"Kidnapped" - Best show you never saw (1 Viewer)

[Joseph DeMartino]

I recently stumbled across Kidnapped on Universal HD. I vaguely remember hearing about the show when it debuted, but I never got around to watching before it was cancelled after a mere five episodes. (In what turned out to be a lucky move, NBC made the decision to cancel the series after airing the first three episodes. They then asked the producers to wrap up the main plot line by the end of the 13 episode intitial order. So this is a rare instance of a serialized drama, cancelled midway through its first season, that actually has a conclusion, even while it leaves the door open for further stories.)

Those 13 episodes are an intricately-plotted, well written and brilliantly acted gem that will keep you guessing from beginning to end. The first episode of the show that I watched was the finale (!) I didn't expect I'd ever see the whole thing and I wondered if the show was any good. Well, when they started back up with episode 1 the following week, I was there and I haven't missed an episode since. I may know how things turn out, but the characters don't. As with Apollo 13, watching people who don't know what's going to happen can be as dramatic and exciting as not knowing yourself. Drama is all about how human beings react under pressure and the reactions are intense here. (There's also a great cast - Jeremy Sisto, Delroy Lindo, Timothy Hutton and Dana Delaney, for starters - to bring all this intensity to life.)

Check the listings on Universal HD to see if/when the show will be starting up again, or consider buying or renting the DVDs (warning: I'm told there's a major spoiler in an extra included on disc 2) If you enjoy a real mystery with plenty of action and personal drama as well, you'll like Kidnapped. A lot.

Regards,

Joe

 

[Qui-Gon John]

Yes, I liked this show alot and was very upset the networks killed another show without really giving it a chance.

 

[Joseph DeMartino]

Well, in fairness to the network, the ratings started off bad and then got steadily worse. At least they stuck to the full 13-episode commitment instead of trying to weasel out of it, and gave the producers enough warning so that they could craft and satisfying and coherent conclusion to the story. (Despite the fact that the ratings had fallen so much more two episodes later that they stopped airing the thing entirely and brought back Medium to fill the gap. They eventually made the final 8 episodes available on the 'web, another unusual move.)

Hard to see how much more of a "chance" they could have given a show that nobody (statistically speaking) was watching.

Regards,

Joe

 

[ScottH]

I watched the episodes on DVD about a year ago. Thoroughly enjoyed the beginning (Jeremy Sisto is great in everything he does), but thought it kind of fell apart at the seams as the story unfolded. I'm having a hard time remembering the details of it all, but I seem to remember coming out of it a bit disappointed as if the writers tried too hard to incorporate as many plot twists as they could while the story suffered.

Overall, worth watching though. Would have been good to see Sisto take on another case. I seem to remember some sort of cliffhanger with the Jeremy Sisto character?

 

[Qui-Gon John]

It just seems like so many shows I like come out, play a few episodes then either disappear or, as in this case, are cancelled and you have to scrounge to find them online, on DVD, whatever. It seems almost any intense, dramatic, thought-provoking show is doomed in this day of moronic "reality" shows that are so not reality it's pathetic. Besides KIDNAPPED, there was JOURNEYMAN, DAYBREAK, just to name a couple quick ones I recall, just in the last year.