Knapp
Created by Jason Smilovic
"You're not very good with people, are you, Mr. Knapp?
"No, but I'm good at finding them.""
-- Mrs. Cain puts Knapp on the spot.
About the only show in the 2006-07 season to feature a private eye is NBC's Kidnapped, an ambitious potboiler with a surprisingly strong cast that follows the abduction of a teenage boy, Leopold Cain (played by Will Denton), and the efforts of his wealthy New York parents, Conrad (Timothy "Nero Wolfe" Hutton) and Ellie (Dana Delaney) Cain, to get him back.
So it's not really a private eye show at all, except that one of the most intriguing characters in the show -- and one of its central characters -- is KNAPP (Jeremy Sisto), a freelance investigator with a troubled past (he confesses at one point that he was "one step from kicking the chair away") and an abrasive manner who specializes in rescuing kidapping victims and negotiating ransom demands.
The pudgy, scruffy Knapp's nobody's idea of slick -- with his kangaroo sweatshirt and jeans and half-assed beard, he looks more like he's on his way to a pick-up basketball game, yet he's supposedly the best at what he does. Which is why the Cains hire him.
But that doesn't sit well with Latimer King, the FBI Special Agent assigned to the case. He and Knapp were former colleagues before Knapp went solo, and as the show unravelled, therewere plenty of deep dark secrets revealed.
In fact, everyone in the show seemed to have some deep dark secrets -- and that includes the both Mr. and Mrs. Cain, their three children (including Leopold, the victim), the kidnappers and even Turner, Knapp's attractive "associate" (Carmen Ejogo). Like, are they lovers? Just friends? Co-workers? What was the story there? And just what the hell happened to Knapp that he left the FBI? And why doesn't he just grow a beard? Or shave?
Not that answers were easily found. Every show raised even more questions and suggested even more secrets.
It all made for some pretty compelling viewing, actually and to its credit, it managed to avoid crashing under the weight of its pretentions or disappearing up its own backstories. It's too bad NBC had so little faith in it -- after bouncing around the schedule like a spastiic superball, they shuffled it off to a Saturday night time slot and let it die.
It figures. I was just beginning to look forward to each new episode.
The good news, I guess, is that NBC eventually rounded up all thirteen episodes, including the unaired ones and released them on DVD. But then the peckerwoods priced it awful high for a TV show with only 13 episodes.
THE EVIDENCE
TELEVISION
KIDNAPPED... Buy this DVDRELATED LINKS
Respectfully submitted by Kevin Burton Smith.
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