New dramas hope viewers are willing to commit

‘Vanished’
Real FBI agents probably tire of the dramas that fictionalize and trivialize their work about as often as viewers get tired of trite FBI-centered serialized dramas. Alas, that’s what we get with “Vanished” (FOX, Mondays at 9 p.m. ET), a show that comes complete with plenty of predictability and laziness.

Graham Kelton (Gale Harold), an FBI agent with a haunted past (is there any other kind?), is searching for the missing wife of a U.S. senator. It’s hard to care about all of the one-dimensional cardboard cutout characters, especially when they speak in nonsensical technobabble that’s inexcusable in 2006 (“are we online to triangulate?” one asks). Uninteresting mysteries pile on for no particular reason, and time is filled with endless shots of the city from above.

The search for the woman, FOX says, “not only exposes one of the nation’s most prominent families, but it also uncovers evidence that could rock the very foundation of American society.” Let’s hope the foundation gets rocked before the third episode, because that’s about how long this show will last.    —A.D.

‘The Nine’
Here's yet another example of ABC’s ongoing effort to endlessly duplicate and capitalize on one of the few original ideas network TV has had in years. A group of strangers, trapped together for a finite period of time, are eternally bound by their post-traumatic stress disorder.

FREE VIDEO 'The Nine' Right this way to your PTSD, ma'am. MSNBC

Is it “Lost?” Is it “24?” Nope, it’s “The Nine” (Wednesdays, 10 p.m. ET, ABC). The series revolves around a failed bank heist turned 52-hour hostage standoff that leaves two dead, and nine survivors with more issues than National Geographic.

Just what happened during those 52 hours is for the hostages to know and viewers to find out. Flashbacks to their harrowing captivity provide clues to each character’s metamorphosis. A cast of solid TV veterans makes this melodrama watchable. Tim Daly (“Wings”) is a good “cop on the edge,” and confident “Boston Public” principal Chi McBride is unrecognizable as the shell-shocked bank manager. Just like “Lost,” there’s a former “Party of Five” cast member playing doctor — though Scott Wolf’s MD lacks Island Jack’s moral fortitude. Omnipresent character actor John Billingsley (name a show, he’s been on it) makes the cliché of suicidal milquetoast-turned-hero believable. Though loaded with gimmicks, “The Nine” may have enough intrigue to keep viewers interested.     —H.P.