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"Without a Trace" (2002) More at IMDbPro »

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63 comments in total

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77 out of 108 people found the following comment useful :-
Contrarian viewpoint, 15 February 2004
Author: cu_ee from WA, USA

I find this show engaging enough to watch fairly regularly but have to disagree with all the glowing reviews that have been posted. The plot lines are often simplistic and sensationalist and the long music-driven "emotional" scenes are pandering and boring. The characters are one dimensional and any "development" seems forced. I feel like Lenny on Law & Order is my good buddy even though that show hardly has any character development, whereas the WAT characters seem more like bullet points--"the wise, good hearted leader with family problems", "the tough blonde going through an emotional crisis", etc. The show is okay but it's really a slick presentation of something that could use a few more IQ points.

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83 out of 132 people found the following comment useful :-
OK First Season, Great Second Season and then it's all downhill, 7 May 2006

Author: goldenhummer78 from Barbados

What a waste! It took the WAT producers a half season until they hit their stride (the pilot was oh-hum but the show showed potential for growth, in particular with its great cast.) The second season was excellent, with better photography and more interesting writing and decent "persoanl arcs" for each character.

I was looking forward to the third season, but then it all collapsed in a second.

The writing went downhill faster than an olympic racer. And of course, to make matter worse, they had to tinker with the cast and add Roselyn Sanchez to make sure that we got how terrible the writing is.

Oh, well. It had one good season...

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47 out of 72 people found the following comment useful :-
Roselyn Sanchez, bad writing and producing killed this hit show, 30 April 2007

Author: lilliansimone from United States

This show used to be great. Maybe not the pinnacle of television, but very, very good.

It had a nice cast, good writing (although it erred on not doing enough with the characters) and good directing (after a shaky first season).

But then it all collapsed. The creator of the show left and in came people who like their actresses incompetent and their scripts full of plot holes.

The hiring of Roselyn Sanchez is when this show jumped the shark.

Roselyn Sanchez is possibly the worst actress working as a lead in film and television today... and that's saying a lot! Her complete like of emoting, combined with her lack of diction and her unnaturally immobile face make every scene she's in a painful experience.

In addition, her bad acting exposes how bad the writing has become.

No wonder audiences have been deserting with once huge hit.

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27 out of 34 people found the following comment useful :-
Marianne Jean-Baptiste, 10 July 2006
Author: stonestroke2003 from Fog City, California

WAT is the show I look forward to watching most every week (comes in a close 2nd after The Closer). I don't know why so many people think the show has gone downhill. It still holds my interest for that hour. My only criticism (and it's not about Rosalyn Sanchez) is that they have one of the most talented actresses alive today, Marianne Jean-Baptiste, and they hardly use her! She deserves much more character development and depth to her role. It's the same story with S. Epatha Merkerson on Law & Order. Another underused great talent. However, perhaps after being recognized for Lackawanna Blues, NBC will wake up. Let's see more Marianne in the future. At least let her express an emotion every now and then. Even Tony LaPaglia is allowed to do that.

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30 out of 43 people found the following comment useful :-
Repetitive, 20 June 2006

Author: Mattias Petersson from Stockholm, Sweden

I have watched quite many episodes of this show. Simply because i have very few TV-channels with good reception during weekends in the cabin, and this show is conveniently shown Saturday evening.

There are two kinds of TV-shows. First the ones that get better the more you watch them, like most of the shows from HBO for instance. The characters get more elaborate, the story deeper and the show moves forward. Then there is the second kind of show that becomes worse the more you watch. Repetitive scripts, shallow characters, illogical story line. Unfortunately this show belongs to the latter category.

I don't really know whether that's so unexpected though. This show is about cops trying to find missing people and there are not that many ways for someone to go missing. Usually it's just variants on the same thing. Violent crime, teenagers run away from home, abductions, accidents. After a dozen episodes it more or less feels like i have seen it all.

And what are the positive points? Since i have given this show a five-star grade there should be a few of those as well. And there are. This show has a few qualities that i appreciate. Among them are the technical quality, the decent acting and the nice pace. Especially pace is something that's very necessary for a show to concentrate on. If i'm going to watch many episodes of a TV-show i need it to be well-paced. Not too fast-paced and not too slow. Both ruin the experience. This show is just about right.

With a bit more creative thinking in the script-department, a bit more character-development and perhaps also a bit less moralizing this could be good entertainment. Right now it barely reaches the "ok"-mark.

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35 out of 53 people found the following comment useful :-
Roselyn Sanchez, 13 October 2006

Author: mel1986 from United Kingdom

*** This comment may contain spoilers ***

I agree i think they should kill Roselyn Sanchez off and i also think that martin and Sam should get back together but before that i think she should get back with jack and Martin and Viv should have an affair and i think they should let Enrique pick his own love interest on without a trace and they should bring jacks wife back in.They should a Christmas where they all go away for the holidays together and show people that Christmas is about giving not receiving and being with the people they love and their friend and what it's like when people can't be with the people they love.Sam should choose who she wants and who ever she decides to be with they should get married with a twist.

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34 out of 55 people found the following comment useful :-
I wish the 5 original players would be reinstated in the future., 22 January 2007

Author: just judit from Budapest/Los Angeles

The show is still very good though my friends and I, who watch it together, agree with another viewer that Ms Sanchez ruined an excellent #10 show. There were already two women and a Spanish-American on board, so the show was politically correct and the ensemble fantastic. I never wished anybody (besides Hitler and heads of the soviet Union) to die, but I heartily wish that Ms Sanches' character would be shot for good and the show would return to its previous magnificence. Well, then I could purchase the following seasons' disks as well as those I had without Ms Sanchez' not enjoyable and unwanted presence. Could there be a possible hope in that direction? What a great thing it would be.

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9 out of 10 people found the following comment useful :-
Jumped The Shark When They Hired Roselyn Sanchez, 3 October 2008

Author: Catherine from Santa Monica

It's amazing how Without a Trace went from one of the best shows on TV to must-miss TV in about three episodes.

First the writing went down the drain with the characters acting out implausible stories between them that sounded like they had been lifted out of a really bad daytime soap.

Then the regular actors got that bemused look on their faces, as if they didn't know what their character was supposed to be any more.

Finally, to "spice things up" I'm sure, the producers went and hired one of the worst actresses in Hollywood: Roselyn Sanchez, who can't even enunciate and has a face so plastic she's a walking indictment of the plastic surgery profession.

Very sad. Hopefully they'll right the boat, but I'm not holding my breath.

Update: It turns out the didn't right the boat. Roselyn Sanchez is still killing every scene she's in and the show is but a pale shadow of what it used to be.

Too bad as it was a very promising show.

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19 out of 30 people found the following comment useful :-
They Need To Get Rid of Roselyn Sanchez, 15 November 2007

Author: Laurence Dillon from United States

Roselyn Sanchez has completely destroyed the interest I used to have in this show.

Her complete lack of acting ability just annihilates every scene that she is in. She mumbles through every line and is barely intelligible (and I am being nice).

Her face is so completely devoid of emotion, one has to wonder why anyone would ever want to have such a negative presence on a formerly hit show.

It must be hell for the other actors to have to share the screen with someone who gives them absolutely nothing to play against.

Come on CBS, do the right thing and force the bad producers who hired her to fire her. Maybe killing her character would be good. It could be sold as a "very special episode".

I know I'd watch it.

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16 out of 25 people found the following comment useful :-
What a waste of what could be a great show, 18 May 2008

Author: (anachain) from United States

I've come to hate this show--the agents are so over the top and the events are so badly done that to say it stretches reality is greatly beyond an understatement. Malone is off-kilter so much he should be in jail for all the stuff he pulls. The personal drama between the characters detract too much from what's going on. The agents consistently abuse, threaten, and brow-beat suspects, witnesses, and victims that that whole unit should be looking for new jobs...or suspension at the least. I've stopped watching this show...no originals, no reruns, no more TiVo season pass.

I started watching because of Eric Close--I thought this show would give him a chance to truly develop into a top-tier actor, but that just has not happened. LaPaglia is good as Jack Malone, but the overdone maverick behavior of Malone so distracts from the show--greatly so. However, the one actor that truly shines in the show is Marianne Jean-Baptiste as agent Vivian Johnson. She is the only one on the show that acts like an FBI agent with the portrayal of the character's personal side being the most believable.

And to the CBS directors and writers, you guys need an FBI technical adviser for more than just a few shows...or fire Mark Llewellyn for doing such a poor job.

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