During each episode, a 15-second presentation appears, asking the public for help in finding real-life missing persons. The FBI provides a picture and descriptive information about the missing person to be displayed with a voice-over message recorded by one of the series stars.
A few episodes are based on real-life disappearances.
The original title of the show was "Vanished", but when CBS opted to pick it up the title was changed to "Without a Trace". The show is still titled "Vanished" in some countries such as Brazil.
Poppy Montgomery's character, Samantha Spade, is a play on the name of another famous fiction detective: Sam Spade. Sam Spade was created by famed novelist Dashiell Hammett in his book 'The Maltese Falcon' (and has been played on screen by Humphrey Bogart and Ricardo Cortez).