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The current student at Berklee College of Music has a rock 'n' roll pedigree, but delivers a pleasing and diverse collection of soft pop on his debut record. Enter our contest for your chance to win!
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Rating: Country: USA Release Date: September 19, 2006 Distributor: 20th Century Fox Cast: · Dennis Haysbert · Regina Taylor · Scott Foley · Audrey Marie Anderson · Max Martini · Abby Brammell · Robert Patrick Related Sites: ·IMDb: The Unit ·Sirlinksalot: The Unit
Grade: A+
The Unit is one helluva must-watch show. Based on the book and experiences of Eric L. Haney, The Unit takes viewers on a world tour of U.S. Army Special Forces (sometimes known as Delta Force) operations in response to threats of terrorism, both foreign and domestic.
But the show is also filled with human drama outside of the bullet-riddled combat scene. The wives of the soldiers form a good half of each episode, as they deal with the special lives they've been given of having to keep secrets about what their husbands do and what unit they work for. To the outside world, these soldiers are paper pushers, tasked to the 303rd Logistics. That is for their protection, the protection of their families, and the protection of the nation they serve.
The leader of The Unit is Colonel Tom Ryan, played superbly by Robert Patrick (The X Files, "Terminator 2: Judgment Day"). However, the focus of the show is on the field leader, Sgt. Jonas Blane (Dennis Haysbert, "Jarhead") and the new guy, Bob Brown (Scott Foley, Scrubs). While Jonas shows Bob the ropes out in the field -- not that he really needs to; Bob is a professional at what he does -- Jonas's wife, Molly (Regina Taylor) takes charge of the wives of The Unit, taking Bob's wife Kim (Audrey Marie Anderson, Point Pleasant) under her wing.
There's a running drama threaded between the episodes as well, the most prominent one being the affair between Colonel Ryan and Tiffany Gerhardt (Abby Brammell, Enterprise), the wife of one of the men in Ryan's command, Mack Gerhardt (Max Martini, CSI: Miami). They meet up when Mack is deployed, and he's deployed often (Shades of David, Bathsheba and Uriah!) There's also the simmering question about Jonas's combat stress and what his career choices will be if he ever opts out of The Unit, and we get to watch Kim grow from being a confused and upset newbie to being a strong, confident -- and even assisting -- military wife.
The two other members of the squad not to be forgotten are Hector Williams (Demore Barnes) and Charles Grey (Michael Irby ("Flightplan"), both of whom play their roles with intensity, despite being often left out of the human drama since they're both single (Charles is a flirt, and Hector's attempts at marriage fail when his chosen has to be told what he truly does for the Army.)
War is hell on the homefront, too. The wives of The
Unit operate with military efficiency, helping to
maintain the cover of their husbands. L-R: Abby
Brammell, Regina Taylor, Audrey Marie Anderson
It's a world of action and secrets and disavowals. With these soliders, if you know they did their job, then they didn't do their job.
The Unit - Season One comes packaged on four discs, two per slimline case, which fit into a handsome outer slipcase. The only special feature on the set is a making-of featurette in which Eric L. Haney discusses how the show graduated from being a movie concept with David Mamet into the television format, which Haney felt better told the story. Haney also goes into the birth of Delta Force in the 70s as a U.S. response to growing threats of terrorism, and lets slip that each episode is based on actual operations.
Languages include English 5.1 Digital, with subtitles in English, Spanish and French. (Although the French will probably be disinclined to watch after the slogging they take, culturally, in the cliffhanger season finale.)
