Crime plot vanishes without a trace

For clues about the current state of TV drama, stake out this week’s episode of “Without a Trace,” where there is no missing person.

The CBS crime drama, now in its third season, has grown into a Top 5 hit as viewers have gotten hooked on watching world-weary FBI investigator Jack Malone (Anthony LaPaglia) and his crew hunt down vanished spouses, lovers and kids, digging up dark secrets about each victim along the way.

But Thursday’s episode charts new crime-free territory. Instead of a missing-persons case, it’s focused entirely on Jack’s angry, agonized deposition in the nasty divorce from his high-powered lawyer wife, Marie (Talia Balsam). At the climax, as painful details from his past emerge, Malone bolts from a conference table, and in front of stunned lawyers hurls a leather swivel chair through a plate-glass window.

While the scene may be a bit over the top for some, Hank Steinberg is satisfied. “It’s totally Anthony’s Emmy episode,” the show’s 35-year-old creator and executive producer said half-jokingly.

Call it “Desperate G-Men.” The success of NBC’s “Law & Order” and CBS’ “CSI: Crime Scene Investigation” has led to a glut of procedural dramas -- tidy, self-contained whodunits that hew to the mechanics of law enforcement and that viewers can easily follow, even if they drop in only occasionally.

This fall, however, two serialized ABC shows are getting the most attention: “Desperate Housewives,” a wry soap that plumbs the dark heart of suburbia, and “Lost,” about the strange fates of castaways on a desert island. Unlike their crime-driven cousins, the ABC dramas rely on intricate characterizations and week-to-week plot twists and cliffhangers (last week’s “Housewives” shocker was the murder of a neighborhood busybody).

Last season, the “Without a Trace” writers began fleshing out the investigators’ private lives -- for example, workaholic Jack’s marital woes worsened, thanks to a fling with colleague Samantha (Poppy Montgomery). The producers stressed that they started adding such elements long before “Housewives” came along; still, this week’s episode carries the effort to the greatest lengths yet.

Steinberg -- whose interests as a writer tend less toward crime than historical dramas (he’s written TV movies about Robert F. Kennedy and baseball great Mickey Mantle) -- has pushed to add texture to Malone and his gang since the show started. The move unsettled some network and studio executives at first, he said, but the ratings have largely cured such anxieties.

While it hasn’t had the buzz of “Housewives,” “Without a Trace” is one of TV’s fastest-growing series -- with ratings zooming 29% to 20.6 million viewers, compared with last season. “Trace” is part of a new generation of shows that appeals to younger adults. Last month, it helped CBS win the November sweep among adults ages 18 to 49 for the first time since 1980.

It’s also taking a big bite out of its main competitor, NBC’s 11-year-old “ER,” which this fall has dipped 12% to 17.3 million viewers, according to figures from Nielsen Media Research.

The rivalry between the two shows makes for an awkward subject at Warner Bros. Television, which produces both “ER” and “Trace,” although studio chief Peter Roth insists, “There’s room for them both.”

Last week, for the first time, a repeat episode of “Trace” had more viewers than a first-run episode of “ER,” albeit by a tiny margin.

“I think we do better [in the ratings] because of the character stuff. I really believe that,” Steinberg said, who also directed the divorce episode.

John Rash, who buys network ad time at media firm Campbell Mithun, agrees. Although it never hurts to have a smash hit like “CSI” as a lead-in, Rash says, “Trace” is also drumming up more viewers by creating a “hybrid of serialized and episodic drama.”

Since “Dragnet,” the formulaic nature of the cop show has made it perfect for series TV.

“You can manufacture episodes like they manufacture Chevys,” said Robert J. Thompson, director of the Center for the Study of Popular Television at Syracuse University. But during the 1980s, NBC’s “Hill Street Blues” broke new ground by weaving stories of the cops’ personal travails into the traditional formula. ABC’s “NYPD Blue,” another cop drama from producer Steven Bochco, furthered the idea a decade later.

Over the last few seasons, as “CSI” and “Law & Order” have generated successful spinoffs, such pioneering cable-TV hits as “The Sopranos” have reminded network executives of the dramatic possibilities that lie beyond police work.

As for “Trace,” the high ratings have given Steinberg more latitude.

“When someone is putting together a successful show, we have to support them,” said CBS Entertainment President Nina Tassler.

The “Trace” cast has also played a key role; the actors sometimes grow restless with scenes in which characters laboriously discuss evidence, because that generally limits whatever personal stamp an actor can put on the material. That’s especially true of LaPaglia, a veteran Australian-born actor with more than 40 films to his credit.

LaPaglia “wanted more to play; he didn’t just want [Malone] to run credit cards and license plates on black Maximas,” said Greg Walker, another “Trace” executive producer.

“I’m just not interested in a dictatorial ‘do what you’re told, hit your mark and go home’ ” style of working, LaPaglia said last month on the set.

He credits Steinberg for taking the risk with the divorce episode. “It’s a big departure for the show [and] a gutsy thing for Hank to do,” LaPaglia said.

But on today’s cluttered TV dial, even hit shows need help standing out from the pack -- even if it means nixing the crime from a crime show.

“The thing about TV audiences now is that there’s so much on the air,” LaPaglia said. “They’ve seen everything.”