The Unit (TV Series) Non-Permissive Environment (2006) User Reviews

Good Escape Segments But Why The Needless Soap Story?

[ccthemovieman-1 · 6/10 · 17 January 2007]

A hotel room in Valencia, Spain, is where the team is located, ready to assassinate some bad guy across the way.

Called down to the lobby, Jonas gets last-minute word from a high-ranked whomever (not someone from his team, but the country of Spain), he goes back to alert his team. He's seconds too late. The team just made the hit. Now they must get out of there in a hurry - a big hurry.

That's the main story, how they guys get out of the country. Most of it is focused on Bob, the guy who has the most trouble leaving. He is caught by police by crashes out of the police car and then has to use several mans and a number of people to get out safely. It's all very interesting.

The second story is a soapy bit about the Blanes's college daughter "Besty," who has come home, gives her mother attitude and we have to find out what's bothering her. That part, frankly, took up too much time. It is the cliché young girl-pouting-at mom story that has been used a thousand times in films Who cares, anyway? We watch this for the action stories, not this garbage.

More screen time of the guys trying to escape of Spain would have risen my rating of this show.

Escapism Within Escapism

[wayfarer4 · 7/10 · 17 July 2006]

Well, let's see, what's to say about this particular episode? The premise for the plot is decent, but the follow-through is weak and inconsistent. (In another episode they can get a cell phone call out from backwoods Afghanistan, but in this one they can't make a phone call in the one moment that it desperately needs to be made?) Bottom line, after the team is called in to assassinate an unfriendly ruler, they fail to get the abort call in time, and accidentally set off an international incident. Now, all five team members must not only get clear of the area, they must individually return to their home base using only their wits. At the same time, one of the team members' daughters returns home to have a fight with her parents.

Okay, so far so good. Here's where it bogs down. The show only follows two of the members in getting home, and one of those is a quick situation where he steals the identification cards of an intelligent agent, and uses a clandestine government airline to return home. Mysteriously, four of the team members get home safely within a couple of hours of their escape. The final team member has the worst luck in escaping, constantly being recognized or simply running into the officials. While I'll give the writers points for creative ideas, realism is pretty much tossed out the window. The lone team member breaks through a group of police, using some spectacular combat moves to get past them, later passes a check point with the great disguise of a driving hat and sun glasses, and even manages to implicate several Americans as himself when things get tough. And, when all else fails, he passes himself off as gay in order to attract the attention of a wealthy homosexual with a private ship. (note - at no time to they specifically say yes or no, this team member is bisexual. Instead, this is left sort of hanging as a guilty intimation, a mystery that makes no sense, as this team member in a later episode has serious issues about even pretending to be cheating on his wife.) The B story is worse, more in keeping with an after school special than a prime time show. The only interesting part about it is the daughter out showing her stuff on a firing line, handling a Glock like she was born with it.

My attitude is this. This particular story had great potential from an initial standpoint. But you could easily have watched the first twenty minutes, then switched over to something else, and not really lost anything. The other episodes of this series are better, a point that I'll give for upping my score on this episode. The Unit is a show for those that don't want to worry too much about current political events, and just want something with fire power and illicit sexual encounters. If you're looking for realism, watch the Discovery Channel. And, just think, they could have cast Steven Seagal and Lorenzo Lamas for this show...

¿The worst TV episode of fiction series ever written?

[guycorhuo · 1/10 · 28 May 2006]

I'm still expecting about The Unit. I think that someone like Mamet should been on to a better product, but i'm waiting to the develop of the series and i hope it will be better in the next episodes. But this episode specially it's the most terrible thing - yes, THING - i've ever seen in whole my life in TV. Sure i have the problem of being Spanish and i can't believe that there's nobody in the designer or production team that hasn't investigate to know that Guardia Civil is not a police corpse that works in city. The only Spanish police that can go after Bob is Policia Nacional. Even that, the kind of hats that Guardia Civil wear in the episode it's of times of Franco - my God, 1975 - and has been eliminated more than a decade. And we are Spanish, not Mexican. Sure, there are not any Spanish actors in Hollywood? But the worst thing is the plot. The storyline of Haysbert daughter is so cliché that make to vomit. But the storyline of Bob should be nominated to Razzies Awards. Hooking with a girl for drugs and finishing with a gay foreigner - and with a strange sensation that this character must to run cause he is gay. If we have make legal the gay engagements!!! -?. Terrible. I think that if the next episode isn't better perhaps i will surrender. Sorry for my English.