The March 11th episode of Without a Trace has a very special writer… Anthony LaPaglia, who played Jack Malone on the series, cowrote the episode Deep Water with fellow writer Byron Balasco. The episode airs Sunday, March 11th at 10pm on CBS.

In the episode, Jack (LaPaglia) and his team search for a missing U.S. Senator, during which they are forced to contend with her powerful and meddlesome father (guest star John Doman, “The Wire”) and the media that is tracking the case.

In a departure from the series’ usual approach, viewers will learn why the senator is missing at the beginning of the episode. LaPaglia says, “I am a true believer in occasionally breaking the conceit of the show. It shakes the audience out of expecting the usual fare and helps stretch everyone working here to think outside the box. I did not want to reinvent the wheel, just put new tires on it. I had nothing but total support from the writers, producers and the crew who worked their tails off to help me, especially Byron Balasco, who took this and ran with it.”

Interesting how all these in-front-of-the-camera stars like to switch roles to ones behind the camera. Although kudos to Anthony for taking a much harder role than the usual director one sought by actors. Being a writer is a difficult job, but I can definitely see the appeal in writing for a character you portray!

CBS Press release.

This spoiler posted on Thursday, March 8th, 2007 at 8:34 pm.

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