It’s an issue the original series would never dare tackle.Watch Video: 'Unsolved Mysteries' cited in Kayla Unbehaun rescue, missing child case In one now-extremely topical episode - about the death of Alonzo Brooks, a black man, following a house party in an all-white rural Kansas town - the reboot sharply examines the still-searing racial divide in Red State America, right down to the local police’s reluctant response to Brooks’ initial disappearance his death was ultimately ruled “suspicious,” but no suspects were ever arrested. The other three episodes - about unanswered murders and disappearances in small-town America - further cement what makes Unsolved Mysteries, and the true-crime genre itself, so tantalizing: At any time, on any day, the true-crime voyeur can suddenly become the true-crime victim. (Although his body was never found, the show suggests he likely died by suicide there, despite the occasional false sighting.) And while the UFO episode - about a mass sighting and possible alien abduction over Massachusetts in 1969 - presents firsthand accounts, one still half-expects a coiffed dude to pop up at any moment and exclaim “ Aliens!” Like in the episode dedicated to France’s “House of Terror” family annihilation: The mystery isn’t why the patriarch Xavier Dupont de Ligonnès killed his wife and four children, but if he’s still alive after he’s seen on surveillance cameras walking off into the wilderness, rifle in tow. While the retelling of these stories for the umpteenth time still fascinates, the actual mystery is, for the most part, solved. Having been gone two decades - not counting the short-lived Dennis Farina-hosted revival - some new Unsolved Mysteries episodes revisit recent infamous true-crime incidents, like watching a riveting small-screen adaptation of a well-detailed Wikipedia page. To survive in today’s crowded and competitive battleground of true crime, Unsolved Mysteries has ditched its much-aped style and resurfaced on Netflix with a gritty reboot.Įzra Miller’s Reign of Terror: A Timeline of ‘The Flash’ Star’s Many Controversies Much of the original series’ corniness has manifested in the shows it inspired: Dateline’s Keith Morrison has perfected Stack’s schlock schtick, while Cold Justice and The First 48 put a realistic spin on the genre’s formulaic approach. And of course there was the series’ longtime host Robert Stack - mothballed in film-noir mode - unraveling each mystery with his patented matter-of-fact narration. Yet, 33 years after its debut, old episodes of Unsolved Mysteries remain a profoundly bingeable experience, thanks largely to its cheesy recreations filmed on a B-movie budget that made no attempt to cast actors with even a passing resemblance to the person they were portraying. Since the series left airwaves, the genre has grown into a powerhouse: Some networks dedicate their entire programming slate to it (hi, Oxygen), and streaming services rely on true-crime for viral hits. Before there was Making a Murderer, Tiger King, The Jinx, and Serial, the nation’s fix for real-life murder tales came in weekly doses courtesy of Unsolved Mysteries, which ran interrupted from 1987 to 2002.
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