Taylor Sheridan's New Leading Man Scores Big With Instant Hit Thriller Series

1 week ago 10

Sam Claflin as Laz holding a cell phone to his right ear while looking concerned in Harlan Coben's Lazarus

Published Feb 3, 2026, 9:28 AM EST

Denis is a news writer for Collider. He has covered television for several years, starting with writing scripts for YouTube videos before transitioning to articles. He has reviewed shows across different genres. His favorite types of articles to write are exciting news updates about shows and episodic reviews of the same. He might say he doesn't have a favorite show, but he has watched The Wire, Shameless, The Big Bang Theory, and The Blacklist more than once. Find him on X tweeting about something random that occurred to him about a TV show or the industry.

Ahead of his anticipated debut in the Taylor Sheridan universe, Sam Claflin is seeing incredible success on television. The Daisy Jones and the Six actor is one of several stars in Sheridan's upcoming action-thriller F.A.S.T., but he has a new TV show out now, and it's a chart-topper. Claflin stars alongside The Big Bang Theory's Kaley Cuoco in Vanished, a romantic thriller that has become a sensation in the US. Vanished is the most-watched show on MGM+ and has also broken into the top ten on Amazon's PVOD service.

Claflin and Cuoco play a couple, Alice and Tom. They have been living in relative romantic bliss until things take a dark turn during a trip to Paris. Tom goes missing aboard a train to the south of France, leaving Alice scrambling to figure out what happened to her boyfriend. She finds herself caught in a web of intrigue and danger as she dives deeper into the secret life of a man she thought she knew. Vanished came to life in Marseille and Paris, where it was filmed for authenticity.

Is 'Vanished' Worth Watching?

If you avoided the numerous shows and movies about regular people becoming investigators and action heroes, Vanished might not offer something new. But even the most recycled tropes can be entertaining with the right actors, and Claflin and Cuoco elevate the show with their performances. Where the show falters is in the ending that Collider's Jasneet Singh felt undermined the entire story. In her review of Vanished Season 1, Singh called out the final ten minutes for having a twist that undoes everything it had been building towards, either for entertainment or shock value. It ends up making a mockery of some heavy issues. An excerpt from her review explains:

Now, the last ten minutes of Vanished aren't necessarily awful, but they are confusing. The closing scene, in itself, is a lovely touch of irony that would elicit a cackle, but it doesn't quite fit with the rest of the show. In fact, it undermines the entire show. Every plot twist in Vanished is shocking, and the majority of the show is plotted well, but the final twist is nothing short of jarring and inconsistent, and it makes you wonder what the show was trying to achieve after everything. Is Vanished simply pursuing entertainment and shock value? A sense of empowerment? Some sort of commentary on relationships? No answer is incorrect, but the diluted mix of all the above is dissatisfying.

Vanished is streaming on MGM+ in the US, with the show coming to more territories soon via Prime Video. We will keep you updated.