'Vanished' Review
- Connor Petrey
- 2 hours ago
- 2 min read
Limited Series.
Aired On: MGM+.
Release Date: 02/01/26.
Genre: Thriller.
The Verdict: A Mistake
Spread over a four episode arc, Vanished is a dangerously slow burn whose flame is snuffed out long before it ever reaches its conclusion.
Kaley Cuoco stars as Alice Monroe, a woman on vacation with her long distance partner Tom (Sam Claflin), a man who disappears suddenly while on a train travelling through France. From the moment Tom goes missing, anxiety is properly present and her frustration is understandable, but at a certain point her actions aren’t really justifiable in regards to his disappearance. With each new episode, it’s very easy to grow impatient and aggravated with the pace everything is progressing.
It’s a showcase for Cuoco after her impressive turn in both The Flight Attendant and Based on a True Story over the last couple of years. It’s not necessarily her fault with the material she has here, but in numerous ways her character is incredibly underdeveloped with details being brought up only to be buried as quickly as they are excavated. This is not only the case with Alice, but with every other significant character, from a journalistic angle that has no resolution, a secret identity that comes out of literally nowhere, or our lead being an archeologist with little importance to the narrative - the list goes on and on.
The mystery of what happened to Tom is resolved a little too early on in the series, and the anxiety that was manufactured so early on is lifted far too soon. From there it’s just a regular woman on a mission to figure out why(?) and along the way make every wrong decision possible. The action is minimalistic with much more evading capture versus tackling the problems straight on.
The truth is… Vanished needed to either be dialed back to a feature length film with many cuts of needless information throughout, or expanded to an eight episode order to better build conspiracy and actually care even for a second for any character on screen. It’s a lackluster mystery to begin with and as the conspiracy evolves, there’s just not enough time to fully invest into the mystery being solved. A mystery is only as good as its solution, and sadly Vanished suffers in its pacing - with everything coming across just a little too thin.
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