When someone goes missing somewhere in New York, a special unit of federal officers is put on the case. It is led by Jack Malone(Anthony LaPaglia, barely suppressing his intensity), and consists of Vivian Johnson(Marianne Jean-Baptiste, maternal), Samantha Spade(Poppy Montgomery, tough), Danny Taylor(Enrique Murciano, who uses his Street smarts effectively), Martin Fitzgerald(Eric close, starting out as the rookie), and eventually, Elena Delgado(Roselyn Sanchez, who gradually got better at acting, as she got better at English, in particular at delivering the long, wordy lines with clear enunciation and keeping a smooth flow to the sentence).
With a glut of procedurals already on air, this was conceived as having an unusual twist: rather than opening on a corpse, it's that a person(sometimes more than one) has disappeared(and this one doesn't have psychics to help find them. I'm not saying all of those are bad. I'm just really relieved that we have at least one that is completely without that type of thing). This means that there is always some hope that the person will be found alive and returned to their loved ones safe and sound. Rather than focusing on a murderer, this is about figuring out why the person can't be found. The circumstances. Why. And there is quite a lot of different ways that that can happen, which are explored here. Before watching any specific episode of this, you don't know: was it kidnapping? Were they secretly a criminal and had to escape the cops? Did they do something they can't forgive themselves for and are terrified to face? Are they intentionally hiding for other reasons? And if so, which?
In order to solve the mystery(which the viewer is invited to attempt to do while watching), the team attempts to reconstruct the 24 hours(sometimes more) leading up to the last time the person was seen(by anyone willing to talk to law enforcement at least. Many times it will turn out that people like that weren't involved, but they were scared to come forward, since they might get arrested for something else they were doing). They look into their financial and phone records. Maybe they recently withdrew or transferred a substantial amount of money, either to escape their own life or to pay someone - which they might not especially have wanted to do. Maybe they were on the cell with someone who knows where they went, and/or why. Since there is not always physical evidence this does have less scenes of investigating that then one of the CSI's. This can mean less visual variety. They do sometimes have recordings of audio and/or video, or still photos, to go off of. Maybe there's something in the background that can provide a substantial clue.
A major aspect of this is how much of it is a character study. A lot of time is devoted to talking to persons of interest, including family and friends. You get a sense of who they are, what their personal experiences were like, and how they shaped them. Very frequently you end up feeling for them. This has heaps of empathy for for many very different people. It encourages you to as well. Standing up for those who need a champion. And, unfortunately, occasionally making excuses for powerful people intentionally doing something wrong. Flashbacks give us brief yet often powerful glimpses into occurrences that lead to to the situation, taking place as little as minutes, or as long as decades, ago. They also increase the overall number of locations, which helps prevent things from becoming samey. Sometimes they merely serve to redirect suspicion from one person to another, introducing a new individual who we may not know a lot about from right away, who has motive, opportunity, and/or are maybe seen threatening harm. And a lot of times those turn out to have been words they wouldn't act on. The need to keep a slow trickle of information can cause frustrating elements like that. After all, each ep needs to reach 42 minutes in length. And we can't have viewers figuring everything out from early on.
Executive Producer Jerry Bruckheimer mandated that the show be visually arresting even if a viewer was channel hopping with the sound off. As such, the dynamic camera is always moving. The stylisation is never excessive, even when it will will occasionally dip into the very unusual. One example includes when the protagonist is a woman who recently went blind, and the cinematography and editing put us right in her head. That means emulating that the only sense of her surroundings that she has, is based on sounds and what she can touch with her hands. Her terror at being lost in this new situation grips us and put us on the edge of our seats.
As seasons pass a lot of shows grow more extreme than they were early in their run. All things considered, this did not fare that badly in that regard. Still, some things did definitely increase in amount. Suspects shot, although it was always to prevent them from hurting someone, a last resort, and seldom played as being cool - certainly they always attempted to take them in, so that they could stand trial. There got to be more instances of use of torture that lead to useful credible information, which is something that experts have thoroughly debunked. I'm not saying everything has to be realistic. However. This is something that leads to more regular people believing it to be a necessary evil. And finally, while this was never actually similar to a soap opera, the traits that resemble those of that sub-genre did become more prevalent. If you're not above enjoying something cheesy, it is nice to see these people who live in such a dark world smile and be happy.
This contains a lot of violent, disturbing, sexual content. I thoroughly, wholeheartedly recommend this to everyone who enjoys solving puzzles in fiction. 7/10
With a glut of procedurals already on air, this was conceived as having an unusual twist: rather than opening on a corpse, it's that a person(sometimes more than one) has disappeared(and this one doesn't have psychics to help find them. I'm not saying all of those are bad. I'm just really relieved that we have at least one that is completely without that type of thing). This means that there is always some hope that the person will be found alive and returned to their loved ones safe and sound. Rather than focusing on a murderer, this is about figuring out why the person can't be found. The circumstances. Why. And there is quite a lot of different ways that that can happen, which are explored here. Before watching any specific episode of this, you don't know: was it kidnapping? Were they secretly a criminal and had to escape the cops? Did they do something they can't forgive themselves for and are terrified to face? Are they intentionally hiding for other reasons? And if so, which?
In order to solve the mystery(which the viewer is invited to attempt to do while watching), the team attempts to reconstruct the 24 hours(sometimes more) leading up to the last time the person was seen(by anyone willing to talk to law enforcement at least. Many times it will turn out that people like that weren't involved, but they were scared to come forward, since they might get arrested for something else they were doing). They look into their financial and phone records. Maybe they recently withdrew or transferred a substantial amount of money, either to escape their own life or to pay someone - which they might not especially have wanted to do. Maybe they were on the cell with someone who knows where they went, and/or why. Since there is not always physical evidence this does have less scenes of investigating that then one of the CSI's. This can mean less visual variety. They do sometimes have recordings of audio and/or video, or still photos, to go off of. Maybe there's something in the background that can provide a substantial clue.
A major aspect of this is how much of it is a character study. A lot of time is devoted to talking to persons of interest, including family and friends. You get a sense of who they are, what their personal experiences were like, and how they shaped them. Very frequently you end up feeling for them. This has heaps of empathy for for many very different people. It encourages you to as well. Standing up for those who need a champion. And, unfortunately, occasionally making excuses for powerful people intentionally doing something wrong. Flashbacks give us brief yet often powerful glimpses into occurrences that lead to to the situation, taking place as little as minutes, or as long as decades, ago. They also increase the overall number of locations, which helps prevent things from becoming samey. Sometimes they merely serve to redirect suspicion from one person to another, introducing a new individual who we may not know a lot about from right away, who has motive, opportunity, and/or are maybe seen threatening harm. And a lot of times those turn out to have been words they wouldn't act on. The need to keep a slow trickle of information can cause frustrating elements like that. After all, each ep needs to reach 42 minutes in length. And we can't have viewers figuring everything out from early on.
Executive Producer Jerry Bruckheimer mandated that the show be visually arresting even if a viewer was channel hopping with the sound off. As such, the dynamic camera is always moving. The stylisation is never excessive, even when it will will occasionally dip into the very unusual. One example includes when the protagonist is a woman who recently went blind, and the cinematography and editing put us right in her head. That means emulating that the only sense of her surroundings that she has, is based on sounds and what she can touch with her hands. Her terror at being lost in this new situation grips us and put us on the edge of our seats.
As seasons pass a lot of shows grow more extreme than they were early in their run. All things considered, this did not fare that badly in that regard. Still, some things did definitely increase in amount. Suspects shot, although it was always to prevent them from hurting someone, a last resort, and seldom played as being cool - certainly they always attempted to take them in, so that they could stand trial. There got to be more instances of use of torture that lead to useful credible information, which is something that experts have thoroughly debunked. I'm not saying everything has to be realistic. However. This is something that leads to more regular people believing it to be a necessary evil. And finally, while this was never actually similar to a soap opera, the traits that resemble those of that sub-genre did become more prevalent. If you're not above enjoying something cheesy, it is nice to see these people who live in such a dark world smile and be happy.
This contains a lot of violent, disturbing, sexual content. I thoroughly, wholeheartedly recommend this to everyone who enjoys solving puzzles in fiction. 7/10