A Review of Unforgotten

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. …

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Review of the Downton Abbey Movie

Both the Downton Abbey movie and the television series have the same strengths and weaknesses.  The acting is superb and the costumes are wonderful; however, the dialogue sounds flat and the plots are melodramatic and sometimes illogical.  Audience members who have not watched the television series will be overwhelmed by the number of characters in the film. The movie version spends too much time on the British king and queen’s visit to Downton Abbey in 1927, which I did not find very interesting.  Then, script writer Julian Fellowes throws several new plot twists into the last thirty minutes without really developing the characters or the situations, which I found much more potentially enticing than the pomp and circumstance of a royal entourage.  Fellowes tries to tie up loose ends from the television show.  For example, he finds a new love for Tom Branson, a new love for the scullery maid Daisy Robinson, and another new love for the gay butler Thomas Barrows.  Marital discord between some royal and nonroyal couples gets quickly resolved without being…

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