Last week on The Unit, Jonas and the team were deployed to a casino in Macau, tasked to regain the services of a vital CIA asset who's gone over to the other side.  Other than this, though, there was more at stake in this mission.  Since if they were successful, the charges against Bridget would be dropped.  Meanwhile, they also had to break into the casino's safe deposit vault in order to ruin the mark's reputation with his Chinese patrons.  Of course, things didn't go according to plan, as Bob was kidnapped mid-caper and tortured in a terrifying way that made him want to give up the mission and the team.

Now after catching terrorist money launderer Isaac Reed, Tom Ryan found himself unable to break Reed and get him to admit that he had something to do with the terrorist attacks.

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.

While looking for the latest updates on CBS' military drama The Unit, a write-up about something a little different caught my eye.  Well, it relates to the show because of Dennis Haysbert, who obviously plays an African-American character, Jonas Blane.  His wife, Molly, is played by another African-American actress, Regina Taylor.  The article pointed out that it's the closest we have to a black family on prime time television nowadays, and apart from that, most minorities are still given supporting or recurring roles on these shows.

So, where exactly have the black families gone?  It's been a while since we've seen these kind of folks on television—the closest that come to mind are the stars of Everybody Hates Chris and, further back, The Bernie Mac Show—but apart from that, they aren't really represented prominently on screen.  Although The Unit doesn't have to trot out the fact that their primary protagonist is black, it certainly works in their favor—Haysbert is a good actor, does his role wonderfully, and (thanks to his role on 24) provides a subtle sense of elegance and sophistication in an otherwise gritty, bloody setting.

Four seasons later, The Unit is still The Unit.  It is not a big hit (although it averaged at #14 on the ratings during its first season), but it isn’t an embarrassing failure either.  It’s just there, cruising along, although the change of time slot for the current season put some viewers in a little panic frenzy about its future. I t’s doing what it does best, and the expectations aren’t really pitted against them.

But the show’s got a dedicated following, and the move to its current Sunday night time slot hasn’t made much of a dent on the ratings.  It’s in a pretty comfy position—nobody really worries about it, and nobody bothers about it.  (But don’t take me wrong: the fans care, of course.)  The question is pretty simple: is The Unit underappreciated?

This is just a personal observation, but I can't really help but share.  CBS' Sunday night drama, The Unit, is performing reasonably well on its time slot.  In theory it's supposed to air at 10pm, but thanks to coverage of NFL games, things have moved around quite often.  Two weeks ago, the games ended 20 minutes after it was supposed to, and ratings results for the show aren't exactly definitive—ratings tables show a merged entry for The Unit and Cold Case, which preceded it.

Last week, things were a little more different.  Football ran for an extra thirty minutes, and CBS' schedule got incredibly bumped off.  60 Minutes began at 7:30pm rather than 7pm, and viewers of The Amazing Race had to watch a little bit of current affairs before seeing teams get lost in some foreign country.  But ratings were good for the network, with them getting a really big lead over the other networks.  Point that towards the Barack Obama interview and the football that preceded it.

Blonde 5-foot-11 actress Nicole Steinwedell, who plays Bridget Sullivan on The Unit, revealed that she landed the role, which went from a guest spot to recurring to eventually a regular one on the CBS show, thanks to her gig as a math tutor.  She moved to Los Angeles to pursue acting professionally in 2002 after obtaining a double major in history and theater from Northwestern University.  Then after three years of tutoring a teenager who lived her mom, she said she was “floored” when she found out that her father was playwright, filmmaker – and The Unit creator – David Mamet.

"Here I'd been dispensing all that wisdom about acting and the business, while her dad is a staple in the performing arts, a living legend!"