Dennis Haysbert wears a MTM Black Hawk

In the CBS publicity portrait for The Unit, Dennis Haysbert folds his arms, and the watch on his wrist is a chunky black tactical piece on a perforated rubber strap, built for the field rather than the office. He plays Jonas Blane, sergeant major of a covert Army special forces team, call sign Snake Doctor, the kind of leader who lowers his voice when everyone around him would raise theirs. The show ran on CBS from 2006 to 2009, David Mamet's version of the special forces drama, built from Inside Delta Force, the memoir of Eric Haney, a founding member of the real unit. Haysbert has one of the most reassuring voices in American television, part of why the series could move him from a war zone to the home front in the same episode and have both land.

The watch is the MTM Black Hawk, the piece that first got the brand noticed. MTM built its name on light, and the Black Hawk was its early attempt to put a flashlight on the wrist: LEDs that glow behind the dial and a small beam that fires out of the case at the press of a button. It runs on a rechargeable cell you top up by induction, setting the watch on a charging stand instead of opening the case or running a cable. The case came in steel or titanium, water resistant to a hundred meters, and MTM later reissued the design as the Black Falcon.

So the watch's whole pitch is a light, worn by a man whose job is to cross the dark without being seen, the one line of work where a glow on the wrist works against you. The part that earns its keep is quieter: a legible dial on a tough case that charges itself overnight on a shelf. MTM has dressed this kind of role before. By the company's own account, the same Black Hawk turned up on Kiefer Sutherland as Jack Bauer in 24, and on the wrist of Felipe of Spain, who is now the country's king.