodes his name is nowhere near: it's as if The Unit is written only by writers who sleep sitting in a chair in Vermont, underneath bookcases with well-thumbed copies of Mamet's drivel.  Over and over do we witness what looks like relatively normal people (even surprisingly unattractive females, a rare feat for network television) that speak as if they're tongues are made of molasses into ears that serve as trampolines: "What's that?" "That." "What's that." "That's what makes us wives." "Wives." What's that, that makes us?"  "Wives?"  While this would be, without a doubt, unintentional hilarity in small doses, 44 minutes of it is just grueling.  13 Episodes of it? 

That's just suicidal.

-Tucker Stone, 2006

Comments

[Ryan Canfield]

I have'nt seen an entire episode yet but expect it's arrival any day now via netflix. So at this time all I have to say is I thought State and Main was hilarious. I still quote Alex Baldwin's line "so that happened" after he crawles out of a car crash. Speaking of wich Alex Baldwin is incredibly funny on 30 Rock. If you haven't seen this show you've got to, if only to see Baldwin.

[Stef]

To understand the unit you have to understand the life of a military spouse. I have enjoyed watching The Unit and will continue. What you have seen on the show may not be all facts, but to some extent it is. I don't live the life that those women do, but I do live the life of an military spouse. I think that the story line is just show the lives of these people that are out there fighting for our country. Like everything else on TV, it can be drawn out. I feel that we all should have the respect of others and their work. I do respect your thoughts and hope that you will do the same for the rest of the viewers that do enjoy the show.