Summary SCREENRANT VIDEO OF THE DAY SCROLL TO CONTINUE WITH CONTENT NBC's new crime drama Found premiered on the network on October 3rd and is currently available to stream on Peacock. The series follows the work of public relations specialist Gabi Mosely, a kidnapping victim who was able to escape her captor and rebuild her life. With the help of her crisis management team, Gabi is determined to solve missing-person cases that are disregarded by law enforcement and overlooked by the media.
Nikhil Paniz: Found is going to set itself apart with the Mark-Paul Gosselaar twist. I think it's got a strong procedural backbone that we can feel comfortable with from our history of watching television, but as soon as you throw Sir into the mix, it starts to set itself above the rest. There's also that internal battle that our lead has to go through with being a protagonist-antagonist hybrid. You don't see a lot of that in network procedurals.
There’s obviously a lot that goes into shooting a pilot because you're trying to give viewers a reason to come back the next week. Tonally, what did you and the team really want to convey in these first few episodes? That ties into my next question. The show is fictional, but it tackles very prevalent issues about black children, especially, being overlooked in missing person cases. What do you think is most important about the way the show addresses these topics?
Nikhil Paniz: I'm fortunate enough to have directed three of the episodes, so I can say from firsthand experience. What we needed to show with Gabi was a strength, a resilience, an ability to heal, and an ability to repurpose trauma, and at the same time, to show someone who maybe isn't completely in control, and how those can exist inside one being whether or not they're searching for the light. I think that that was a very complex tone for Shanola to strive to do every day.
Nikhil Paniz: First of all, Brett's a very highly trained classical actor. He comes with such a skill set. It's really kind of a gift for a director, producer, or writer to be able to work with someone like him. You can give him any directive, you can give him any scenario, and he'll really chew on it and digest it and bring it into the character. His character is sort of that purgatory between law enforcement and Gabi's PR firm.