The Unit
You get to shoot guns, jump out of planes, and come home to your family. It's
damn near perfect.
Seeing how I am the unfunny one, I'm not going to write about animated films, but
about a TV series than used to run on CBS until recently: The Unit. The Unit is an action
drama series about a technically non-existent Special Forces team in the United States
military, that execute undercover missions to collect intelligence and fight terrorists,
drug dealers, weapon smugglers and the like all over the world.
I'm not into watching TV and didn't know much about this series for quite some time - I
only stumbled upon it during flipping through channels one night. It was about some soldiers
being chased somewhere in Afghanistan by Taliban forces. They arrive at a small military
outpost where they take cover and prepare to fight the much larger enemy force. I started
watching it and instantly became a fan. (As it turned out, this was Season 2 episode Dark
of the Moon - in my opinion, the best episode in the series.)
The series is mainly based on Inside Delta Force written by Eric Haney, an early
member of the 1st Special Forces Operational Detachment-Delta - more commonly referred to
as Delta Force.
The book gives an account of how Delta Force was formed, how selection course and operator
training went and what kind of missions Delta operators performed during their service. It
is also obviously the basis for several episodes of the series. Haney was also the technical
consultant for the first two seasons.
The main characters of the series are Jonas Blane (Snake Doctor), Mack Gerhardt (Dirt Diver),
Bob Brown (Cool Breeze), Charles Grey (Betty Blue) and Hector Williams (Hammerhead) - they make
up Alpha Team. (Later in the series Whiplash joins the team.) They're highly trained soldiers,
capable of operating on their own in hostile territory for long periods of time, if necessary.
All of them have several years of military experience and are cross-trained in various military
specializations. Blane is the team leader, a former Ranger and Green Beret. Brown has pilot licenses
for both airplanes and helicopters and he has sniper training. Grey is a demolition specialist and
Williams is a combat medic/sniper.
They live in a very tight-knit community at the fictional Fort Griffith military base. Because of
the utmost secrecy surrounding their unit, they have few outside friends - their families hang
out together much like they go on missions together.
Unit members belong to a cover organisation at the base, the fictional 303rd Logistical Studies
Group and to everyone outside their immediate families they appear to have boring desk jobs. Beyond
the fact that these unit operators perform dangerous missines, even family members are not given
any details about the nature of their missions, training or even their safety and health during a
mission.
When a unit operator is killed in action, only the unit's commanding officer, Colonel Tom Ryan and
the people who took part in executing and running the mission ever learn the circumstances. All
others are given a cover story of a training mission accident or the like.
Each episode is roughly divided into two main parts: one shows the soldiers carrying out their
mission, while the other shows their families living their lives at home. The missions were mostly
well done, but unfortunately the family storyline felt forced and unimportant most of the
time. It seemed that the authors tried very hard to make the family storyline interesting and
they came up with some wild and unbelievable plot lines for the wives. Fortunately, most of these
can be tolerated and the mission execution parts are really worth watching.
It's hard to summarize 69 episodes of a TV series without giving away details of the story, but
if there's one reason I like The Unit, it is this: unlike many other military/police dramas,
The Unit feels realistic. In all likelyhood, it is not realistic, but at least one can tell
that missions and the execution of the missions was thought through - this is one difference
that sets The Unit apart from other series.
Sure, there's one episode when the characters duck behind a dining room table to avoid getting
shot by trained CIA assassin wielding a Uzi; there are a few more unbelievable scenes, but fortunately
they are far and few between. The depiction of selection courses, SERE training, sniper excercises are
pretty close to the real thing, at least based on what I read.
CBS didn't do a very good job at advertising The Unit - it kept changing time slots, kept
getting delayed by sport events, so it was hard even for fans to keep track of show times.
Due to this, many never even heard of it, although in my opinion it is among the best TV
series. If you have some free time to watch it, I suggest you grab a copy of The Unit and
start watching it.