FBI - Portés disparus

I always enjoy a good mystery and this is definitely one of those.....They are not afraid to tackle social issues like Abortion and Middle Eastern politics and much more.....Definitely a great series and I wish it had lasted even longer...but it did have a long run..........

I find this show engaging enough to watch fairly regularly but have to disagree with all the glowing reviews that have been posted. The plot lines are often simplistic and sensationalist and the long music-driven "emotional" scenes are pandering and boring. The characters are one dimensional and any "development" seems forced. I feel like Lenny on Law & Order is my good buddy even though that show hardly has any character development, whereas the WAT characters seem more like bullet points--"the wise, good hearted leader with family problems", "the tough blonde going through an emotional crisis", etc. The show is okay but it's really a slick presentation of something that could use a few more IQ points.

After reading a half-dozen of the reviews convinced that a lot of folks who didn't like it were expecting a typical cop show. It isn't. May have been an experiment on Bruckheimer's part - turning cop show conventions on their head.

First there's the shows low-key tone: no screaming sirens, no melodramatic hooks, no heart-pounding chases or rescues. Chases and especially rescues do exist but, like all of the other expositional elements, they're portrayed in measured, deliberate and muted tones. Just like the "teams" response to each week's puzzle. All very quiet with just a hint of intensity and a clear demonstration that they care about their victims.

All elements that, except for the tone, Without a Trace shares with most cop shows. Just reversed.

Now here's the really radical departure - the show's focus is centered on what are usually the secondary characters: the victims and the lives surrounding them. In fact, most of the "team's" interactions are with the secondary characters.

Think about shows, very good shows, like Bones or Castle or Burn Notice or any one of dozens of cop shows: all centered on the "team" and it interactions. Victims, perps and puzzles exist mainly to highlight those interactions.

This is not a criticism. I love the shows mentioned.

My point is simply that Without a Trace reverses those conventions and does it very successfully. One one hand, enough time is spent on the team to humanize it; on the other, just enough emphasis on the victims and their stories to elevate them to the the primary focus.

Takes some getting used to but well worth the effort. Surprising, those few scenes dedicated to the "team", either as individuals or a whole, wind up describing a very rich set of personalities, though you might have to watch a lot of episodes to realize it.

Like all cop shows there there are problems with plot integrity and, with Without a Trace, the very premise: the FBI getting involved before the local cops and their 48-hour window. And like all cop shows, the inconsistencies and questionable plot lines are simply elements meant to invoke the suspension of disbelief. Nothing more.

If this was an experiment on Bruckheimer's part, seven seasons speak volumes to its success.

I am sorry that "Without A Trace" went off the air after five years, though I agree with other reviewers that it had probably exhausted its possibilities. The show had many things going for it: a first-rate cast, a set of often surprising plot twists, and an ability to look at some of the darkest parts of New York city life. Anthony LaPaglia, as the head of the FBI missing- persons unit, gave a set of performances that were truly gripping: his character was always tough, devoted, and often very reserved, but there was always an enormous amount of passion locked within him which would come out at the most desperate moments. The rest of the cast were uniformly good, and I agree with many other observers that Marianne Jean-Baptiste was a superb actress and a perfect colleague for LaPaglia's plain-spoken FBI man.

It is true, though, that as the years went by, the script writers appear to have run out of ideas about missing/abducted/brutalized persons and turned more and more to examining the personal lives of the FBI agents. We had love affairs between LaPaglia and Montgomery, Close and Montgomery, and Murciano and Sanchez, not to mention the collapse of LaPaglia's character's marriage, and the show did become more and more of a soap opera. It was probably at that point that the show started to lose the interest of its viewers.

But the single most important relationship in the show -- not a romantic relationship so much as a deeply personal relationship between two characters who really respected each other, even when they fought with each other -- was the relationship between LaPaglia's character and Jean-Baptiste's character. They were the stars of the show, and the way they agreed but often disagreed about their jobs and their lives made the show the wonderful, poignant success that it was for so many years.

The early seasons were good! The story lines were well written mysteries. The romance between Poppy and Eric Close was a good idea. The romance between her and Anthony La Paglia was not!!