"The Missing" isn't exactly an original title, but it sums up what this "Starz Limited Series" (produced with the BBC) is about- an eight-year search for a missing child. The British Hughes family is on vacation (or "holiday," as they call it over there) in France when they experience a string of bad luck. First their car breaks down forcing an unexpected stop where they check into a hotel while a shop takes a day or so to fix it. The mother Emily (Frances O'Connor) is exhausted and stays in bed, but dad Tony (James Nesbitt) and son Oliver (Oliver Hunt) make the most of the situation and head out for some fun. This ends up as the beginning of a nightmare as Oliver suddenly disappears while in a crowd- literally one moment he's there, the next he's gone without a trace. Typical of other films where a child disappears, there's an immediate search with authorities involved but not even a single clue comes up, and the parents are left hanging. This was in 2006, "Eight Years Earlier"- from here the series switches between then and the "Present Day" following ongoing efforts to find Oliver, or at least what happened to him.

On-screen text notifies us when we've gone either backwards or forwards in time, but it is still sometimes a bit confusing to keep track of where we are in that timeline. Often the most apparent sign is Tony's appearance as he is rather clean-cut in the beginning but his hair later starts turning grey and doesn't stay clean shaven. No matter what happens he remains committed to finding his son, while Emily tries to get on with her life and eventually leaves Tony for Mark Walsh (Jason Flemyng), an INTERPOL agent who helps out in the search. Tony gets the most help from detective Julien Baptiste (Tchéky Karyo) who retires after taking on the case but remains involved in it. As to who could be to blame for Oliver's disappearance, we're presented with a few suspects- mainly Ian Garrett (Ken Stott), a wealthy architect who contributes a large sum of money to aid in the search but may be hiding a few things, and pedophile Vincent Bourg (Titus DeVoogdt) who is desperately trying to cure himself. Tony himself is also suspected, despite proof via how Oliver's disappearance is shown on-screen that he is innocent. Many other interesting characters also come into play, most notably journalist Malik Suri (Arsher Ali) who follows the story from the beginning and writes a book about it- he notes that while the day of Oliver's disappearance might have been the worst day in Tony's life, for him professionally it was one of the best.

The series consists of eight episodes each running close to one hour and originally shown a week apart from each other, with most episodes ending on moments leaving the audience anxious to see what happens next. While taking a few breaks in between episodes, I viewed the entire series on Blu-Ray disc in one day- the story certainly held my interest and kept me guessing as to how it would conclude. Many unanswered questions come up but most of them are resolved during the final episode. As mentioned it was difficult in some scenes to tell whether they were taking place in the weeks after Oliver's disappearance or eight years later, and there were a few characters whose place in the story I wasn't really sure of at least until I have time to view this again. While the series mostly keeps a suspenseful tone there are a few moments of seemingly long dialogue which just seemed to pad the running time, but again those might make more sense on subsequent viewings- once you know how the story ends it practically begs to be watched at least one more time. Despite the nightmarish subject matter of a disappearing child, the execution here doesn't get too disturbing or emotional (compared with the TV miniseries "I Know My First Name Is Steven," which had stuck with me for a long time not only because of its being based on a true story but also because its narrative actually depicted the horrors the vanished child was going through while his parents helplessly searched for him- this story doesn't follow Oliver after he's gone.)

I could not find any indication whether this series was shot on film or digital, but it at least keeps the film-like look of most current dramatic TV productions. Most scenes are shot with intentionally faded colors and blue tint to convey the unfortunate situations. Despite being shot at 24 frames per second and showing "1080p" on the back cover, these Blu-Ray discs are encoded at 1080i at 30 (or 29.97 if you want to get technical) fps- while most of it still looks good (without any noticeable banding or compression artifacts) there are a few de-interlacing artifacts present in some scenes as well as aliasing.

Audio is in 5.1 Dolby TrueHD, seemingly well-recorded with clear dialogue and sound effects. Music and atmospheric effects are mostly kept to the front channels, with a small amount of rear channel activity. English hearing-impaired and Spanish subtitles are included.

Disc 2 includes three short Starz channel promo spots, running about two minutes each and mostly just featuring clips from the show with a few comments from the main cast. Disc 1 opens with promos for Outlander, DaVinci's Demons and Black Sails.

"The Missing" is certainly compelling viewing, but I didn't find it as "haunting" as others have. Like a good mystery novel, it keeps you guessing and wanting more, driving you to "finish" it as soon as possible although the pacing might have worked a bit better with each episode viewed a week at a time. Going back to the main menu after the last episode finished, I had to laugh when I noticed that "Season One" was indicated onscreen there but it turns out a second season is actually in the works- focusing on a completely different story and characters but dealing with the same theme, and the producers hope to continue in an anthology format afterwards. I look forward to re-visiting these episodes knowing how things turn out, and seeing what other stories can be brought to the series in the future.

Jesse Skeen is a life-long obsessive media collector (with an unhealthy preoccupation with obsolete and failed formats) and former theater film projectionist. He enjoys watching movies and strives for presenting them perfectly, but lacks the talent to make his own.