The Unit - The Complete Third Season

The first season of The Unit is some of the best stuff ever put on TV, especially the pilot: tough, no-nonsense action with rugged heroes and enough syrupy soap drama to keep the wives happy. The second season was in a few rare instances even better, with outstanding episodes like "Johnny B. Goode," "Kill Zone," and "In Loco Parentis."

It's with great sadness that I report the third season is, as my own senior drill sergeant would have said, "hot f-ing garbage." The season opens strongly, with the team split in the two part "Pandemonium." Blane sports a new look, and it even looks as though Dennis Haysbert has been hitting the gym for the role. The two-parter is just fantastic all around, with quick-pacing and solid writing. The episode "Five Brothers," in which one of the team is shockingly killed (and its follow-up where Blane goes renegade to deal out his own vengeance), is also high-tension, high-quality Unit action at its finest.

Then it just hits the floor and doesn't get back up. I'm not sure whether to blame the writers' strike, Eric Haney, or David Mamet, but the show just becomes awful. An atrocious new theme song, a weak alt-rock number, replaces the pitch-perfect previous main titles. The writing also becomes more ADHD than Robin Williams live comedy shows, with the Unit moving its focus from vaguely plausible missions in places like Afghanistan to wannabe-007 undercover garbage. Seriously? What set The Unit apart from other shows before was its relatively accurate portrayal of an elite infantry team and their action (like in the first season episode, "200th Hour," where you see the Unit killhouse). In moving away from this and moving more towards generic espionage adventures, the show's creators have lost what made The Unit special to begin with.

I haven't seen any of Season 4 yet, mostly because I have been busy with my own military training and prepping for Ranger School in the spring. But if it's continued the poor precedent established here, then put a fork in the Unit before it drags on and embarrasses itself like West Wing did after Aaron Sorkin left the show.

Seriously hot garbage.

I bought seasons 2 and 3 when I was halfway through watching season 1! The third season was just as good as the first two (which normally would be a downside that it was not any better than the first two, but the first two were so good that this one definitely did not disappoint). The characters and plots are great, and if you are not hooked by now, you never will be. My suggestion would be to go ahead and buy all three seasons at once...otherwise you will be angry for a whole week in between while you wait for amazon to send the next one...

As a former Soldier, the show engages my husband on the level of identifying with their operations, missions, and many of their problems. I, however, hate military shows and most often find them gory, sad, and or boring. But this show captures even my attention and grips me in my seat until the credits roll.

My Husband and I work during the evenings and can't watch the seasons as they air. Instead we wait patiently for the next season's DVD release. So we had no idea what was in store for us, going only off of the first two seasons' successful storyline.

The third season was amazing also, but at this price, and only including three disks (2 disks with four episodes, and one with only three) I couldn't help but feeling as though I had somehow been ripped off.

I rated this a three for two reasons

1: The season was ridiculously short ( writer strike or not)
2: The season finally was a complete dud more suitable for the middle of the season and not the last one on my almost $30 season box set.

An excellent show, and Season 3 is quite good. The only limitation is that only 11 shows were made before the writer's strike cut the season short.

I am an unabashed supporter of this series which, in my view, recognizes some of the select few who protect the rest of us in quiet ways we can scarcely imagine. The series will not appeal to those gentle souls who believe that all inter-personal and international differences can be resolved by reasoning together (would that that were so). For those of the rest of us less idealistic, The Unit provides some appreciation of Churchill's observation in another time that much is often owed by many to a special few.