Last week, like most other channels on the remote, CBS went to “holiday special” mood.  Sweep out some of the shows, they figured, and plug in the stuff that you'll only see once in a while—last week, for instance, they aired a television movie on someone suffering from Tourette's syndrome and proving himself to the world.  Which means, it's an interruption of your regular programming.  So, you most probably had to contend with a repeat of The Unit a day earlier than expected.

Yeah, it can work well sometimes.  Of course, some people might not be able to catch the episode when it originally aired; to add to the mess they probably were sleepy enough to forget to set the DVR to record the entire thing, football overruns and all, and end up with no way of catching up.  Or, you might feel like watching it again—either you want a second look (I'm guilty of that), or you'll probably go, “ahh, I don't want football and I don't want cop chases, so I'll just watch this then.”  It still draws some eyeballs, and networks love eyeballs.  It does serve its purpose, after all.

Last week, the rerun of The Unit was obviously beaten out by college football.  It was beaten by Cops, even.  Well, at least that's fairly recent, despite the seeming repetitiveness of cops going after people, resistance, arrest, end of story.  4.13 million viewers isn't a bad thing for a rerun, however, and considering the competition, too.  But apparently CBS thinks otherwise.  Originally another rerun of The Unit is set to air this Saturday, also at 8pm, but at (what seemingly is) the last minute, they've replaced it with a rerun of Eleventh Hour.  Well, it draws in more viewers, at least judging from the ratings this season.  So, well, even if The Unit's doing reasonably well, there's none tomorrow night.

If you're itching for a new episode, however, you can check back on Sunday, December 21.  “Switchblade” sees the team give someone a dose of their own reality—or, to be exact, a Defense official gets brought on the same assignment as the team just to get a taste of what war is like.  Michael McKean is back as a guest star on The Unit, on December 21 from 10pm.

And, if it helps make matters clear, there'll be another new episode the week after.


-Henrik Batallones, BuddyTV Staff Columnist
Sources: CBS, TV By The Numbers
(Image courtesy of CBS)