The first three episodes of the latest season to Netflix‘s reboot of the iconic show Unsolved Mysteries were recently released. Unsolved Mysteries: Part Three came out with a bang: it’s rated by some as the best season so far. Three new episodes will be released every Tuesday for two more consecutive weeks, leaving plenty of time to reflect on these cruel and unexplained cases.
True crime television series and movies have grown exponentially in recent years. The legendary docuseries Unsolved Mysteries, which first aired in 1988, focuses on unsolved cases in all their forms: murder, disappearance, supernatural occurrences, and even UFO sightings. Each episode presents a different case that introduces the audience to a new mind-boggling story.
‘s Netflix update Unsolved Mysteries is unique, also in the true-crime world that seems to be growing with several productions per year. Here’s how the show is different from the rest and a little bit more about the new episodes.
Unresolved Nature
There is a big payoff when it comes to detective stories: the moment everything falls into place and the mystery is solved. This is especially true in true crime stories when the victims and violence are real, creating a greater need for justice. However, solutions are clearly not a feature of Unsolved Mysteries. Therefore, the creators had to subtly change several things to make the stories exciting and to focus on helping these families find the ending.
Unsolved Mysteries uses a mix of reenactments and statements or interviews from relatives, friends, and professionals who have worked on the case. There is also real found footage (news when the events happened, self-recorded video, etc.) to create a compelling enough story that captivates and immerses the viewer in these worlds, even if the ending is the same (unsolved). The docuseries is effective at storytelling and urging audiences to come forward if they have new information about a case, especially those involving murder and foul play. It’s a difficult balance to strike, and the show has done really well in these new episodes.
Focus on the victim
One of the biggest complaints in the true crime genre is that there is a romanticization and glorification of the murderer (or crime) and a dehumanization of the victim. This happened to Ted Bundy a lot, especially in the movie Extremely bad, shockingly bad and meanand more recently with Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story. This has become more prominent in every new movie and TV show based on true events. Some productions even come as close as ignoring that the victims were real people and focusing on a serial killer’s tragic past or the greedy details of the investigation. These elements should be part of these stories, and it’s alarming how much the victims have been ignored in recent productions.
Unsolved Mysteries takes a completely different path. Yes, the police reports and professionals who worked on the case are important, but each episode presents a carefully depicted and three-dimensional victim. The public gets to see who these people were: their dreams for the future, their relationships and general important things in their lives. The horrific moments the families had to go through, such as relatives collecting scattered remains of a body after being hit by a train abandoned by the team in charge of the case, are central to the show. These episodes have an intimate feel to them, which makes it all the more heartbreaking to watch, but also much more real, necessarily.
Also how these crimes affected the people caring for the victims is put in the front row, which makes Unsolved Mysteries less about perpetrators than about victims and events. Of course, that’s partly a byproduct of the fact that these cases are unsolved, with no known criminal or person to investigate, but it works nonetheless.
Variety of Unsolved Mysteries
One of the big highlights of the rebooted show is how incredibly different cases are investigated. There is no shortage of murder, but supernatural and UFO cases are also part of Unsolved Mysteries. This can already be seen in the first three episodes of the new season, which recreate intriguing cases that leave the viewer wondering what happened. In just three episodes, there’s an interesting range between them that bolsters one of the best qualities the show has to offer — and for what’s been announced from the remaining episodes, it’s only going to get more diverse.
‘Mystery at Mile Marker 45’ is a highly emotional start to the third season. The episode is about a young woman, Tiffany, who dies after being hit by a train. It was soon decided that it was suicide, but the family was not happy with the outcome, as not only would it not make sense with who she was, but important elements were not taken into account. The most important: she had no clothes and shoes besides her underwear when she was hit by the train.
“Something in the Sky” takes a turn and tells the story of more than 300 people in the state of Michigan who, one night in 1994, see lights that create strange patterns in the sky. Then “Body in Bags” returned to the emotional and heartbreaking element of the show, detailing a case in which a young father, David, was murdered and dismembered. The prime suspect ran away and has not been found to this day.
It’s impossible not to resolve these issues while watching the show. Fans only have to wait for the remaining six episodes, so there are still six mind-boggling cases available to watch. Or they can stream the last two seasons, which contain quite a few intriguing stories.