The Unit

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Tuesday’s completely true news

1 April 2008 Rob Buckley 5 Comments

David Tennant's getting married in the morning

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Review: The Fixer 1×1

11 March 2008 Rob Buckley 6 Comments

In the UK: Mondays, 9pm, ITV1
In the US: Not yet acquired

Once upon a time, ITV ruled the roost of action TV. With the classic shows of ITC such as The Adventures of Robin Hood, Danger Man and The Avengers, ITV pretty much dominated the 50s and 60s. Then there was The Sweeney, The Professionals, Out et al during the 70s and Robin of Sherwood in the 80s, as well as all those glorious US action imports that almost always ended up on ITV first.

In the 90s, post-franchise change, it all went pear-shaped. Now ITV1 is a bit of a gamble when it comes to action shows. You might get lucky and find a show like Sharpe’s Progress/Plimsolls/Whatever that starts off well and continues to be good. Or you might find a show that starts off well then becomes a bit of a turkey (eg Ultimate Force). Most of the time, though, you’ll come across something dismal like The Outsiders that’s so bad it has a biohazard warning next to it in the Radio Times.

But ITV1’s turned over a new leaf. It wants to be known for quality programmes. Can it do quality action TV? The Fixer, which started last night, is actually a very good attempt at a quality action show.

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Friday’s pigs, dragons and sharks news

15 February 2008 Rob Buckley Post a comment

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Friday’s “I’m going on holiday again!” news

19 October 2007 Rob Buckley 2 Comments

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  • U2 reissuing ‘The Joshua Tree’ for 20th anniversary

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Review: The Unit 3×1

27 September 2007 Rob Buckley 1 Comment

The Unit

In the US: Tuesdays, 9pm et/pt, CBS

In the UK: Probably Bravo or Virgin 1

Characters re-cast: 0

Major characters gotten rid of: 0

Major new characters: 0

Format change percentage: 50%

Number of families running America still its independence: Five

There’s a general assumption that the mainly excellent Bourne films have been a good thing. They made the Bond producers think twice about producing another piece of mindless rubbish; instead, they made the only slightly mindless Casino Royale.

Yet they appear to have had rather a bad effect of The Unit. Essentially a tale about the US’s Delta special forces group (with names changed to give the plots a certain leeway), The Unit trod a thin line between being a spy show and being a show about the army. While it could be escapist at times, it did try to attain certain levels of realism and it did this best when it focused on the army side of the characters.

But the surprisingly bad influence of Jason Bourne has finally had an effect on The Unit – and his fingerprints are all over the first episode of the third season, right down to the music, and they haven’t been planted this time.

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