I'm a big David Mamet fan. I loved Glengarry Glen Ross, loved The Edge, loved the Spanish Prisoner ... you get the idea. In fact, I used to live a few blocks away from Mr. Mamet in South Boston and (being that we're both super macho and super smart) was convinced we were going to become great friends. Alas, it never came to be, but I was still thrilled to learn that he was penning a show called the Unit for CBS. (CBS is so square they didn't even pick up on Mr. Mamets' dick joke)
Anyway, part of the show focuses on the day-to-day lives of a secretive, highly trained faction of the U.S. Special Forces. Now this sounds like a very cool premise for a show, especially in Mr. Mamet's capable hands; but the OTHER part of the show focuses on the lives of the soldiers wives back home on the military base; and frankly I can't think of a many writers (living or dead) who could make that premise very interesting. I would elaborate on why both the concept and execution suck, but it would be almost as boring as watching the program, so I’ll spare you.
CBS has also retained Shawn Ryan as an executive producer on the Unit. Mr. Ryan first came to attention as the executive producer of the Shield over at FX. The Shield is admittedly a very well produced program, but it employs a five minute “music video” segment at the end of each show that can only be described as über-cheesy. Unfortunately, one of the talking heads over at CBS apparently thinks this device is “edgy” and has elected to carry it over to the Unit. In last weeks music montage the protagonist of the show pensively studies his fractured reflection in a broken mirror that he accidentally shot while gripped in the throes of a nightmare; meanwhile, over at battalion headquarters ... his dutiful wife takes the heat from his ranking superior, claiming that she discharged the weapon while trying to kill a rat. (I’m not making this up.)
The sad part of all this is that CBS could have green lighted a better show called Ops, written by another super talented screenwriter, John August.
Mr. August describes Ops as “an adventure-drama about two guys who run a private military corporation. They’re the sub-sub-contractors for a giant corporation like Halliburton, providing field operations in really dangerous parts of the world, such as Iraq, Afghanistan or Venezuela.”
But who am I kidding, Ops probably would’ve sucked too. Mr. August reports on his BLOG that the Fox Network, who had originally ordered a pilot, was considering L.L. Cool J. for one of the leads. Huh? I doubt Mr. Cool J. could spell Afghanistan, never mind lead a private military operation over there. Anyway, check out Spartan with Val Kilmer for an idea of how cool the Unit COULD have been.
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