The Unit

[boykinlp]

I Realize That This Is A Television Show!

Back in 2006, there was a television show called "The Unit". It was about a secret unit of the military that did clandestine operations that only a handful of people were aware of. Even their families had to be secretive about what their family member did for the military.

This show is shown on the H&I (Hero's & Icons) television station on Tuesday's from 12-5pm and I remember watching it when it first aired. I enjoyed it then and still enjoy it now! I think they have many good stories, a few get kinda crazy, but most are done well. I think they did a great job choosing the actors. The leader of the unit is portrayed by Dennis Haysbert. Many of his roles have been leadership positions because he depicts them very well. The show not only show the unit dealing with military operations, but also how they deal with personal issues with their families, girlfriends, neighbors, etc. The show lasted about 4-5 years which isn't a really long stretch, and I don't know why they cancelled it, except for poor ratings? Did anyone else here watch it, and what did you think of it?
Larry

 

[gmarshall99]

Loved it and miss it. Is it streaming somewhere?

 

[zeke]

Some channel started doing reruns, but at off times. Will have to look again.

Imo, very good show

 

[boykinlp]

Loved it and miss it. Is it streaming somewhere?

Not sure about streaming.

Some channel started doing reruns, but at off times. Will have to look again.

Imo, very good show

I meant to list the television station that shows it on Tuesday afternoons and completely left it out. It's the H&I (Hero's and Icons) television station on my Charter network. I edited the original post to reflect that.
Larry

 

[SmithNut]

Just a couple weeks ago I looked it up (it's available on Prime video), watch several episodes and really enjoyed seeing it again.

You can watch the episodes at your leisure.... in fact I'm going to watch some this afternoon....

Enjoy.......

 

[zeke]

am watching it now on H&I, aka HERIC, aka Heros and Icons

 

[ladder13]

Pretty darn good bitd.

 

[S-W4EVER]

I enjoyed watching it until the wives started getting involved with the undercover assignments. Really? How realistic do you think that is? No wonder the series ended...

 

[lihpster]

I enjoyed watching it until the wives started getting involved with the undercover assignments. Really? How realistic do you think that is? No wonder the series ended...

This. Ruined a good show in my opinion.

 

[johngalt]

I enjoyed watching it until the wives started getting involved with the undercover assignments. Really? How realistic do you think that is? No wonder the series ended...

Yeah, I remember it started out good, then it turned into a soap opera.

 

[Ivan the Butcher]

Like many good shows, it became a platform for "social issues", the term is "Jumped the Shark!"

Ivan

 

[cherrypointmarine]

I remember reading somewhere that the show was based on the Delta Teams . When Delta first stood up that's the way it was , nobody knew anything about them , like seal Team 6 was . Like anything else in the military TS only lasts so long .

 

[pasound]

I watched it when it came out. First three seasons, I liked, the rest, kinda no, it's stretching for a story and theme. But ok overall. Stream it if you find it.

 

[LoboGunLeather]

An old one-liner: My job is so secret that I'm not allowed to know what I do.

 

[mckenney99]

I have the entire series on DVD and they get pulled out every now & then for a binge watch. Towards the end they were really stretching the story lines & like mention above the involvement of the wives in "missions" just ruined the show.

 

[VictorLouis]

Fantastic series. Watch for free. Link/s below:

https://watchseries.pe/tv/watch-the-unit-full-online-38320

 

[A10]

I enjoyed it, and like others here was disappointed in the turn the series took. They could easily have stuck with the original story line and kept it interesting.

Dennis Haysbert did a great job, and is now making sure we are in good hands.....

 

[boykinlp]

I enjoyed watching it until the wives started getting involved with the undercover assignments. Really? How realistic do you think that is? No wonder the series ended...

This. Ruined a good show in my opinion.

Yeah, those are the episodes that I was talking about being crazy.
Larry

 

[boykinlp]

Yeah, I remember it started out good, then it turned into a soap opera.

I don't know if I would call it a soap opera. I personally think one of the most difficult things about these folk's job would be dealing with your family while at home. Having a job where everything is secret, even from your spouse must be extremely difficult. And the spouse must be very frustrated dealing with it too. Having story lines that deal with this was interesting to me.

I can't imagine doing a job where I am traveling across the world to be shot at, and shoot at people that want to kill you simply because you are an American, then coming home and dealing with day to day problems that most everybody has to deal with. Your spouse gets tired of dealing with everything while you are gone, and you don't get to just unwind when you get home. I can definitely see where being single might make this type of job much easier to deal with.

Watching how they train for a specific mission was interesting to me also.

I also enjoyed the television show "Seal Team" when it was on too. It was similar. One thing that I really liked on this show was the addition of a dog and handler to the team. Watching the dog do his job was fascinating to me. They did many jobs that saved the lives of the human members of the team!
Larry

 

[S-W4EVER]

I don't know if I would call it a soap opera. I personally think one of the most difficult things about these folk's job would be dealing with your family while at home. Having a job where everything is secret, even from your spouse must be extremely difficult. And the spouse must be very frustrated dealing with it too. Having story lines that deal with this was interesting to me.

I can't imagine doing a job where I am traveling across the world to be shot at, and shoot at people that want to kill you simply because you are an American, then coming home and dealing with day to day problems that most everybody has to deal with. Your spouse gets tired of dealing with everything while you are gone, and you don't get to just unwind when you get home. I can definitely see where being single might make this type of job much easier to deal with...
Larry

My Dad was a career Submariner and I was the oldest kid. He'd be gone and when he returned home it really upset the status quo. The alcohol didn't help things. I firmly believe that the Military is NOT the place to raise a family. Moving around and the lack of money was not the life I wanted to live. I did my three years in the Army and got out. In civilian LE I was paid and equipped much better and I was able to raise my girls in a more stable environment (than the Military, anyway).

 

[boykinlp]

I am watching The Unit right now, and haven't seen the whole thing, but this happened in the show! The unit member's truck was being followed by 2 truck loads of bad guys up a mountain, with no way for him to escape. Since I hadn't seen the earlier part of the show, I'm not sure how the equipment that he used was in his truck. The unit guy sees a large plane approaching in the distance. He inflates this rather large balloon with helium and releases it. It rises high in the air, taking a line that he is hooked to with it, and as the plane, with a pair of rods in a "V" shape from it's nose, flies low over his head, the line and balloon is "caught" by the plane. It pulls him by the line, from his seated position, up into the air! A section under the plane's tail opens and the crew pulls the unit member into the plane. I realize that it is TV, but how realistic is this? I thought it was extremely cool! I had videoed this part of the show, but apparently it's too large to upload here. So, here are a few screenshots of the successful pickup.
Larry

 

[THE PILGRIM]

That's the Fulton surface to air recovery system.
Fulton surface-to-air recovery system - Wikipedia

 

[Retired W4]

While getting ready to retire out of Dobbins JRB in 2019 we had a couple reservist whose day job was flying for some unit based at Maxwell. They tried to recruit me. 6 months on and 6 months off, and when you are on even your wife could not contact you or vice versa. I said no...I'm too old for that stuff. They did have some nice equipment though and the pay was decent. Civilian version of 160th SOAR (Abn.) but maybe more like JTF-6 stuff.

 

[sjmjax]

The air rescue, was a similar scene in an early James Bond film.

 

[Retired W4]

With a helicopter you could extract by STABO. Dopes-on-a-rope.

 

[mckenney99]

The Fulton was also featured in the John Wayne film "The Green Berets".

 

[boykinlp]

That's the Fulton surface to air recovery system.
Fulton surface-to-air recovery system - Wikipedia

Thanks for sharing that. I found the following kinda humorous, especially the last line!

"After experiments with instrumented dummies, Fulton continued to experiment with live pigs, as pigs have a nervous system close to humans. Lifted off the ground, the pig began to spin as it flew through the air at 125 miles per hour (200 km/h). It arrived on board uninjured, but in a disoriented state. When it recovered, it attacked the crew."
Larry

 

[boykinlp]

Watching today's episode. In it, 100+ children of high ranking government officials, diplomats, and foreign nationals are taken hostage at an elite private school in DC by a group of Chechen terrorists. One of the "Unit" members sneaks into the school to find out where the kids are being held and other pertinent information. Of course he is wearing glasses that show everything he sees to the strike force leaders, and can communicate with them by comms. While he is doing this, they have set up the school layout on the floor of a huge room using tape on the floor.

They have decided a 2 pronged simultaneous attack will be required, and 2 SWAT teams are "going to school" and rehearsing it until they commit each hall to memory and know it better than their bedrooms". The inside unit member is captured by the terrorists group, and while being taken to the library where half the hostages are being held, is able to see that the bad guys have set up laser trip wires and many bombs/mines placed on the ceiling over the heads of the kid hostages. Also, one of the terrorists has a detonator to set things off! They find out the second half of hostages are being held in a classroom. In both cases, all the hostages are on the floor of the rooms and the terrorists are standing up.

Outside the school is tons of news crews and law enforcement folks. They all think that the FBI is in charge of the situation. How wrong they are!

They are ordered to initiate the rescue attempt, and members of the Unit are leading it, of course. Both teams of "good guys" breech the rooms at the same time taking out ALL the terrorists by shooting them before they can detonate the explosives or hurt any hostages! It was exhilarating and awesome because the good guys won!

Again, I realize this is TV, but I bet much of the stuff that they did is actually done in "real life" situations like this today. That even used a small drone for some of the early surveillance, and this show was almost 20 years ago! Today, drones are used daily in all sorts of applications. I really enjoy watching these types of shows.
Larry

 

[ladder13]

Watching today's episode. In it, 100+ children of high ranking government officials, diplomats, and foreign nationals are taken hostage at an elite private school in DC by a group of Chechen terrorists. One of the "Unit" members sneaks into the school to find out where the kids are being held and other pertinent information. Of course he is wearing glasses that show everything he sees to the strike force leaders, and can communicate with them by comms. While he is doing this, they have set up the school layout on the floor of a huge room using tape on the floor.

They have decided a 2 pronged simultaneous attack will be required, and 2 SWAT teams are "going to school" and rehearsing it until they commit each hall to memory and know it better than their bedrooms". The inside unit member is captured by the terrorists group, and while being taken to the library where half the hostages are being held, is able to see that the bad guys have set up laser trip wires and many bombs/mines placed on the ceiling over the heads of the kid hostages. Also, one of the terrorists has a detonator to set things off! They find out the second half of hostages are being held in a classroom. In both cases, all the hostages are on the floor of the rooms and the terrorists are standing up.

Outside the school is tons of news crews and law enforcement folks. They all think that the FBI is in charge of the situation. How wrong they are!

They are ordered to initiate the rescue attempt, and members of the Unit are leading it, of course. Both teams of "good guys" breech the rooms at the same time taking out ALL the terrorists by shooting them before they can detonate the explosives or hurt any hostages! It was exhilarating and awesome because the good guys won!

Again, I realize this is TV, but I bet much of the stuff that they did is actually done in "real life" situations like this today. That even used a small drone for some of the early surveillance, and this show was almost 20 years ago! Today, drones are used daily in all sorts of applications. I really enjoy watching these types of shows.
Larry

Saw that one. Win for the good guys.

 

[X-Raycer]

First saw The Unit in 2010 about 2am on one of the OTA re-run channels. They were broadcasting an episode every weeknight.

I liked it so much I wanted to see the episodes I missed, so I bought the Complete Series Boxed Set.
Funny I just looked it up. I paid $101 and now the same set is $183. Nuts...