Mark Harmon and Muse Watson, NCIS
NCIS' Leroy Jethro Gibbs (Mark Harmon) has always been able to turn to his mentor, Mike Franks (Muse Watson), in times of trouble. When Franks returns in the hit CBS procedural's Tuesday episode, the tables will be turned.
Two mercenaries are found dead on Gibbs' boat, which forces Gibbs to re-evaluate his old friend and talk his way out of some hot water.
"We find out where the boat has ended up and it's something that Franks is involved with," Watson tells TVGuide.com "Franks and Gibbs have been such dear friends, so Gibbs lets Franks have the boat and everything gets confused from there. And of course when Vance finds out that Gibbs' boat is involved, they want answers from him and he doesn't have any."
The episode ...
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Regina Taylor, Dennis Haysbert and Robert Patrick, The Unit
In the conclusion of the third-season opener, The Unit (9 pm/ET, CBS) faces extinction as Colonel Ryan tries to help Jonas and his hunted comrades uncover the identities of those behind the team's dismantling. We discussed the cloak-and-dagger storyline with Ryan's alter ego and onetime Terminator nemesis Robert Patrick.
TV Guide: Who is targeting the squad and why? Robert Patrick: It's a conspiracy. The show alludes to six wealthy families who are using our military for their interests and that is the ultimate betrayal. We find out how honest, noble and real our guys are as a result.
TV Guide: What sets The Unit apart from TV's other military men? Patrick: We're looking at what it means to be a soldier — what it means to be the ultimate warrior. These are the elite
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"Silver Star," the episode of The Unit [Tuesdays at 9 pm/ET, on CBS] that airs Dec. 12, has Jonas and Molly going home to Jonas' parents. The occasion is Jonas' father finally being awarded the Silver Star for his heroic actions in Korea. While at the family gathering, Jonas' nephew — a soldier recently returned from combat and suffering from post-traumatic-stress disorder — acts cowardly in beating his pregnant wife. Jonas steps in with some rough justice and tough love. In the process, he shares his dad's story, taking us back to the hero who did not receive a hero's welcome, as Jonas' father, a colored man in uniform, travels with his son down south in the US of A, 1952. At the TOC, Mac tries to help a mysterious passenger (Ed O'Neill) on a private jet in restricted airspace, who is trying to land the plane after the pilot dies at the control board.The JumpThis past month, Michael Irby, Robert Patrick and Scott Foley jumped with the U.S. Army parachute team, Tthe Gold...
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In The Unit episode "Bait," which airs Nov. 28, Jonas is bound and thrown into a room with a bag over his head, and his captors are about to draw his last blood. He proves himself to be Houdini, however, by persuading them that he's more valuable to them alive than dead. Houdini, master of illusion and escape — we never know who's the rabbit and who's the fox. Jonas manipulates his captors to have them videotape him with their terms of release. As he reads their demands, he secretly signals to his comrades back home. He pulls more than one rascally rabbit out of his hat in order to escape, only to be captured and returned, bound and tortured. Meanwhile, Washington suits aren't interested in negotiations, so Colonel Ryan has to perform his own sleight of hand — before our Houdini runs out of rabbits.On the home front, Colonel Ryan's wife, Charlotte, who was shot at the end of last season's finale, is now hooked on pain meds. Driving under the influence, she wrecks another w...
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Question: On the final episode of The Unit last season, the party got shot up and people were wounded, but on the first episode this season, it was business as usual and no mention of what happened at the party. What's up with that?
Answer: Seems to me The Unit took the high road by not treating last season's ridiculous shoot-'em-up stunt (there was an epidemic of that last May) as a cliff-hanger. Time has clearly passed between seasons. The bad guys were killed, Dennis Haysbert had suffered a flesh wound (I was actually impressed they didn't leave him cheesily fighting for his life), and in the opener, you did see Robert Patrick hand his lady love what looked like painkillers, so she's obviously still feeling the effects of being shot. I much preferred this to ER's season-opener bloodbath and abduction psychodrama. Let me use this discussion to make an early plea to producers not to turn next May's season finales into another tiresome shooting gallery ...
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The UnitSo if last week had me leaning towards naming Mack the best character on the show, last night definitely sealed the deal. The guy’s quickly entering Jack Bauer territory: He had like six lines, tops; gave off that maybe-homicidal-maybe-not vibe; and while the rest of the team was in sunny L.A. cakewalking through a kidnapping, he was getting the bejesus beat out of him by some nut job named “Mongoose.” Max Martini could run away with the show if they let him — and, by the way, they should let him, because I’m caring much more about the Mack-Tiffy-Colonel Tom story line than about the military stuff. Does that make me less of a man? Ten bucks says no, but I am a sucker for fresh, original characters, and that’s exactly what Max, Abby Brammell
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The UnitSo I wasn't wowed by last week's premiere, I must say. A little clunky, a tad far-fetched, Dennis Haysbert shot a mule — in fact, the complete opposite of last night's episode. The new episode's pace was tight, the situations slightly more believable and not a single beast of burden was shot or otherwise maimed, which I call a good day. (Yeah, the mule thing really stuck with me.)
There was the bang-bang piece, sure — Jonas and the boys hunting down your run-of-the-mill radioactive weapon on the Serengeti and running into a wanted terrorist — but it was the home-front scenes that really made last night sizzle. You had the FBI guy all up in Bob's face trying to get him to rat out his team re: the airplane rescue — which, of course, he didn't. And don't forg
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The UnitYou know, I started out the evening fairly confident that I wouldn't see anybody shoot a mule, and along comes The Unit to prove me wrong. Note to self: When bearing a load in Afghanistan, do as Dennis Haysbert says. That's pretty much the gist of this new CBS show: Haysbert is Jonas, leader of the country's deadliest covert-ops team, rookie Bob (Scott Foley) and some other guys do as he says, and you and I sleep tight at night. Throw in some home-front scenes as the wives deal with the military lifestyle, the pen of David Mamet (god of theater) and the pull of Shawn Ryan (god of The Shield), and we should have a pretty good hour of TV on our hands, right? Well, kinda.
Last night's premiere was just OK — it deli
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