Search - The Unit: Season Four [Blu-ray] on Blu-ray

The Unit

R. R. | NC | 05/20/2009

(5 out of 5 stars)

"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.
"

Just When You Think CBS can't get any dumber...

Dave Osborn | Harlingen, Texas | 05/23/2009

(5 out of 5 stars)

"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."

The End Too Soon of a Great Drama

John Capute | Atlanta, GA USA | 05/31/2009

(3 out of 5 stars)

"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 Best Show on TV was Cancelled

Lawrence L. Lee | San Diego, CA | 10/05/2009

(5 out of 5 stars)

""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!"