The Unit 1x01 "First Responders"

[oceana]

You know, I wonder why I kept watching this show. Or rather, why I keep watching it and am looking forward to season 2. Oh, right, Robert Patrick, that was the reason.

The action part of the pilot ep is good, but not overwhelmingly so. I've watched and enjoyed "Over There" last year, and action wise it was better, because there the brutality and violence was frighteningly, sickeningly real, whereas The Unit is full of unreal perfection and patriotism, violence so clinically perfect that it could come right out of a video game. In Over There, you didn't know who would die. In the Unit, none of the main characters was ever in any real danger. Any real danger would have been a failure on their part and The Unit never fails. (Please forgive me for the criticism, I really like the sho, just trying to by a bit objective here).

In the pilot I didn't really get to like any of the people, but you can't usually expect this after just one episode. I hated Jonas from the first moment for shooting the mule and I strongly disliked Molly. Both of them have become very important for me for the show and I wouldn't want to miss them, but now I HATE Molly and I well, don't dislike Jonas anymore, though I still haven't forgiven him for the mule.

I really didn't like Kim in the pilot. What's so horrible about moving into a house on base for a while, especially since she clearly didn't arrange for housing off base? And how rude was she to Molly and Tiffy, who were really very nice organizing a house for her and taking care of her on her first day, with her husband on deployment? At least that's what it must have looked like from Kim's prespective, she didn't know that Molly is a crazy Home Front Housewife. I bet in a different world she'd have been a domina.

So, the first 42 minutes, while certainly entertaining, weren'too special. But then Jonas shoots the monkey (something that sadly never had a real follow-up, apart from the small talk with the colonel), and the colonel is in bed with Tiffy, whose husband, as we have been told repeatedly, he has just shipped of for the third time in as many months.

And most, of all, there is Bob (no wonder I couldn't remember his name for the first half of the first season. Who calls a character Bob Brown?). I kow, you guys are all over Mac, but for me it's always been Bob. I'm not saying that Mac isn't lickable, but Bob is sweet and not at all arrogant and just the right amount of dangerous underneath is harmless exterieur and pretty eyes. So I really had to see what Bob would be doing in the next ep. And if they really were serious about the whole "We are your family now" and "While my husband is out on deployment, I am happy here with the kids and my charity work" thing, because I couldn't believe a show produced in 2006 would be so over-the-top in that regard, would paint such a black-and-white picture. I was wrong, of course, they seem to be quite serious about it. But I don't care about their motives, because over the course of the season I have learned one thing:

The black-and-white, good-and-bad world of The Unit makes it very interesting compared to other shows, because every little detail, every break of the rules, of the standard female or male role, becomes much more important than in other shows. When Molly lies to her husband, it means a lot more than say, Veronica lying to her father. Mistakes on The Unit, the male and the female world, are wrong on a whole different level, and I find it interesting how by watching the show and by accepting it for what it is, I have developed a whole set of moral standards that seem to exist exclusively for this show. And even more interesting which standards remain from my "normal" life.

And then there are of course the days when I admit to myself that I just watch it for the pretty, sweaty men with weapons and when I can't take the show serious at all.*g*



P.S.: Does anyone have the new Doctor Who torrent? I am dying here!