The British television series Unforgotten stars Nicola Walker and Sanjeev Bhaskar as DCI Cassie Stuart and DI Sunil “Sunny” Khan, two London police detectives working on complicated unsolved “cold” disappearance and murder cases. The detectives find many suspects and must determine which of the suspects really killed the victims and what motivated the crimes. The realistic depiction in Unforgotten goes beyond most murder mysteries and police procedurals to emphasize the devastating or healing effect that unearthing long-buried secrets can have on the families of the suspects, the victims, and the detectives. Some of the suspects have completely shifted the focus of their lives since the crimes were committed. For example, Lizzie Wilton (Ruth Sheen), who was part of a racist organization when she was young, is now a community worker who helps underprivileged youngsters of all races and is happily married to a man of Jamaican descent.
Cassie is a longtime widow, and her two adult children have left home. Sunny is a single parent raising two teenaged daughters following his divorce from his wife. Cassie and Sunny collaborate and have a close bond and friendship. However, they are not lovers. The detectives both have children and other love relationships separate from their teamwork, which form subplots within the series. For example, Cassie’s father shows signs of dementia which worry her. Also, he has a serious girlfriend whom he moves in with. Cassie feels abandoned when her father leaves her home.
I like the multiracial and multicultural cast members of Unforgotten. Sunny’s background is South Asian, Sara Mahmoud (Badira Timini in series 2) and her family have a Middle-eastern background and are Moslems, Ray Wilton has Jamaican ancestry, etc.
Unforgotten has three series, each with six episodes. In the first series, Cassie and Sunny work to solve the murder of a young man named James “Jimmy” Sullivan, whose body surfaces when an old building gets demolished. The biracial teenager had left home because of abuse from his alcoholic father. Sullivan wanted to earn money to help his mother escape, too. The discovery of Sullivan’s diary gives the detectives important clues. There are many disparate characters whose lives intersected that of the victim, including a government official connected to a criminal gang that loaned Sullivan money; a clergyman who impregnated Jo-Jo, a friend of Sullivan; a former racist woman who helped to rob Sullivan; and a closeted gay man who had sex with him. I found it difficult to keep all of the main characters and their families (twenty-two total characters) straight until I had watched the programs twice. Although the most likely suspects are men, the crime was actually committed by a woman experiencing post-partum psychosis. I found this conclusion hard to believe: some new mothers experience profound depression, disorientation, and anger, but I have never heard of such women killing someone outside of their families in a fit of rage.
The other series of Unforgotten have slightly fewer characters (eighteen and nineteen) and are easier for viewers to follow. The second series involves the murder of David Walker, a Tory Party fundraiser who had a history of sexually abusing young girls. His body turns up in a suitcase in the River Lea in London. Cassie and Sunny find three individuals who may be connected to the murder. Colin Osborne (Mark Bonnar) is a barrister who defends young people in trouble with the law. He has a long-time partner named Simon, and they are trying to adopt a six-year-old daughter. Marion Kelsey (Rosie Cavaliero) works as a child cancer nurse and has a loving husband. Sara Mahmoud (Badria Timini) serves as a coordinator of her high school’s sixth form and an English teacher. Sara, a Moslem who has a husband and three children, has applied for a job as the principal of a struggling school. The crime turns out to be a revenge killing. Cassie and Sunny unearth related murders of two other men, both of whom also sexually abused young people, including some of the suspects. Cassie figures out that Colin, Marion, and Sara made a pact to eliminate each other’s tormentors. When Cassie presses Colin about the murders, the barrister tells her about the damaging pedophilic assaults that he suffered as a child and insists that Cassie cannot really judge his conduct. Colin also tells her that Marion and Sara suffered even more than he did. In the unusual conclusion to this sequence, the detectives decide not to pursue indictments of the suspects because the abusive three men deserved their fates and the killers currently have productive lives and important close relationships. Colin, Marion, and Sara are not likely to commit murder again.
Series three begins with the discovery of a teenaged girl’s body underneath a highway. Someone strangled her. Cassie and Sunny figure out that one of four male friends who rented a vacation home for a joint holiday with their families must have committed the murder of Hayley Reid. An attention-seeking woman blogger publicizes the connection of suspect Jamie Hollis, who hosts a television quiz show, to Hayley. After Cassie accidently leaves Pete Carr’s case file in a café, he gets fatally stabbed. The killing of Carr (Neil Morrissey) devastates his family and the detectives, especially Cassie. The criminal turns out to be an outwardly normal doctor who is really a psychopath, Tim Finch (Alex Jennings). He has verbally abused some of his patients and also is a serial rapist and serial killer of teenaged girls. The conclusion of this case deeply disturbs Cassie, especially when the murderer calmly shows the detectives where he has buried several of his long-missing victims. She needs to take a leave of absence from her job to recuperate psychologically from the disturbing events.
The first series of Unforgotten originally aired on ITV in October, 2015; the second series aired in England in January, 2017, and the third series aired in July, 2018. In the United States, PBS re-broadcast all of the programs. Chris Lang created the project and wrote the shows, and Andy Wilson directed them. The acting of both major and minor characters is superb. The series takes place in many different cities and towns in England, Ireland, and Scotland. Each program shifts rapidly from one character’s storyline to another subplot.
I highly recommend Unforgotten as a well written series that confronts important social and psychological issues like sexual abuse, racism, sexual orientation, and police burnout. I look forward to series four of Unforgotten, which began filming in January 2020 but has not yet aired.