Who Is Baptiste? A Guide To 'The Missing'

So far this year, PBS is experimenting with airing brand new mystery series imported over from the BBC. January began with Vienna Blood, a period piece from the same era as Sherlock Holmes, but set in the Austrian Empire in the final years before the Great War. For spring, the network is bringing viewers Baptiste, a new mystery series starring Turkish-born French actor Tchéky Karyo. Older viewers may remember him from the original 1982 The Return of Martin Guerre. However, he's had many supporting roles in high-profile films, including Luc Besson's La Femme Nikita, 1993's And The Band Played On, the James Bond film GoldenEye, HBO's miniseries From the Earth to the Moon, and the Mel Gibson film The Patriot.

But recently, Karyo has best been known for his role as Julien Baptiste, the title character in the new series. That's because this is a spin-off of another successful BBC series, The Missing, both seasons of which aired over here in the states on STARZ. The Missing was a co-production between the two networks, Baptiste, on the other hand, is a BBC One and All3Media production.

The synopsis for the new series reads thusly: