The recently-ended writers’ strike and ongoing actors’ strike has severely decimated the amount of new television programming available for the fall season. That’s especially true for broadcast networks, which once debuted numerous must-see shows before the advent of streaming and on-demand viewing. NBC, which has new seasons of entries from the Law and Order and Chicago franchises set to return at some point in the future, has just two new scripted series, one of which is the drama Found, a fairly typical procedural with a few modern-day updates.
Shanola Hampton stars as Gabi Mosley, who leads a group of crisis managers who step in when someone goes missing and not enough attention is being paid to the case by the police or the media. Gabi can relate to the situation as a previous abductee herself, and she has made a team full of people who have their own connections to missing persons situations, whether as victims themselves or family members of those who were or remain lost. Gabi enjoys a warm relationship with Mark Trent (Brett Dalton), a detective who often turns to working with Gabi’s group even when his superiors aren’t keen to get them involved.
Found is a good fit for NBC in that it follows that police-adjacent weekly case format with the added continuity of each team member’s own relationship with the idea of fulfilling their own needs. It bears a strong similarity to the short-lived 2009 ABC series The Forgotten, which also followed a team whose self-assigned job was to become a voice for the voiceless. There’s a definitive beat to this show which works in its favor, and its pacing reflects the urgency of finding those who have been taken while leaving plenty of time for flashbacks to reveal the backstories of the characters and what pushed them to find the roles they currently inhabit.
Among the strengths of this series’ focus is its clear delineation of who it is that falls off the radar and results in needing to be picked up by its protagonists. While series like Big Sky have been criticized for sensationalizing and appropriating real-life trauma endured mostly by indigenous people with white characters at their center, this show, in its first episode, holds up the hypocrisy for all to see with no room for misinterpretation. Gabi points out the wealth of resources being directed to find the daughter of a prominent politician and even calls a press conference to redirect the attention it attracts to another equally important case that has been all but ignored.
It’s great to see Hampton back on television after watching her for eleven seasons on Shameless as no-nonsense neighbor Veronica Fisher. She brings a memorable style and unflappability to Gabi that enhances the show. Other standouts from the cast include Kelli Williams as lead investigator Margaret Reed and Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. alum Dalton as Trent. It’s also interesting – and effective – to see Mark-Paul Gosselaar in an atypical role, chewing scenery as Gabi’s childhood abductor who holds her prisoner and propels her into her eventual line of work.
In this new world dominated by cable and streaming series, it’s not clear what place a procedural of this sort holds. At this juncture, it’s one of the only such shows churning out new episodes, which should certainly appeal to fans of the other police dramas that have kept NBC in business for so many years.
Though it includes highly relevant and timely ideas of identity, justice, and victimhood, it still feels like the type of show that would have been best digested two decades ago, taking on edgy storylines but playing it safe when it comes to its style and substance.
Grade: B
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New episodes of Found premiere Tuesdays at 10pm on NBC.