A pair of mismatched detectives investigate the murder of a young boy in a seaside town in northern California, where the case pits locals against each other and touches off a media firestorm.
A young girl is chosen to be a test subject at a secret medical facility where scientists are experimenting with a dangerous virus that could lead to the cure for all disease, but the federal agent tasked with bringing her to the facility instead becomes her surrogate father, and tries to protect her at any cost.
Five Drug Enforcement Agency operatives go after drug lords in this tense drama. Setting it apart was a documentary style that incorporated actual news footage, and cases that were fact-based. Fox put it on hiatus after two months, but brought it back five months later under a new title, 'DEA: Special Task Force,' but with no more success.
Fox's Standoff was one of several series from the 2006-2007 TV season that were built around hostage situations. The protagonists were a pair of FBI agents working out of the "Crisis Negotiation Unit," Emily Lehman (Rosemarie DeWitt) and Matt Flannery (Ron Livingston). Experts at defusing tense hostage crises, Emily and Matt were less successful coping with their personal problems, most of which stemmed from the fact that they were sleeping together, which Matt tactlessly revealed to one and all while he was on the job! Since this sort of cohabitation was strictly against department policy, the two agents had to wrestle with their passions even while endeavoring to talk various captors out of killing their captives...and the results were often as amusing as they were suspenseful. Also in the cast were Gina Torres as Emily and Matt's boss Cheryl Carrera, who favored direct action over negotiation; Michael Cudlitz as gonzo sniper-force leader Frank Rogers; Raquel Alessi as intelligence analyst Lia Mathers; and Jose Pablo Cantillo as FBI agent Duff Gonzalez. The weekly, hour-long Standoff debuted September 5, 2006, as a lead-in for the popular Fox medical drama House.