Download Unsolved Mysteries Netflix
Tawny Rautenberg
From police reports to witness interviews, plus additional photos, Unsolved Mysteries has compiled a dossier of bonus material for each new episode. These documents are more pieces to the baffling puzzle. Can you put them together and help solve these mysteries? (Warning: These files may contain crime scene photos and vivid descriptions that may be disturbing to some readers. Discretion is advised.)
In 2017, the film and television distribution company FilmRise acquired worldwide digital distribution rights to the original run of Unsolved Mysteries. The company announced its intention to release updated versions of the show's episodes through multiple streaming platforms.[2] This led to renewed interest in the series, with original creators, John Cosgrove and Terry Dunn Meurer, expressing interest in reviving the show.[3] On January 18, 2019, Netflix announced that it had picked up a 12-part reboot of the series.[4] It was further revealed that Stranger Things executive producer Shawn Levy and his company 21 Laps Entertainment, along with Cosgrove-Meurer Productions (and Netflix) would be producing the new episodes. Original creators, Cosgrove and Meurer are expected to showrun the series, along with Levy and Josh Barry acting as executive producers. Robert Wise is expected to act as co-executive producer, along with showrunner Dunn Meurer. The reboot's format will depart from the original series' multiple mysteries showcase and will instead feature one case per episode. Cosgrove has stated that the reboot will be "pure documentary style" and there will be no host or narrator.[5] The first six episodes are presented as Volume 1 on Netflix.[6] Netflix announced on August 19, 2020 that the first season's six remaining episodes would air (as Volume 2) on October 19, 2020.[7]
After a six-year absence, the series was resurrected by Spike in 2007, and began airing on October 13, 2008. This new, revived version was hosted by Dennis Farina, who mainly tied together repackaged segments from the original episodes. Farina hosted 175 episodes before the series ended again on April 27, 2010. Cosgrove-Meurer Productions maintains a website for the show, featuring popular accounts and ongoing cold cases (murder or missing persons), with a link to an online form should a viewer have information on an unsolved crime. As of 2017, the show maintains a YouTube page where viewers can submit their own mysteries. If accepted, Unsolved Mysteries posts a video of the viewer describing the mystery. That same year, FilmRise acquired worldwide digital distribution rights to the series and announced its intent to release updated versions of its episodes. These shows are currently streaming on Amazon Prime, Tubi TV, and on its own dedicated channel on Pluto TV in the United States and the United Kingdom.[1][2] Since February 2017, the Spike episodes have been officially posted on YouTube, split into eight seasons.[3] In July 2017, the series began streaming on Hulu in the United States.[4] Between February and March 2019, FilmRise began posting digitally restored and re-edited episodes, hosted by Stack, on YouTube.[5]
Unsolved Mysteries used a documentary format to profile real-life mysteries[11] and featured re-enactments of unsolved crimes, missing persons cases, conspiracy theories and unexplained paranormal phenomena (alien abductions, ghosts, UFOs, and "secret history" theories).
The concept was created in a series of three specials produced by John Cosgrove and Terry-Dunn Meurer, which were pitched to NBC in 1985 and shown in 1986 with the title, "Missing... Have You Seen This Person?" The success of the specials led Cosgrove and Meurer to broaden the series to include mysteries of all kinds.
Hosted by the leathery-voiced Robert Stack and featuring one of the eeriest theme songs in TV history, the long-running reality show scared the bejesus out of a generation with stories about brutal murders and baffling disappearances, yeti sightings and alien abductions, medical mysteries and long-lost loves.
This worthy revamp of the beloved true-crime-meets-the-paranormal series ditches the original's cheesy reenactments but retains its focus on tantalizing mysteries viewers are invited to help solve. Back in 1987 when the original premiered, true crime was a fledgling genre; now, of course, it's a media staple, with entire TV networks dedicated to awful deeds and curious happenstances, dozens of shows on both TV and streaming networks, and dozens upon dozens of popular podcasts (including one from the show's creators). But what the new Unsolved Mysteries lacks in freshness, it delivers in sophisticated storytelling. Gauzy, tawdry reenactments were a staple of the first series, but the remake wisely leaves them behind in favor of focusing on taut storytelling, bringing together interviews with bereaved family members and friends with news footage, and segments filmed especially for the show that examine some of the weirder aspects of the cases it delves into.
Fans might recount the 1-800 phone number that appeared at the end of each episode soliciting tips from any viewers who might have had information pertaining to any specific case covered on the show. Meurer and Cosgrove said the tip line has evolved and viewers will now be directed to unsolved.com, and if applicable, a law enforcement agency.
No Vignettes
In the original series, Robert Stack guided audiences through a maze of mysteries each week. The story of a harrowing kidnapping might lead into an exploration of a mythical creature, then to a heartwarming tale of long lost relatives having been found. The Netflix series has dumped the anthology structure in favor of focusing on one story each episode. This means the 6-episode season offers only 6 stories. However, each is told over 40 or so minutes, allowing a deeper dive into the details than the old format did.
If you scroll through Unsolved Mysteries' Twitter mentions, you'll find a combination of questions about criminals they've previously covered; armchair investigators asking for updates on the most recent mysteries; and people sharing missing person posters, local news stories, and online petitions, in the hope that it will convince the showrunners to cover a particular case.
According to Unsolved Mysteries co-creator Terry Dunn Meurer, all of those potential cases really are given careful consideration. "We process everything that comes into Unsolved.com," she told VICE. "We separate out the tips [about previous mysteries] and we send those to law enforcement immediately. If we get a story submission, we put that on a spreadsheet and into a database. We go through each and every one of those stories and decide which ones could make a strong episode. Some of the other submissions to the website are comments about a particular story, and we read those too."
Meurer says that selecting which cases to profile is the "most challenging" part of producing the show. They started that database of viewer-submitted mysteries 34 years ago, when the series was in its original Robert Stack-led incarnation. Law enforcement agencies have been known to make their own recommendations, and suggestions are always coming in through Unsolved dot com.
"When we sit down to decide, the criteria is to look for diversity across all kinds of categories," she said. "We want to give the viewers a wide variety of mysteries: a missing [person], a wanted [suspect], a murder, a UFO or maybe a ghost story. We have a category called 'Unexplained Death,' which are probably the most intriguing cases. So it's about category, and it's about location. We want to give our international audience some mysteries from their own worlds. In the second [series], we have one that we found in Japan, and one from Norway."
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