Netflix Rebooting 'Unsolved Mysteries' With Original Producers

2 episodes in and I dig it. Admittedly some points do drag and I don’t know why they chose to stretch stories out to fill a single episode.

Other than the missing narration and music it very much reminds me of the classic series. Fascinating stories told the way Unsolved Mysteries does.

 

As a huge fan of the original, I'll add to others here that I felt some disappointment with this reboot. I get that the producers knew replacing Stack was impossible. But, I agree with others, you need a narrator to move the story along. Otherwise, it doesn't have that UM feel. One thing I missed was the setup. In those original episodes, you always had Stack doing a wonderful introduction that drew you in. And there was usually this sort of sunny sounding music underneath. That always made for a great contrast when, inevitably the story would turn dark. Somehow, this new version feels a bit hollow, lacking. The stories themselves weren't altogether bad choices. But at least one of them is apparently solved in my mind. I'm glad they did a UFO story. Those were always especially gripping and scary on the original. But, surprisingly, here the special effects weren't anything special. The original show was doing better UFO effects like 25 years ago! I hope to see more but, yeah, it's not really the same show.

 

Haven't watched it yet but will start today. Without even seeing I tend to agree with others - Episodes are too long, not enough stories in each episode, no host, no updates. But I did find this update from 2019 which was interesting. If they do more episodes they need to have at least 3 stories per episode and visit old stories that have been solved.

 

I agree with a previous post that the French episode held my interest more than the other 2. (I have watched the first 3 and will watch the remaining 3 today).

make sure you do not skip the intro. Most of the time on Netflix shows I skip thru the intro. If you watch closely on this near the end an image of Robert Stack appears.

So far it isn't bad but it's not great. i agree with pretty much everyone else. The show needs work and hopefully they will condense it down and add some more stories per episode or just break these down to a half hour. A host would be nice and it would be good for them to include updates at some point like the one above.

 

These are exactly the updates that the show needs to provide and I do not see why they could have included some of these cases in the posted video into the 6 episodes shown. I really sense laziness from the creator of the program and he has provided really poor excuses as to why the certain segments are getting the axe. Problem is the variation of segments is what gave the show its character and it was great to see some uplifting moments to allow the viewers to breathe (reunited lost loves for example).

On a positive note it is good to hear that some of these cases are getting credible tips and information and hopefully some of them will lead to resolution. And it looks like they will introduce a paranormal story in the next batch of episodes, just not sure how that is going to work in a 1 hour format. I really wish they would condense them down to fit 2-3 cases in an episode.

 

I've been watching various streaming episodes of Unsolved Mysteries recently and I found one of my favorite stories that I remember seeing when it originally aired since this show was a favorite of mine and I started watching it when it debuted in 1987. I have seen reruns of many of the classic Robert Stack episodes over the years since then but after around the turn of the century I don't recall seeing any of these episodes run since then. The episode I'm referring to is the one about the young wealthy kid from Beverly Hills, Adam Hecht who today is still missing and as to his whereabouts is a mystery.

This is the story in short. He was a tennis instructor and something happened to him that made him change his lifestyle or outlook on life. He met a guy on the streets of Beverly Hills named Tony and his life was forever changed. He walked away from his family wealth and decided to live on the streets losing total communication with his family and he has not been seen since. This has got to be one of the weirdest episodes I have ever seen. When it first aired I was like, what the hell would someone in the situation he is in just walk away to live on the streets? This episode really hit me hard in a mind **** kind of way.

There was another one I watched about the young lady named Lisa Bishop who left Florida to go on a ship (Freedon) to Haiti with some sort of possible shady guy and none of them have been seen since. You know back in the 80s crime did not seem to be as bad as it is now or even as widespread. Was this due to the fact that we did not have 24 hour news until Fox started this sometime in the mid 90s? Or was crime really that bad back then as well and we didn't hear about all of it?

To say the least, I'm happy to have discovered these Unsolved Mysteries episodes on streaming. This show along with Cops, America's Most Wanted, Now It Can Be Told and Hollywood Babylon were the shows I liked to watch when others were watching Beverly Hills 90210 and Seinfeld. Robert Stack was great! He had it all! The voice and serious look on his face just fit the show down to a tee. Later Keely Shaye Smith was added and she was a nice addition to the show not to mention a very good distraction in the form of some well needed eye candy. She was beautiful! The 1980s and 90s had some really good shows to watch but by the time the year 2000 hit it seemed like is was all gone. I did like King Of The Hill and a few other shows but around this time and after TV took backseat for the most part compared to what else I was doing at the time.

 

It is nice to have the original series available on Youtube & Amazon. Even though the cases are extremely old now it is worth revisiting them as a majority of them have received updates, some have been solved right up to this day. The only negative thing about the Robert Stack episodes is the company that compiled them really butchered up the episodes to the point where some of the cases are missing and others are heavily edited to cancel out the existence of Keely Shaye Smith and Virginia Madsen. The other thing I would complain about is do a quick comparison of one of the cases in the Robert Stack series to the same case in the rebooted Dennis Farina series and the picture quality is drastically improved in the latter. It shows that they could do an admirable job of cleaning up the original episodes, if they did this and released them as they were originally broadcast it would be fantastic. It would also be nice to see them grab the pilot episodes that Raymond Burr and Karl Malden hosted.

 

I’ve watched every episode. Love it.

 

New episodes dropped today, looking forward to checking them out.

 

Watched a couple of the new ones already - one good, one too padded.

 

I have watched the first 2. I found the second episode to be a bit weak as I already had my mind made up the first 5 minutes.

 

How so?

 

Did you see it? I don't want to give anything away

Spoiler

I believe the woman commited suicide. She was alone in the room for 3 days and had no visitors. The door was locked from the inside.

Just finished episode 3 on Lester Eubanks, that one is a good episode.

 

Spoiler

There is no evidence for or against her having a guest. The door only records when the keycard is used so if she was in there and someone knocked and she answered it would not show up on the records. Also how do you shoot yourself in the head and get no blood on your hands or the gun? They said there was blood on the ceiling and elsewhere so not getting a drop on her hand or gun seems implausible.

 

Not into the fourth one at all

 

My mom and I tried to watch an episode a few weeks ago, but she found out that it was all in French and we stopped watching.

 

I will watch the new episodes in November, currently on a Halloween horror movie night routine.

 

That is actually a great episode, just turn on the subtitles. That particular case has had more leads than any of the others with authorities zoning in on Chicago. Will be interesting to see if they catch the guy. out of the first batch on Netflix that was the best one. I almost skipped it because of the language barrier and I am glad I didn't.

The newest batch has one in Japanese and I struggled to get thru that one.

 

That's the one i thought was padded. A good 10-15 minutes of repetition and tracking shots could've been edited out to make it a tight half-hour. And I don't think it's as open and shut a case as you think...

 

You may be right, because of the fact I was getting bored with that episode and was doing something else at the time I might have missed something. Maybe I will have to watch it again but I found it un-interesting.

 

The third one is crazy. Admitted child murder granted prison privileges like going Christmas shopping in the mall without a guard? Good lord.

 

Yeah that was unbelievable! What dumbs&%t thought it was a good idea to let convicted murderers go Christmas shopping?!? So far of all the cases I think this is the one they solve.

 

I just finished binge watching the new episodes and have to reinforce the point that this reboot has completely lost the vibe that the original series had going for it. Most of these episodes were extremely boring as they just drag on an on with repetition being the main focal point (how many times did I have to know that the lady's car was parked right beside a bush by the church). They could easily improve these by editing them down to fit two cases into one episode.

I agree with @MikeInFla that the only case that has the potential to be solved is the Eubanks episode. A shame we will never know about updates as they got rid of that feature and if you search for anything tied to the cases the producers are really going out of their way to troll the general public and provide minimal information. I understand that they may have a gag order in place with some of these cases remaining open, but it seemed to me that you had all realms of enforcement begging for the public to help them out when Unsolved Mysteries originally aired and they would gladly provide updates when available.

 

Well, they've only just put out these new episodes in July and this month. I wouldn't presume that we'll never see updates to these cases. If you mean updates to previous episodes, they still do that. I just watched a YouTube video the other day where someone comped together all the 2019 updates for several cases.

 

I am hoping they start cutting them down. The Tsunami story would've been fine at 12-15 minutes tops with episode 2 thrown in at another 15 minutes. Supposedly they will do updates at some point. The ONLY episode of "season 2" that held my interest was the Eubanks story.