The Morning After: Military Time

I hope Reaper lasts long enough so that Ray Wise can get nominated for a supporting Emmy -- and thereby can make last night's funniest line a reality.

Otherwise, last night's show was funny, but didn't take the corresponding uptick in coalescence as Chuck did the night before, at least for me.

As far as NCIS/CSI or Criminal Whisperer's Unit, etc... zzzzzzz. The only CBS watching I do is Letterman and the occasional HIMYM. But I will check out TAR when it makes its return.

We love The Unit. Two sisters, way outside the age range that counts for ratings, but avid TV fans. We also loved Kidnapped, Nothing Sacred, EZ Streets, and other glorious shot down shows that we caught up with on DVD or from friends' tapes. So we are thrilled that this one is still going strong!

I could care less about NCIS. I've never cared for Mark Harmon and am not impressed by the gruffness of his character. All of the other characters are just a little too formulaic for my taste. I do find the Israeli agent hot as well as Lauren Holly, but not enough to watch it. I have a weakness for redheads. A question I've always had, if they are military, why are they never in uniform. That being said, my wife LOVES the show and records it if she can't be home to watch it.....so I "get" to watch it too.

We both like The Unit, but it is no big deal to me if I miss it. Again, my wife will record it if she isn't going to be home. We had a little "discussion" last night over whether to record The Unit or Reaper since I wanted to watch Reaper. We recorded Reaper so she could see The Unit. Funny how she always wins. The Unit is a fun escapist show, but that is about all it is to me. I can take it or leave it.

Really enjoyed Reaper last night. I felt the same way about Reaper that I felt about Chuck on Monday - I am getting a sense of the "groove" that the show is settling into, and it isn't half bad. Ray Wise is so perfectly cast, its insane. Best Devil Ever. The characters are really likable, and I love watching the boys get all dressed up in demon-fighting gear. Although Smallville did handle the creepy bee swarms in a cooler way several years ago, and Supernatural totally nailed the scary bug infestation thing two years ago. So, not the most original storyline. . . Hey, all basically on the same network. . . Recycle much?

Bones was OK last night but not great - definitely not my favorite episode ever (that honor goes to last season's Two Aliens in a Spaceship). Booth's constant reactionary diatribes really do get on my nerves. I liked that actor much better as Angel. I can't figure out how I feel about Booth's overly-judgmental yet sentimentally-sound monologue about "crappy sex" vs "making love". I like the chemistry between Booth and Bones, but I just feel like the show has set up some insurmountable obstacles to them ever having a real personal relationship, in terms of their mutually-exclusive, fundamentally-held beliefs about the universe. It would feel really contrived for them to ever develop into a romance, so I hope that isn't the direction anything is headed. Angela's aversion to the banal legal implications of her own free-spirited past was interesting and kinda charming, I thought. Zach is just getting weirder and weirder, he was adorable in previous seasons but seems really isolated (mostly by his own doing) and disconnected this season - I guess, tho, that is what his character is going through, but I hope he comes out of it soon.

I got into the Unit during second season, have since bought Season 1 & 2 on DVD, and got my wife into it. I enjoy it mostly for its relative realism, the dialogue (thanks David Mamet!) and the interesting plots. Some episodes are boilerplate military or current event, others tell stories in very interesting ways. Definitely a sleeper show, but I hope it stays on for a long time. And by the way, my initial sell was the Shawn Ryan production credit -- as if the Shield wasn't good enough.

I'm really conflicted about The Unit, on several levels.

On the positive side, it's frequently entertaining (although last night's episode was below average), the actors in the unit itself are very good (Max Martini especially), they get tortured more than they torture, and the dialog has hints of Mamet in it (as well as some old-school Mamet regulars as guest stars - any show that allows Ricky Jay to collect a paycheck can't be all bad).

On the negative side, the women rarely contribute to the quality of the show, and are more frequently just whiny and anxious (Regina Taylor being the only exception). Also the show's moral-political outlook is not really in line with my own, and that can lead to some queasy moments.

I keep watching, but don't really recommend it. It'd be interesting to see what you thought after a viewing.

NCIS is actually hella funny. I'd 1,000 times rather watch that than the two CSI spinoffs.

Don't watch NCIS at all. On Tueday's it's House and The Unit for me and the Mrs.

I've watched NCIS (and all the CSI's) since they started. I tried to watch The Unit, but I guess I'm more of a "procedural" show kind of guy, since with all the personal stuff in it, I stopped after a couple of episodes. The one thing that annoyed me about The Unit was the complaining that at least 1 wife was making about her husband's job. Like he was a 9-5 kind of guy first and then all of a sudden, out of the blue, bam, he's away for days at time and he can't tell her. Yeah, that fighting gets old real fast.
And for the record, I never watch any show "live." I always tape them so I can fast-forward past the 4 and 5 minute commercial breaks. Yeah, a DVR is on my list, but for now it's the VCRs.

Does anyone else find it mildly annoying that this week's House and last week's House essentially leave us in exactly the same place?

A VCR? Really? How quaint. Just kidding.

I'm with jengod... I find NCIS funny and I like the characters... Perfectly happy to skip a night though. Oh, and we don't get The Unit in New Zealand.

Do I take it from above that Bones has restarted? I love that one too, although again, I watch it if I can, rather than religiously.

Is there no-one left who knows the correct expression is "I couldn't care less"? That said, "The Unit" and "NCIS" are both very well written and are usually hard to predict. The characters in "NCIS" are not military, they are civilian government employees.