Customer Reviews

The Unit: Season Four

5 star:		(60)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

I just heard on the radio that they have cancelled `The Unit'. I had thought that CBS had more sense than the other big three, but apparently not.
`The Unit' is a very riveting show. You can't help but cheer for the 4 Unit guys. They have the terrorists who are trying to harm America trying to kill them on one side, the snake-in-the-grass Colonel sabotaging them on the other side and their wives are always in danger while they are off saving the country. You can't help but pay attention and care what happens to them. I never doze off or get distracted when I'm watching that show. I guess I should say when I used to watch that show now that it is cancelled. They will probably replace this really interesting show with some reality show where jerks act like jerks.
We'll miss you Snake Doctor, Cool Breeze, Dirt Diver, and Betty Blue. We've looked forward to your show the last four years.

I also was disappointed that CBS cancelled The Unit; however, I am hopeful that FOX, TNT, A&E or one of the other cable channels will pick it up. I was down to one show per week - The Unit - on the main three networks; now it's none. We still have 24 on FOX, and more and more superior shows are coming out on cable channels. The big three are in a death spiral with their "reality" shows all week. Clueless is the first word that comes to mind when I think of them.

Well, it was clear pretty early on that CBS had lost faith in The Unit. First, putting it on Sunday nights at 10. How many nights during football season did it not even begin until 10:30 or even closer to 11? Then there were all the times it was preempted for this special or that made-for-TV movie. There was never really any continuity to the series this season: it would be on one week, then you would have to wait two or three weeks for it to appear again, and what you might get even after that was a repeat. There were other hints of a loss of confidence with the series as it had been for the previous three years. The biggest sign was the addition of semi-regular Nicole Stenwedell as new team member Bridget Sullivan (reminiscent of the lengths that old, great series Homicide: Life on the Streets went to to try and bring in a different kind of audience when it started bringing in eye candy like Michael Michelle in its last years). Second was the near invisible input of David Mamet himself. So the demise of this excellent drama is not surprising. Yet the show retained its great integrity, no matter how mundane some of its stories got this season. Stenwedell proved to be a solid addition and served to dramatize the real world conflicts and questions of having women on the front line of war. But most of all, what makes and has always made The Unit worthwhile viewing is the strength of its cast, and in particular its stalwart men, whose heroics are always placed in a morally ambiguous light. And if the show had to end, the last image of it was a fitting way to say goodbye. As one of his men gets married, Jonas -- the great Snake Doctor himself -- sits alone in a pew, left by Molly when he would not chose her and their marriage over the duty -- and yes, excitement -- of the Unit. It's a sad image, redolent of loss and the hard and complicated and messy choices that these men and their women make every day of their lives in The Unit.
Nothing is resolved: one soldier is married, another sees his marriage dissolve. Life and their missions will continue and there will be heroics and there will be compromises. I would have loved to have seen more of these missions, but if they had to end, this was as good a place and time for them to end.

"The Unit" was undoubtedly the most thought-provoking, best-written show on television, based upon a fantastic book ("Inside Delta Force," by Eric Haney--Inside Delta Force: The Story of America's Elite Counterterrorist Unit) and featuring an astoundingly talented creative team (Shawn Ryan and David Mamet) and a fantastic ensemble cast. So, the network which features three separate CSI shows--plus two knock-off versions of CSI that involve malfeasance within the U.S. military--couldn't stomach the outright honesty, integrity, authenticity, and patriotism of "The Unit"? Not shocking. However, the manner in which CBS railroaded the show was absolutely deplorable.

If it genuinely came down to a pure ratings-related decision, then "The Unit's" ratings were actually higher than those of many shows that survived the CBS axe. Plus, offering the show increasingly poor time slots as the seasons wore on naturally led to the season to season ratings decline, which CBS has pointed out prominently in justifying its decision not to renew "The Unit." So, what ended up killing "The Unit"? Political correctness? A yearning for safe, formulaic, lowest common denominator programs at CBS? Liberal-minded network programming executives? The fact that it is not one of CBS's own in-house productions, as are the CSIs and NCISs of the world?

How many ways can a crime scene investigation team use a blue light or a neat piece of equipment to find the key previously overlooked clue that breaks open a case? In how many settings can the same story be told with different clues but the same result? (Typically, the white male turns out to be the bad guy. And, if there's more than one, then typically the wealthier of the two is discovered to be the bad guy.) Tune in to CBS and find out. I, on the other hand, will be taking refuge from the mind-numbing shows that dominate network television via my DVD player instead. And, among the most prominently re-viewed DVDs will be Seasons 1-4 of "The Unit." So long, Snake Doctor, Cool Breeze, Dirt Diver, Betty Blue, et. al. It was a heck of a ride!

This review is more for The Unit as a series than season 4 in particular. I have been a diehard fan of this series since I watched the first episode. I always felt like this show had the courage to stand up and say things and show things that needed to be said or shown. Now, in the midst of a myriad of terrible shows, they go and cancel the best one on the air. Hmmm...

My life has become more and more busy in recent years so I have at times had to cut it down to only one show that I could keep up with. When this choice came up there was never really any choice; The Unit. It is very sad to see the series end like this, with so many more stories to tell. We had season 3 cut short due to the writer's strike and now we find out that the guys will not return for season 5 despite the fact that season 4 leaves many unanswered questions on the table; will Jonas be able to save his marriage and still fight for his country? Will Charlie find happiness with Joss? Will Mack & Tiffy finally be able to work things out together? Will Col. Ryan end his tour of duty and take a quiet retirement (or a life in politics)? Will Bob be able to truly bounce back from his drug addiction and be the best that he can be once again?

I guess we'll never know. That is, unless somebody realizes what a gem The Unit truly is and picks it up, dusts it off, and gets back in there with Snake Doctor and his boys! Fire it up!

My hat is off to the producers and stars of this tremendous series as well as the real guys in the field that this show portrays! We owe you gentlemen a debt that we cannot repay. Thank you!

Frankly, 3 stars was gracious this season, but I like The Unit, and have great memories from a simpler time back in S-1 and possibly S-2 where the writers weren't trying to make some kind of metaphysical commentary on life, not to mention not trying to lure the 18-45 year old female demographic to watch the show with their boyfriends/husbands. I've always felt that when The Unit stuck to what it was good at, that being action-based drama following one or a series of missions pertaining to a seasonal-arc, it was not only a great show, but one of the best at what it was doing. Its ensemble cast has always been strong, from Pedro Ceranno Haysbert to Max Martini's icy-badassness.

But this season, they went off the rails.

Focusing more on the homelife (and the crossover fallout of using their wives as undercover operatives, what?!?!?!) Shawn Ryan managed to make a smart, at times funny, and always action-packed show....well, cheesy. I've always felt The Unit was at its worst when it tried to shift back and forth from marital life to battlefield because it detracted from the believability of both. The wives get annoying fast, the kids even more so, and the mundaneness of life on base really couldnt be highlighted much without turning into a soap opera.

Then, there is the whole Mack vision-quest episode which was the turning point...strap the saddle on that shark, Fonzi, its time to ride! And Betty Blue's love-life arc? Come on. The Unit was always relatively believable, but with this season, this faded quickly. Its a shame, because I think I'll probably purchase Seasons 1 and 2 for nostalgias sake.

And while I'm at it, the opening theme "Walk the Fire" is the worst intro song I've heard since the 80's. Replacing "Fired Up" (frankly, show-opening perfection) in Season 3 could have been the start of the decline, I'm not sure, but it didnt help. Its a shame when a show you love gets screwed up, but I feel like I've been entertained for a couple years by The Unit, and maybe thats all you can ask for.

We are saddened -- but not surprised -- at the loss of this series. The Unit was such a sharp, hard-hitting look at the lives of special forces members and the families who strengthen their souls. Perhaps it was too good of a show to continue; bumping shoulders with today's popular programs is certainly a challenge. "Who wants intellect when you can watch jackass?" I own seasons 1-3 on DVD and await Season 4 with anticipation. To bounce a show around its time slot the way CBS did -- a crime. Do that with a useless reality show, not this one. The Unit deserved at least a quid pro quo response for its incredible expense of time, effort, and brilliant writing/casting. I too will miss Snake Doc, Dirt Diver, Betty Blue, Cool Breeze ... and Hammerhead. Though I typically wait for DVD release (commercials aren't worth the wait), this was one show that I did at least mute ads for (TiVo deficient, I'm afraid). If the network does indeed realize their mistake in years to come, I will be one of the stalwart fans who will tune in and applaud this show's return.

I was fortunate enough to channel surf onto an episode of this series midway through season 2. I immediately added it to my DVR and ultimately bought the DVDs for all 4 seasons. Like many others, I'm disappointed to see it end.

The Unit has always told a strong story in each episode. Some series become predictable early on, but that never happened here. Stories continued to surprise, characters continued to develop. I'm old enough that I don't feel attached to fictitious characters, yet those in The Unit pulled me in. I occasionally found myself facing a challenge at work asking "What would Snake Doc do?". As strong as the storyline is, the characters made this series. Exceptional.

Like others, I am dissatisfied to see the series end. Many story lines are unresolved, and there is obviously still gas in the tank for more episodes. I'm a middle-aged guy who has finally earned some disposable income that doesn't jingle in my pocket, yet modern marketing deems me irrelevant. I don't watch so-called reality shows (not my reality BTW) where nearly-naked nit-wits generally make buffoons of themselves. I don't know the people who do watch them. But to watch TV today, they are both loaded and easy to separate from their loot.

I'm not sure what it takes in TV-Land to make a show financially successful. In my world, the successful show is the one I'll stay up past midnight to watch, even when I have to be to work early the next morning. The successful show is the one that I think about for a couple of days, not a couple of seconds, after watching it. The successful show is the one I wait for anxiously each week. The successful show is the one I will miss when some TV executive nit-wit (who would fit perfectly into his own reality TV) cancels it. In other words, this show. Get it.

Network TV, especially CBS, has lost its mind because they had a terrific action drama with "the Unit" with close to real life stories and they cancel it. All they care about are their stupid reality shows and dumb not so funny situation comedies. I'm fed up with those type of shows which I never watch and just rely on slipping a DVD into the machine to watch what I want. Come on FOX or NBC or ABC, pick up this GREAT show so we don't miss a beat for the Fall. You'll have a ready made audience. I remember this same situation with the old series "JAG" which was cancelled also after 2 years on NBC and then CBS picked it up and it ran for 6 more years.

i have followed the unit since it first started on tv.. It was the best show in my opinion and as the seasons continued the show got better, especially here in the fourth season.. this is the best season of the 4, has a great story and action and has a great twist in the end of it.. I am very sad to hear this is the last season, the show has a great cast and i wish the show would go for at least 1 or 2 more seasons or develope a movie to finish the show off with.. you will love season 4 of the unit