The Missing

This is one of the year’s very best TV programs, hard as it sometimes is to endure.

Starz’s The Missing is a reminder that familiar material can indeed yield extremely absorbing drama, that often the excellence of a series comes from the crispness of the script, the intelligence of the directing, and the intensity of the acting, and not necessarily the newness of the concept.

It’s more of a slow burn, a psychological study in grief, guilt and what can happen to a marriage tested by tragedy.

The Missing is one compelling piece of work, full of what the anguish of having an abducted child does to a family over the years. It’s also a prickly mystery story that occasionally relies on a few too-neat coincidences to pull off its startling conclusion. The performance that ties everything together is Karyo’s.

There have been an awful lot of movies and shows about lost children, but The Missing elevates the familiar dynamic to a new level with a gut wrenching mystery. By the end of the first episode, you really want to know what happened to the tyke while dreading where the answer might take you.

The Missing, written by brothers Harry and Jack Williams and directed by Tom Shankland, is sometimes grueling to watch. But it earns a place in haunting crime drama next to the recent “Broadchurch” and “Top of the Lake.”

The series doesn’t lack for suspenseful moments, the settings are intriguing, and there’s much to be said for the strong performance by Mr. Morrissey and that of Roger Allam. ... None of this can offset the burdens of a production lost in its own wilderness of plot schemes.