Everybody loves a good mystery. There is something irresistibly
tantalizing about the unknown that drives all discovery as well as an
undeniable rush when the answers one is looking for are finally
unearthed. Mysteries can also be frustrating, heartbreaking, and
disturbing, however, particularly when they go unsolved. I for one like
my mysteries in books and television to be tied up in nice little
bows at their conclusions because real life’s mysteries are often a
bit more complicated. I do it for the escapism; in other words, at the end,
Sherlock concludes that the mastermind is Moriarty, Rosebud turns out to be a
sled, and the ghost chasing Scooby and the gang is unmasked and happens to be
the owner of the decrepit amusement park. Going into Netflix’s first “volume”
of Unsolved Mysteries, I therefore had to prepare myself for
the fact that these are, well, unsolved mysteries. I for sure wasn’t
going to solve them as an audience member, and I would have to be content with
the questions without the eventual answers. I’m glad I set this doubt aside,
because Unsolved Mysteries turned out to be engaging, if
not perfect, television.
The name of the show might be familiar to some: Although marketed
as “Vol. 1,” Netflix’s first six episodes of Unsolved Mysteries is
actually a continuation of a long-running series that has already had fourteen
seasons spread across NBC, CBS, Lifetime, and Spike TV. This time there is no
narrator and each episode focuses on a single case, but the legacy is still
obvious to those who have seen past seasons. In the case of theme, however,
this turned out to be a bit detrimental. Those familiar with past iterations
of Unsolved Mysteries can tell you that the show featured
a combination of grounded true-crime stories and those that are supernatural in
nature. At first, it appears as if the Netflix version has decided to buck the
latter and stick with the former, but then the UFO episode starts five hours in
and you realize this is not the case. I’m not a fan of the combination,
personally; I occasionally enjoy true-crime stories and am an admitted sucker
for anything that talks about the possibility of aliens, but putting the two
together just didn’t sit right with me.
Although I had some issues with the organization,
preferring that each episode have a stronger hook at the beginning to get my
attention instead of just jumping into a backstory with no indication of what
the case actually is, Unsolved Mysteries is, overall, not
boring and actually enjoyable. Shot in documentary format, each episode includes small
reenactments of events (I was worried that they might be silly and
overdramatic, but they turned out to be quite understated and respectful) and
also does an admirable job of giving the viewer enough info to think they
cracked the case before tossing in new information that throws those
assumptions out the window. It makes the viewer feel as if they’re discovering
the evidence themselves bit by bit, engaging the armchair detective in all of
us. As previously stated, I do not expect to “help solve a mystery” as the
tagline says, but that’s not the point, is it? We like to be tantalized, and
consider me tantalized.
Unsolved Mysteries Vol. 1 (or season 15,
depending on how you look at it) is now available on Netflix.
This review was first published in The Keizertimes on August 14th, 2020. Visit at http://keizertimes.com/
Hindsight: I hate reviewing documentaries. Excited to watch Vol. 2, though, which just came out a few weeks ago.
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