The Inside featured Rachel Nichols as rookie FBI Agent Rebecca Locke, who joins the Bureau's Los Angeles Violent Crimes Unit (VCU). While she proves to be a brilliant investigator, she has a secret that only she, and mysterious VCU director Virgil "Web" Webster, know: as a 10-year-old girl, Rebecca was kidnapped from her home and held captive for 18 months. Astonishingly enough, no one found and rescued her; she escaped the trauma all by herself, setting a fire and escaping in the resulting chaos. Webster manipulates Rebecca's experience on each case, using the insight she gained through it to establish the mindset of the victim - and the criminal.

 

However, there is a moral struggle between Webster, who seems willing to use Rebecca's gift to catch the villain at all costs, and Rebecca's partner Paul Ryan, who views himself as the voice of conscience in the battle for Rebecca's soul. Additionally, Web's past is very much unknown; viewers are left wondering exactly how much he has in common with the perpetrators he pursues.

 

The show was the brainchild of Tim Minear, of Angel and Firefly fame. While FOX had already developed an earlier version of the show, Minear re-tooled it, with Nichols as the only holdover. Just seven episodes into its 13-episode first season, FOX cancelled The Inside, making it the third series (along with Firefly and Wonderfalls) of Minear's to be aborted by the network.