The Unit

This could all get old really fast, but Taylor's steely performance keeps the home front interesting, while the globe-trotting soldiers bring home the reality of how many troubled spots this small planet still has.

It just oozes potential with sharp dialogue and a strong cast.

"The Unit"... is predictably Mametian only in that it's interesting, tightly written and finely shot.

There are glimmers of something refreshingly different.

"The Unit" becomes distinctive only when the action shifts back to the wives left behind on the base.

These two extraordinary talents have done an average job with what is a surprisingly unimaginative premise.

What you get is a show constricted by radical artistic compromises that it refuses to acknowledge having made. The result is an expulsion of Mamet's distinctive vision into the margins of the series, in which it wanders around like a director who's been fired from a movie yet will not leave the set.