‘Alert’ mines headlines for missing persons stories, emotions

Ramirez, he said, had the compassion necessary to play a woman whose son has been missing for six years. When the woman and her ex (played by Scott Caan) get proof he’s possibly alive, they join forces to prevent other cases from happening.

John Eisendrath, the show’s creator, detailed the situations the character would face during an interview with Ramirez.

“When we had an honest conversation about who we were as people and the messages we wanted to put out, we really ended up connecting,” the actress says. “The story allowed me to bring a lot of myself into it and feel for these people and find some light in some of the situations.”

Ramirez’s character, Eisendrath says, is “the heart and soul of the show. She’s the emotional connection to people who are grieving. The minute we talked, I realized that Dania was someone who was comfortable with that.”

Caan, meanwhile, saw “Alert” as a show that wasn’t just a procedural but a journey into emotions. “I’m learning more about myself,” he says. “I’m learning a ton about acting. I think it’s more intense than anything I’ve ever done…in a really beautiful, good way.”

While both starred on “Entourage,” they didn’t have scenes together. “We hung out,” Ramirez explains. “Who we were then and who we are now is a completely different ballgame. Being parents and dealing with a show that has to deal with missing children is something that’s really close to the heart.”

The concept, oddly enough, came from Oscar winner Jamie Foxx, who’s an executive producer of “Alert.”

“One afternoon he thought his child had gone missing,” Eisendrath explains. “It was not the case but, for about six or seven hours, he wasn’t sure what had happened. He did some investigating about the people who find missing persons and it fascinated him. He always thought it would be a good basis for a TV show.”

To flesh it out, Eisendrath added a couple who had lost their own child and worked to find others’. Now, weeks into the shooting schedule, Eisendrath and Caan see where he wanted to take the series.

“It’s the most complicated thing I’ve ever done,” Caan says. The couple are elated that their son has been found, but they’re not sure if he’s actually their son. “Playing with those ideas, week to week, month to month is unprecedented.”

Ramirez sees a therapeutic side to the story as well. “We’re able to allow each other to be vulnerable in those moments and to share that with the masses: ‘OK, I’m going to unveil that part of me.’ That’s what the world likes to connect to. To get people to connect with that is super inspiring.”

Many topics for “Alert” come from news stories, Eisendrath says. Episode Two looks at the scourge of fentanyl in America. “Some of them have that kind of connection to what a lot of people are thinking about, talking about…and, in some ways, are worried about. One of the great things about a missing persons show is the range is larger than any other range available in procedural TV. In some cases, people are taken and are desperate to be found. In some cases, people are running away and are desperate not to be found. That’s part of the mystery that our characters have to unpack each week. Some of it’s ripped from the headlines and some of it is just the coolest, most urgent, most desperate cases we can think of.”

“Alert: Missing Persons Unit” premieres Jan. 8 on Fox.