What to watch over the summer, part one

The summer is a terrible time for television. The film situation isn't too bad, altough the showy spectaculars require actual cinema visits, which is not ideal. Television -wise though, it's like a vacuum sucking in endless repeats of what we've just spent the 9 month season watching. Nothing new happens over the summer, so what do we do? Apart from (if you're like me) keeping up to date with what's going to be happening with all the good shows come September, it's a good time to catch up with stuff you never got round to watching last season. It might be because your viewing time is limited, or because stuff hasn't been picked up by UK channels yet, so you've never heard of it. So, I feel it is my duty to give you something to seek out over the next few weeks, and maybe you'll find something that suits you.




First up, President Palmer goes all Jack Bauer in The Unit. Basically it's another horribly gung-ho T.W.A.T* spin-off in which highly trained sweating men pull off hyper-(un)realistic anti-terrorist operations exactly once every seven days. Sometimes they take a break for 7 days in the middle if it's a particularly tricky situation. The action in this department is up to standard. The characters offer no big surprises, but there are no acting bombs going off either. What makes The Unit a bit different from the pack is the decision to bolt Desperate Housewives onto the side of it. Literally.

I know, it sounds god-awful. If someone wrote it down and showed it to me I'd kill them with it, no matter how long it took with a simple piece of paper. However as with all the best terrible ideas it works rather well. Basically the show is split between scenes of the special forces operatives sneaking onto planes, and scenes of their wives worrying about them sneaking onto planes. Don't worry, I know how shit this still sounds. The genius is the Stepford-esque wives. Season 1, episode 1 sees a new recruit being initiated by The Unit (yes, it makes me giggle too) whilst his wife is being initiated into the wives circle and moving into their on-base house. I know I've mentioned Stepford already, but the resemblance is uncanny. "Live off-base...? No, NOBODY lives off base...."

Add to this the satisfaction of seeing Dennis Haybert out of his suit and waving a gun around, high production values providing some convincing action, and a little bit of quirk, and this could be a winner for a few seasons. Try episode one, especially if you're a 24 or The Shield fan.


*The War Against Terrorism