ABC's 'Sons': New Blood for The Anemic Sitcom Genre

This isn't sexism -- it's the gospel according to Madison Avenue and Nielsen demographics.

It helps CBS' "The Unit" that the auspicious name of writer-creator David Mamet is conspicuously attached to it, and the series might draw women into its stories of heroism by a "covert team of special forces operatives" because while the men are away, the women live side by side on a military base, albeit one gussied up to look like the old back-lot neighborhood where "Ozzie and Harriet" and "Father Knows Best" took place.

Although the fathers and Ozzies and husbands do not necessarily know best about everything this time around, they are the undisputed masters of patriotic pluck -- such assignments as, on the first episode, rescuing passengers on a charter plane hijacked by terrorists.

Parents might want to be warned that the adventures, airing tonight at 9 on Channel 9, easily reach a PG-13 level of intensity and even graphic violence.

One truly grueling future episode puts the men of the unit through a harrowing and realistically staged drill, a training exercise filled with red herrings, double crosses and the kind of coercion and deceit that an enemy would practice without batting the proverbial eyelash.

Our point of entry into the story is a relatively new recruit: Bob Brown (Scott Foley) must prove he's up to the job while quieting the anxieties of his justifiably skeptical and pregnant wife, Kim (Audry Marie Anderson). In scenes eerily reminiscent of "The Stepford Wives," she's "welcomed" to her new house on the base even though she had no intention of living there.

But she has to live there. All the wives do. And when they get together and explain the situation, it's almost as gripping as one scene of the men fighting in the field. "You aren't in the Army. You're in The Unit," Kim is told by Regina Taylor as Molly, wife of the unit's commander.

Taylor's is one of several strong performances, but there's no question that the star is the man who plays her husband, Dennis Haysbert -- an actor who, whether he is pitching insurance in a commercial or acting extremely presidential in "24," absolutely exudes and embodies authority.

Haysbert has a commanding commander's presence, to put it mildly, and even though it's an ensemble drama -- we get to know several men and their wives -- the show ultimately rests on Haysbert's shoulders. He appears easily capable of carrying the weight.

The genius of "The Unit" (in addition to the built-in female appeal) is that, theoretically at least, a viewer can be thoroughly opposed to the U.S. war in Iraq and still find the show gripping and involving. Mamet offers a kind of thinking person's war movie for a nation that is, indeed, at war.

It's not hard to imagine some viewers and political pundits scoffing at "The Unit" as old-fashioned and hokey, with some cliches transplanted intact from the morale-boosting propaganda films of the '40s. But Mamet achieves a level of veracity and sophistication that tend to deflate disbelief. Oh, you might not leap from the couch to cheer and wave a flag -- but chances are you won't be twiddling your thumbs in restless anticipation, either. "The Unit" is one very well-cooked and well-seasoned fish out of water -- a high-impact vicarious experience no matter how one may try to resist.

Sons & Daughters (30 minutes) debuts tonight at 9 on Channel 7.

The Unit (60 minutes) airs tonight at 9 on Channel 9.