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Missing: Series Premiere

By Liana M. Silva · March 19, 2012

Last Thursday, ABC premiered its latest addition to its primetime lineup, a series titled Missing starring Ashley Judd as the ex-CIA agent/mom who goes on the trail of her missing son Michael (played by Nick Eversman) in Europe. It is a worthy addition to their Thursday lineup, and will be a good counterpart to the fan favorite Grey’s Anatomy. Missing provides a blast of action and suspense for Thursday nights, and will be around for ten episodes.

After watching the pilot episode, I sense the show has a lot of potential. Although the episode started slowly as it introduced us to the main characters and showed us what their lives were like before the kidnapping, the pace picked up quickly thirteen minutes in. If Missing keeps its momentum, I foresee a successful show. I know I am hooked and eager to see how the story unfolds.

Becca Winstone (played by Ashley Judd) seems like your typical mom, with her morning run and her flower shop. However, in the past she used to be a very successful CIA agent. How successful? In the episode, Agent Dax Miller (Cliff Curtis) mentions that Winstone’s file is short, perhaps a little too short, and then adds that the agents with the small files are the ones you need to look out for. Although the episode got off to a slow start because of all the description and character development, viewers have yet to know about her other life as an agent, which will keep viewers coming back over the next few weeks.

However, what worked about this show—and what hooked me in—was the angle the writers gave the main character. Becca stands out because she is not a traditional female government agent character: she is an older character, she has built a life for herself, she is not active in the force, and she seems to be very maternal. Her character has complexity. When she breaks into the jewelry shop across from Michael’s Rome apartment to see surveillance footage in hopes of finding a trail to her son, viewers have the chance to see her humanity and her fragility. She plays the footage, hoping to see if Michael returned to his building before being kidnapped. When she sees a group of men grab him and put him in the back of a truck, Becca starts to cry uncontrollably. She cannot believe her eyes, and her hard, outer CIA agent shell breaks apart.

The balance between the show’s emotional side and the violent, suspenseful side is a delicate one, but it will be worth it if the show’s writers keep that delicate balance in place. This balance can be easily disrupted by either having too much violence or by making the show too sexy. The excess of violence can make the show seem cartoonish, like in one scene where a group of men follow Becca as she exits a club where Michael’s girlfriend works. As she walks along the street in darkness, the men pounce on her. She starts shooting, and eventually she notices she is crouching next to a moped store. Immediately, she breaks the glass and escapes on the moped. The writers should try to not make the situations Becca finds herself in unbelievable, even if her skills are supposedly superhuman.

Also, a lot of shows mistakenly make their female protagonists too sexy, perhaps in the hopes of nabbing ratings or making the show more audacious. However, this tactic does not always work; sometimes it can seem forced or just out of place. The pilot episode of Missing almost fell into that territory. After fighting the men who were waiting for her outside of the club, Becca returns to the apartment of Giancarlo Rossi (Adriano Giannini), a European agent from her past who is now helping her find her son. As she tries to take off her shirt, the camera zooms in on the bruises on her torso. She asks Giancarlo for help, and he sheepishly takes her shirt off. In the next scene she is naked in a tub, and Giancarlo helps bathe her. This scene is a good example of the writers treading lightly over thin ice. The scene works well in the sense that we learn a little more about who this Giancarlo is (he had an affair with Becca while her husband was alive), but it could have easily turned too sexy and thrown off the pace and the tone of the show. The writers wrap this scene up nicely when Giancarlo mentions that Becca will find her son soon, and she tears up. The scene ends on a tender note, and the show moves on.

In summary, Missing is off to a good start. The show adds excitement and suspense to my Thursday nights. I usually watch Project Runway and prime-time comedy, but I will be making space for Missing on my DVR. The show’s writers need to watch out in some spots though: not make the show too unrealistic in the action scenes to the point where it seems cartoonish, and not make the main character sexier than she needs to be. Becca Winstone is a strong, smart, crafty character—we need more female characters like her.