# Without a Trace (2002)

> An FBI Missing Persons Unit in New York City hunts for people who have vanished without a trace.

Canonical page: https://ember.film/tv/2465

## Facts

- Seasons: 7
- Episodes: 160
- Episode runtime: 43 min
- Status: Ended
- Genres: crime, drama, mystery
- Created by: Hank Steinberg
- Network: CBS
- Cast: Anthony LaPaglia, Poppy Montgomery, Marianne Jean-Baptiste, Enrique Murciano, Roselyn Sánchez, Eric Close, Anna Belknap, Charles S. Dutton
- TMDB rating: 7.0/10
- IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0321021/

## Ember's analysis

- Pacing: brisk
- Intensity: moderate
- Complexity: simple
- Violence: mild
- Tone: procedural, sober, tense, melancholic, methodical

## What critics say

Audiences rate the series as mixed but solid, valuing its steady missing-persons case-of-the-week format and the ensemble of FBI agents.

## Synopsis

Without a Trace (2002-2009) is an American network police procedural created by Hank Steinberg for CBS. Anthony LaPaglia plays Jack Malone, the veteran supervising agent of an FBI Missing Persons Unit in New York City, leading a team that includes Poppy Montgomery as Samantha Spade, Marianne Jean-Baptiste as Vivian Johnson, and Enrique Murciano as Danny Taylor. Each episode opens with a person who has simply disappeared from an ordinary life, and the agents race through interviews, records, and street-level footwork to find them before the trail goes cold. The engine is the case itself: a single missing person, a family waiting for answers, and a clock that keeps ticking. Across seven seasons and roughly 160 episodes, the show follows a steady case-of-the-week rhythm, with the team's personal lives threaded lightly through the investigations. Its tone is measured and sober, with an emotional weight that comes from the families left behind rather than from spectacle. The city is a constant presence, and the mood is that of a patient, methodical hunt. Fans of Law and Order: Special Victims Unit, Criminal Minds, and Cold Case will find a familiar resonance in its procedural craft and its focus on the human cost of unexplained disappearances.

## Shows like Without a Trace

- [FBI: Most Wanted (2020)](https://ember.film/tv/79751)
- [Unforgettable (2011)](https://ember.film/tv/36093)
- [Those Who Kill (2014)](https://ember.film/tv/55419)
- [Haunted (2002)](https://ember.film/tv/3644)
- [Cold Case (2003)](https://ember.film/tv/2059)
- [Black Snow (2023)](https://ember.film/tv/131792)
- [CSI: NY (2004)](https://ember.film/tv/2332)
- [Absentia (2017)](https://ember.film/tv/63411)
- [Found (2023)](https://ember.film/tv/134990)
- [Stalker (2014)](https://ember.film/tv/54242)

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