"VANISHED" SHOULD SOON DISAPPEAR

September 8, 2006

Later in the season, FOX's kidnapping thriller "Vanished" may pull back the curtain enough on its political conspiracies to show an interesting and intricate mystery underneath. The big question is: Will anyone still be watching to care?

Based on the first three episodes -- a boring mess of red herrings and bland characters -- I'd guess no. For any serialized show, it's important to grab folks' attention right from the start. Think of the first episodes of "Prison Break" and how Scofield's byzantine tattoo made viewers sit up and say, "Now just what the heck is that all about?" Then they tuned in the next week.

"Vanished" has no such hook. Three hours in, it's little more than a generic missing person drama that only hints at more ominous goings-on. John Allen Nelson (formerly Walt Cummings on "24") plays Jeffrey Collins, a United States senator whose wife Sara mysteriously disappears from a gala held in her honor in Atlanta. An FBI agent specializing in kidnappings named Graham Kelton (Gale Harold) is assigned to the case, and immediately there are a handful of convenient suspects, including the senator's daughter's shady boyfriend and a vengeful ex-wife.

Additional storylines are weaved in. There's a New England fisherman who says he used to date Sara years earlier when she went by a different name, and the confirmation hearing for a Supreme Court nominee factors into the big picture somehow. Plus, Kelton's last kidnapping case went awry when a child was killed during a ransom drop, and that tragic event figures into the Collins kidnapping, as well. A clunky flashback or two is jammed into each episode like the proverbial square peg. The whole thing unfolds like a best-selling but forgettable summertime novel -- something by John Grisham or Dan Brown.

Unfortunately, the characters here are wholly unappealing. Both Nelson and Harold do little but stand around and grimace. (The whole show could use an injection of charisma -- perhaps this is why former "Invasion" star Eddie Cibrian is being brought in as a new investigator assigned to the case.) And Collins' wife went missing so quickly, it's hard to ultimately care what happened to her. Not having interesting characters really becomes a problem when FBI agents start talking about how so and so's car was found abandoned in the woods and the viewer has no idea who they're even talking about. That leaves the mystery itself as the chief selling point, but if the writers have a truly grand puzzle up their sleeves with "Vanished," they've revealed far too little of it.

"Vanished" is Fox's newest attempt to clone the serialized drama success it found with "24," and it seems the law of diminishing returns has fully kicked in. "24" was and remains awesome. "Prison Break" is still a cheesy but good time in its second season. Last season's time-hopping murder mystery "Reunion" had a lot wrong with it but was at least built upon an interesting concept. "Vanished," however, offers no compelling reason to recommend it. At the very least, serialized TV should have you curious to see what comes next. "Vanished" only has me curious to find out what else I can start watching on Mondays at 9 p.m.