Much to the dismay of the show’s loyal followers, The Unit was cancelled by CBS in May. The series’ viewership had declined in its later years but, despite being preempted several times, still attracted 9.67 million viewers in season four.
The Unit was supposedly being seriously considered to continue in first-run syndication but the deal didn’t work out, likely because of production costs. Sadly, while the military drama and Dennis Haysbert, Regina Taylor, Robert Patrick, and Scott Foley will be around in syndication for years to come, we won’t be seeing season five of The Unit.
It turns out that the writers had a full plan for year five which Executive Producer Shawn Ryan was expecting to be the show’s last. He pitched the storyline ideas to the CBS execs but ultimately they weren’t interested.
At the recent TCA press tour, Ryan shared with The Futon Critic what would have happened. He said, “It was going to be a whole new show in the sense that we were going to be training some young people, Bob was going to be training some people for a whole new organization. Jonas was finally going to be seeing his run end.”
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Ryan continued, “The final season was going to be, I figured the fifth season was going to be the last… It was going to be a long, sort of final mission for Jonas. He’s not medically cleared, Mac has to go in and sort of change the medical records so that Jonas can keep on [going on missions]. We had a whole thing planned, it was going to be good.”
Of the cancellation, Ryan points to CBS’ last-minute decision to save NBC’s discarded Medium series. If things had been reversed and The Unit “had been owned by Paramount and Medium had been owned by 20th Century Fox, we’d be making the fifth season of The Unit right now. I don’t know how else to say that.”
What do you think? Do the plans for season five sound like a good way for the military drama to finish?
Image courtesy CBS.
We love the TV show thanks we want season 5.
My wife and I love this show and we will appreciate if season 5 will be on air and you can’t believe my son 3 years old can sing unit song give me a reason why….
The timing is right to bring the show back. I just found it and love it. Much better timing for it now than 2006-2015
I love watching the unit. My entire family is in one room when I put the disc in. I didn’t know about it when it was on TV but I don’t understand why it was cancelled it really was a great show.
Hey guys if you need me to act please call me I love the show and you could get rid of Molly. Love it bring back the show
Hey Guys please bring back the show I love it, and you could get rid of Molly. If you want me to act in the show feel free to call me.
Hope it shows again. I thoroughly enjoyed the show..
Best show ever was a movie made based on the show was looking forward to season 5
please get together and get a season 5 made it is absolutely brilliant, have really enjoyed it from start to finish a real great show.
this was one of the best series ever made.
was looking forward to season 5
Me and the wife rarely agree on shows but she got hooked and enjoyed watching the unit at night with me it was a great show be nice if they brought it back
It has been too long since The Unit was taken away from us. The show had real promise and with every thing going on in the world today we could really use a good military show with a relatable story line and a little suspense while the team is deployed. I loved seeing the things Jonas and crew would come up with next to get the mission done. I still hope for a chance to see this show brought back. How about a sister channel of CBS on one of the cable networks? There is a huge following still out… Read more »
My wife and I rarely agree on a TV series to watch together. The Unit – ticket all the boxes. Like others very disappointed that their is no real conclusion to this excellent production. Seems that the mighty dollar is far more important than viewers concerns. Let’s see how that works out for CBS when viewers get sick of being treated as just numbers and not customers. I’m sure I’ll never buy another CBS production just based on principle.
The unit was a great story and had a loyal following, the 5th season storyline would have been great and even opened things further…
Oh well,,, many thanks for the 4 seasons… But just maybe there’s a chance?