Without a Trace

Without a Trace
Intertitle
Format	Police procedural Thriller Mystery
Created by	Hank Steinberg
Starring	Anthony LaPaglia Poppy Montgomery Marianne Jean-Baptiste Enrique Murciano Eric Close Roselyn Sánchez
Country of origin	United States
No. of seasons	7
No. of episodes	160 (List of episodes)
Production
Location(s)	New York City, New York, U.S.
Running time	43 minutes
Production company(s)	Jerry Bruckheimer Television Grossman Productions Jumbolaya Productions
Distributor	CBS Paramount Network Television (2002-2006) CBS Productions (2006-2009) Warner Bros. Television
Broadcast
Original channel	CBS
Picture format	480i (SDTV), 1080i (High-definition television)
Original run	September 26, 2002 (2002-09-26) – May 19, 2009 (2009-05-19)

Without a Trace is an American police procedural television drama series that originally aired on CBS from September 26, 2002, to May 19, 2009. The series follows the ventures of a Missing Persons Unit (MPU) of the FBI in New York City.

On May 19, 2009, CBS announced the cancellation of the series after the series ran for seven seasons.^[1]

Premise

Each episode typically followed the search for one individual under tight time constraints. The stories also focused on the personal lives of the team members and illustrated how their experiences gave them insight into cases.

The team consisted of Jack Malone (Anthony LaPaglia), Samantha Spade (Poppy Montgomery), Vivian Johnson (Marianne Jean-Baptiste), Danny Taylor (Enrique Murciano), Martin Fitzgerald (Eric Close), and Elena Delgado (Roselyn Sánchez), who joined the cast starting in the fourth season.

The real FBI does investigate missing persons; specifically they have the authority to help in any "mysterious" disappearances of children abducted by non-family members. The groups that investigate these crimes are called CARD (Child Abduction Rapid Deployment) Teams.^[2] They get involved in other missing persons cases as needed but do not have a dedicated unit.

One element that set the series apart from other TV police dramas was the display of information about real-life missing persons at the end of most episodes. This resulted in a kidnapped brother and sister being found on July 25, 2005.^[3] At least five people have been found as a result of those announcements.^[4] Occasionally such information was replaced with other public service announcements, such as an episode about an attempted suicide which presented information on a suicide help line. Showings outside the United States tend to omit missing persons info; however, Australia's Nine Network usually showed Australian cases, and in Hong Kong the TVB Pearl showed information about local missing persons during the first two seasons.

Without a Trace took place within Jerry Bruckheimer's CSI: Crime Scene Investigation universe. A crossover episode featured characters Gil Grissom from CSI and Jack Malone from Without a Trace working together to solve the same case.

History

Without a Trace debuted as part of the CBS fall line-up in 2002, created by Hank Steinberg and produced by Jerry Bruckheimer. The show was the first ever to score strong ratings opposite longtime NBC hit medical drama ER—which, like Without a Trace, is produced by Warner Bros. Television. The first two showrunners were Steinberg and Ed Redlich. Between Seasons Two and Three, Redlich moved away from active participation in the series, with staff writers Jan Nash and Greg Walker taking over. In the middle of Season Four, Steinberg left to produce the series The Nine, while remaining executive producer. The show is the only prime-time U.S. drama to feature two Australians (Anthony LaPaglia and Poppy Montgomery) and a Briton (Marianne Jean-Baptiste) playing Americans in the regular cast.

In 2003, the TNT Network acquired syndication rights to the series for US$1.4 million per episode.

Without a Trace ran on Thursdays at 10 pm until September 2006, when it was moved to Sundays at 10 pm. In the 2007–2008 season it swapped timeslots with Shark, returning it to its old timeslot on Thursdays. However, this lasted only until the 2008–2009 season, when it moved to Tuesdays at 10 pm. On May 19, 2009, it was reported that the series would not be returning for an eighth season, the morning before the series finale aired.^[1]

Main cast

Name	Portrayed by	Occupation	Position	Main cast	Guest cast
John Michael "Jack" Malone	Anthony LaPaglia	Special Agent; Missing Persons Unit, FBI	Supervisory Agent, Head of MPU	Seasons 1–7
Samantha "Sam" Spade	Poppy Montgomery	Special Agent; Missing Persons Unit, FBI	Field Agent, MPU	Seasons 1–7
Vivian "Viv" Johnson	Marianne Jean-Baptiste	Special Agent; Missing Persons Unit, FBI	Senior Field Agent, MPU	Seasons 1-7
Danny Taylor, né Alvarez	Enrique Murciano	Special Agent; Missing Persons Unit, FBI	Field Agent, MPU	Seasons 1-7
Elena Delgado	Roselyn Sánchez	Special Agent; Missing Persons Unit, FBI	Field Agent, MPU	Seasons 4-7	Season 4 (prior to joining the regular cast)
Martin Fitzgerald	Eric Close	Special Agent; Missing Persons Unit, FBI	Field Agent, MPU	Seasons 1-7

Season synopsis

Season 1

In the first season, the team is introduced to the viewers.

Season 2

As the team continues to track down missing people, Jack and his wife slide towards divorce, while Jack must also care for his father (Martin Landau) who has Alzheimer's disease. We learn about the team members' life histories, including the fact that Martin was practically raised by his aunt and uncle, and Danny is an orphan whose estranged brother Rafael (Alex Fernandez) is a convicted felon. Martin fatally shoots a child sex trafficker, and both he and Vivian must keep quiet in order to keep their jobs. Jack makes a last-ditch attempt to save his marriage by moving to Chicago with his family, giving Vivian a long-awaited promotion to his post, but at the last minute his wife Maria (Talia Balsam) leaves without him, taking their daughters Hannah and Kate (Vanessa and Laura Marano) with her.

Following a campaign by the conservative group the Parents Television Council, CBS was fined a record $3.6 million for indecency for the sixth episode "Our Sons and Daughters", which centered around a teenage orgy. CBS argued that the episode "featured an important and socially relevant storyline warning parents to exercise greater supervision of their teenage children."^[5]

Season 3

Vivian loses her promotion when Jack returns to his job, causing some commotion among the team. She also experiences heart trouble that endangers her life and her career, and undergoes risky surgery. Martin and Samantha begin a secret office romance, and because of disagreements between them on whether or not to reveal it to the rest of the team, it ends badly. Jack undergoes a brutal custody battle with his ex-wife. Danny has to confront his traumatic past, and Rafael. The season ends with a cliffhanger as a hired mercenary opens fire on Martin and Danny's car while they transport a prisoner. Guest star: Bradley Steven Perry.

Season 4

After barely surviving the gun battle that ended Season Three, Martin must recover from near-fatal gunshot wounds while Danny battles PTSD. Stretched for help, the team gets a new member, Elena Delgado, a former NYPD vice squad officer with an aggressive, streetwise attitude. She has a past connection to Danny, the nature of which is unknown until Season Five. Martin develops an addiction to painkillers, and Jack begins a romance with Anne Cassidy (Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio), the widow of a former mentor killed in the line of duty.

Season 5

Anne miscarries and abruptly ends her relationship with Jack. Danny and Elena begin to date each other, while her ex-husband Carlos Aguilar (Jsu Garcia) sues for custody of their daughter Sofie (Ashlyn Sanchez), and later abducts her. More about Samantha's difficult past is revealed, including her strained relationships with her mother Patricia (Tess Harper) and older sister Emily (Molly Price). Jack is abducted and tortured by a psychotic woman, but initially appears to show few effects. At the end of the season, Carlos is freed, leaving the team worried about Elena's safety, and a serial kidnapper appears to be preying on young women.

Season 6

Vivian is put in charge of a task force to locate the serial kidnapper, who is part of a sex trafficking ring. Samantha discovers that she is pregnant from a one-night stand with a bartender at the time, Brian Donovan (Adam Kaufman) and by the end of the season, he waives paternal rights because of what Jack digs up on him and Sam confronting him about it and she gives birth to her son named Finn. Jack begins a pattern of roughing up suspects and intimidating people to make them talk, which appears to be related to PTSD. He also gets into a dangerous situation without backup and is nearly killed, and becomes overly-involved in the life of a teenager he saved from the sex traffickers. In the season finale he is demoted and put in mandatory therapy with Dr. Clare Bryson (Linda Hunt).

This season also contained a two-part crossover episode with CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, as Jack and Gil Grissom (William Petersen) and their teams track down a serial killer responsible for the disappearance of a boy six years ago. Both episodes are included on the DVD collection for CSI's eighth season.

Without a Trace completed twelve episodes of Season Six before the 2007-2008 WGA strike.^[6] Because the show's writing staff all joined the strike, there were no more new episodes until the issue was settled. Once the strike ended, the show returned on April 3, 2008, with six episodes.^[7]

Season 7

The series' seventh and final season began airing September 23, 2008, in a new 10:00 pm (EST) Tuesday timeslot. Steven Weber joined the cast for the first five episodes of the season as Special Agent Clark Medina, Jack's temporary replacement as unit supervisor. The episodes focus just as much on missing persons cases as on Medina's war against Jack as he reveals that not only had he been sent to replace Jack, but also to convince Jack to leave the Bureau. Medina ultimately realizes that he cannot get Jack to resign and uses him in a power play to get himself promoted; in return, he arranges for Jack to get his old position back. Following Jack's return as Unit Supervisor, he sets about trying to repair his relationship with Sam which rekindles. Jack later takes custody of his eldest daughter, Hanna. The series ends with Jack and Sam putting a permanent end to their on-again-off-again romantic relationship. Jack reaches a point of reconciliation with Hanna. Brian gets back in Sam's life to be a father to Finn; they fall in love and decide to live together to raise Finn. The team go to attend the wedding of Danny and Elena.

Episodes

Crossover with CSI: Crime Scene Investigation

In CSI: "Who and What?" (S08E06), Jack Malone helps the Las Vegas CSI team look for a serial killer with connections to New York City. This crossover is concluded on Without a Trace: "Where and Why?" (S06E06).

U.S. television ratings

Seasonal rankings (based on average total viewers per episode) of Without A Trace on CBS.

Note: Each U.S. network television season starts in late September and ends in late May, which coincides with the completion of May sweeps.

Season	Timeslot	Season Premiere	Season Finale	TV Season	Ranking	Viewers (in millions)
1st	Thursday 10:00 pm / 9 c	September 26, 2002	May 15, 2003	2002–2003	#15	15.09[8]
2nd		September 25, 2003	May 20, 2004	2003–2004	#11	16.74[9]
3rd		September 23, 2004	May 19, 2005	2004–2005	#8	18.68[10]
4th		September 29, 2005	May 18, 2006	2005–2006	#7	18.7[11]
5th	Sunday 10:00 pm / 9 c	September 24, 2006	May 10, 2007	2006–2007	#16	14.7[12]
6th	Thursday 10:00 pm / 9 c	September 27, 2007	May 15, 2008	2007–2008	#20	13.10[13]
7th	Tuesday 10:00 pm / 9 c	September 23, 2008	May 19, 2009	2008–2009	#18	12.86[14]

DVD releases

Season releases

DVD Name	Region 1	Region 2	Region 4
The Complete 1st Season	September 14, 2004[15]	January 10, 2005[16]	December 15, 2004[17]
The Complete 2nd Season	March 13, 2007[18]	January 16, 2006[19]	November 16, 2005[20]
The Complete 3rd Season	May 15, 2012[21]	July 24, 2006[22]	May 2, 2007[23]
The Complete 4th Season	September 11, 2012[24]	July 14, 2008[25]	July 1, 2009[26]
The Complete 5th Season	November 27, 2012	February 22, 2010	N/A
The Complete 6th Season	May 7, 2013	July 5, 2010	N/A
The Complete 7th and Final Season	N/A	N/A	N/A

Without A Trace Season 1 has been released on Region 1, Region 2 and Region 4 DVD. Season 2 (region 1 DVD), which was thought to be indefinitely scrapped, was released on March 13, 2007.^[18] Seasons 3 and 4 were finally released on Region 1 DVDs in 2012 under the Warner Archive "Manufactured On Demand" model. Season 5 was released in Region 1 on November 27, 2012.^[27] Season 6 was released in Regions 1 and 4 on May 7, 2013.^[28]

Seasons 1–6 have all been released under region 2 encoding, while Seasons 1-5 have been released under region 4 encoding.

See also

• CSI: Crime Scene Investigation
• CSI: Miami
• CSI: NY
• Cold Case
• Missing Persons

References

External links

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Without a Trace

• Official website
• Official website on TNT
• Without a Trace on MyNetworkTV
• Without a Trace at the Internet Movie Database
• Without a Trace at TV.com

v t e Without a Trace Characters Jack Malone Samantha Spade Martin Fitzgerald Vivian Johnson Danny Taylor Elena Delgado Episodes Complete list Season 1 Season 2 Season 3 Season 4 Season 5 Season 6 Season 7

v t e CSI TV series CSI: Crime Scene Investigation (2000–present) CSI: Miami (2002–2012) CSI: NY (2004–2013) Universe CSI franchise CSI effect Novels Comics Video games Exhibition Crossovers Cold Case Without a Trace Two and a Half Men Level 26

v t e Film and television media produced by Jerry Bruckheimer Films The Culpepper Cattle Co. (1972) (assoc.) Farewell, My Lovely (1975) Rafferty and the Gold Dust Twins (1975) (assoc.) March or Die (1977) Defiance (1980) American Gigolo (1980) Thief (1981) Young Doctors in Love (1982) Cat People (1982) Flashdance (1983) Beverly Hills Cop (1984) Thief of Hearts (1984) Top Gun (1986) Beverly Hills Cop II (1987) Days of Thunder (1990) The Ref (1994) Dangerous Minds (1995) Crimson Tide (1995) Bad Boys (1995) The Rock (1996) Con Air (1997) Enemy of the State (1998) Armageddon (1998) Remember the Titans (2000) Coyote Ugly (2000) Gone in Sixty Seconds (2000) Pearl Harbor (2001) Black Hawk Down (2001) Bad Company (2002) Bad Boys II (2003) Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl (2003) Veronica Guerin (2003) Kangaroo Jack (2003) National Treasure (2004) King Arthur (2004) Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest (2006) Déjà Vu (2006) Glory Road (2006) Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End (2007) National Treasure: Book of Secrets (2007) G-Force (2009) Confessions of a Shopaholic (2009) Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time (2010) The Sorcerer's Apprentice (2010) Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides (2011) The Lone Ranger (2013) Deliver Us from Evil (2014) Television Soldier of Fortune, Inc. (1997–1998) Max Q (1998) Swing Vote (1999) CSI: Crime Scene Investigation (2000–present) The Amazing Race (2001–present) CSI: Miami (2002–2012) Without a Trace (2002–2009) Skin (2003-2005) Cold Case (2003–2010) Fearless (2004) (co-producer) CSI: NY (2004–2013) Just Legal (2005–2006) E-Ring (2005–2006) Close to Home (2005–2007) Justice (2006) Modern Men (2006) Eleventh Hour (2008–2009) The Forgotten (2009–2010) Dark Blue (2009–2010) Miami Medical (2010) Chase (2010–2011) The Whole Truth (2010) Take the Money and Run (2011) Hostages (2013) Films—Producer unless otherwise noted; Television—Executive producer unless otherwise noted