ABC Family is launching a talented cast in a compelling story, but messy. It's almost great.

The new ABC drama has potential, but could easily deviate from their path.

In describing the family feels like describing platonic ideal of a television network which should be a drama. ABC's new series focuses on the Warren family whose young son, Adam, disappeared when he was 8 years old. Finally, he was presumed dead - so when it reappears out of nowhere 10 years later, after spending 10 years as a hostage of a kidnapper of sexual abuse, it is fair to say that his family is shocked.

But are not the same people who left behind; during the late Adam was gone, they were fractured in chips, becoming tenser than they used to be versions.

In the two episodes of the family who were screened for critics, the show certainly some traditions soapier TV is delivered (as you can), and some unnecessarily striking episode structure (as you want). But as their characters try to make sense of a terrible thing - or, more accurately, an ongoing series of terrible things - family wrings some extremely disturbing moments outside the constant, simmering tension surrounding the Warren, the sex offender who have been wrongly imprisoned the murder of Adam (Andrew McCarthy), the police and the media surrounding the history, and the same Adam.

Or, as the program calls while practically twirling his mustache pleasure: Is this child the true Adam Warren, after all?

And so the Family - creating Jenna Bans a television writer for a long time and producer whose credits include the dramas Shonda Rhimes private practice and Grey's Anatomy - has a perfect storm of melodramatic possibilities: a grieving family, quiet suburbs of Maine, open participation case, a man whose innocence is always in question, and even some "return to family values" policy, because why not?

There are many components of the family - both promising and disturbing - that the show is easier to argue for actually breaking it down into even just a couple of pieces of the puzzle increasingly complicated.

The strongest active family 's deep is his talented cast

The family is a solid soap. It is ready to enter the arena of a criminal full, complex case, but still leaves room for more salacious details - like Adam's father, John (Rupert Graves), which has a longstanding relationship with Nina Meyer (Margot Bingham) the first detective assigned to investigate the disappearance of Adam, who must now deal with the fact that she could have spoiled the investigation in the first place.

There are a lot of melodrama at hand. But thanks to the stellar ensemble 's actors who find nuance in its most exaggerated scenes, the show is held together more than they could have with a less qualified distribution family.

In the aftermath of the disappearance of Adam, matriarch Claire Warren (Joan Allen) became the mayor of the hometown of the family in Maine, with dreams of one day being governor of the state. Her husband, John, wrote a book on how to grieve, but never really mastered the process. His daughter, Willa (The Newsroom 's Alison Pill), embraced Catholicism and became campaign manager nonsense of his mother, while his eldest son, Danny (Friday Night Lights' Zach Gilford), let your dreams football behind drowning in a flask of bourbon.

None of these roles are particularly convincing in the role; We have seen versions of all these characters before. But all the actors involved in the family is so committed to finding more convincing below the boiling surface that elevate the series in general.

Allen gets the richest material, while Claire struggles to understand the reappearance of Adam while his gaze firmly set on high political office. She is determined and focused, but in a constant theme of the family, still lost.

Graves, who has found depth as many secondary characters on British television (see: Sherlock, where the perpetually clumsy detective Lestrade plays), is essentially the same boat with his portrayal of John, but the pain character plays a secondary role to your wife. And while John's relationship with Nina Bingham is clearly complicated, none of their interactions left Bingham shine quite like the contrast between his detective tired in this policeman and his rookie in the family of flashbacks' sa when first Adam disappeared ( more in those flashbacks in a bit).

As Warren children, however, the pill and Gilford win the prize for doing a lot with very little. Willa and Danny do not have much to do in the Family 's first two episodes, but the actors performances suggest more brewing underneath.

However, many of the most pressing moments of the series comes courtesy of the two actors in charge of handling the most difficult characters. With Adam, Liam James faces a very difficult challenge. He has to play traumatized, has since returned to Warren after living in a hole with a sexual predator for 10 years. But also leave enough room for some people (ie, his older brother, Danny) to doubt the veracity of his story, the better to keep the central mystery family 's. James is constantly taking place on the edge of a knife, and at least in the first two episodes of the series, which does an impressive job.

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