Disappearing Act
A new season kicks off with serial thrills
The hot trend of the new TV season can be summed up in three words: "To be continued…." Serialized thrillers, sudsy dramas and even comedies with cliff-hangers beg the question: How many of these complicated stories will we be willing to follow each week?
Fox enters the fall race early with Prison Break's sleek new companion piece, Vanished (Mondays at 9 pm/ET) — not to be confused, though it will be, with NBC's upcoming Kidnapped. This is what you'd get if Without a Trace somehow turned into a cartoonish conspiracy chase thriller.
The missing person is the lovely wife of a Georgia senator, who disappears during a fancy dinner in her honor. Enter the feds, led by glum Gale Harold. There's also the vulture media, represented by ridiculously hyper TV viper Rebecca Gayheart.
As the mystery instantly deepens, casting doubt on everyone, including the vanished wife, family skeletons collide with politics (including a looming Supreme Court nomination). There are symbols to be deciphered, flashbacks to be divulged and generic action clichés around every dark corner.
In a script for an upcoming episode, FBI guy Harold looks at a surveillance photo and quips, "Nothing says suspicious like a deserted garage and a briefcase drop." True enough, and so far (having read several weeks ahead of the pilot), I'm counting an explosion a week. Jack Bauer would be proud.
Vanished hasn't yet blown me away like the pilots of 24 and Prison Break did. But I'll keep watching, at least until my serial bowl gets too crowded.
