Unforgotten | Golden Skate

Unforgotten

skylark

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5.00 star(s) Rating: 5.00/5 1 Vote
Title: Unforgotten

Genre: Drama, Crime, Mystery

First aired: 2015-10-08

Creator: Chris Lang

Cast: Nicola Walker, Sanjeev Bhaskar, Lewis Reeves, Peter Egan, Carolina Main, Jordan Long

Overview: 'Unforgotten' follows modern police team DCI Cassie Stuart and DI Sunny Khan, who gradually unravel long-forgotten secrets which have a dramatic impact on their investigation and the four potential suspects. The slow revelation of the secrets will also affect the personal lives of both Sunny and Cassie.

 

TontoK

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This one is on my list. I think I may have seen a first season, but need to catch up.
 

skylark

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That phrase "the slow revelation of the secrets" is a major part of why I love this series so much. Also, the way the relationships are explored, the relationship of Cassie and Sunny, relationships with their families, and also, the relationships of the people whose present-day circumstances are being revealed and initially, we don't know why.

Another thing I love is seeing so many gorgeous shots of towns, neighborhoods, countrysides, and waterways in England. In commentary by the creator, Chris Lang, he said that's one of the things he wanted to showcase.

Also, in every series, at least one person will say something like "it's ancient history." Cassie and Sunny's investigations show that that's not at all the case. I also love the secondary investigators, watching how they go about digging through their assignments and surfacing things.
 

elbkup

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Riveting series but emotionally devastating..
The investigators bring hope to families destroyed by loss and grief and horror and, they don’t always get things right. The final story reveals a perpetrator who is as close to evil incarnate as I have ever seen on film...
 

auser

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That phrase "the slow revelation of the secrets" is a major part of why I love this series so much. Also, the way the relationships are explored, the relationship of Cassie and Sunny, relationships with their families, and also, the relationships of the people whose present-day circumstances are being revealed and initially, we don't know why.

Another thing I love is seeing so many gorgeous shots of towns, neighborhoods, countrysides, and waterways in England. In commentary by the creator, Chris Lang, he said that's one of the things he wanted to showcase.

Also, in every series, at least one person will say something like "it's ancient history." Cassie and Sunny's investigations show that that's not at all the case. I also love the secondary investigators, watching how they go about digging through their assignments and surfacing things.
I can't wait for series four.
 

skylark

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Riveting series but emotionally devastating..
The investigators bring hope to families destroyed by loss and grief and horror and, they don’t always get things right. The final story reveals a perpetrator who is as close to evil incarnate as I have ever seen on film...
You're right. What I find at the end of each series is a reason to hope. The families who relive their grief and experience the horror again at least have the chance, the possibility, to have closure, shut the door on those feelings, rather than having them buried and reliving them from time to time or having the feelings interfere with their lives. And then they have the chance to move forward. I'm not saying it would ever be easy.

SPOILER for Series 3.
I think a really good example of the above is the mother of the girl who was murdered. After so many years, she still hasn't been able to have a life. But once everything is known and after about a year, she's been able to grieve and then she and her other daughter can laugh and celebrate Hayley's life again, and enjoy each other again.
 

elbkup

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You're right. What I find at the end of each series is a reason to hope. The families who relive their grief and experience the horror again at least have the chance, the possibility, to have closure, shut the door on those feelings, rather than having them buried and reliving them from time to time or having the feelings interfere with their lives. And then they have the chance to move forward. I'm not saying it would ever be easy.

SPOILER for Series 3.
I think a really good example of the above is the mother of the girl who was murdered. After so many years, she still hasn't been able to have a life. But once everything is known and after about a year, she's been able to grieve and then she and her other daughter can laugh and celebrate Hayley's life again, and enjoy each other again.
Reply to spoiler...
This is why investigators move forward with diligence and purpose despite personal cost... Beautiful final scene in Season 3 (yellow flowers:)) when they all meet and celebrate Hailey’s life....
 

skylark

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Has anyone else seen the first 3 episodes of Season 4?

I don't want to seek out any other discussion forums, because in the UK the 4th series ran in February and March. I find there's Always someone who gives a spoiler ... and I hate spoilers.

But if anyone wants to discuss the first 3 episodes, I'm here.

I find that the third episode of each season is the one where I really become interested. In this one, it's where the four people that we suspect are the suspects get interviewed by Cassie and Sunny. I've realized before how good Cassie is at this part of her job, and I'm reminded again. She is so mild and seems to take their answers without question ... but we the viewers know that when she says "it's no problem at all" or some such, she often knows the person is lying, and her next few questions will show them that she knows they're lying. It's very skillfully done.

Why am I so obsessed with this show? Since childhood, I've always had a strong belief in fairness, and I think that translates into this feeling I have of the impulse to justice, that someone who participated in a crime or a cover-up needs to be held accountable and responsible for what they did. Solving a crime brings the world into balance again. Then there's the fact that the suspects are always fully realized human beings, with their good deeds living alongside the bad ones.

Anyone have a favorite character among the new people in Season 4? Does Cassie seem like herself? I felt that as long as she wasn't back at her job, she was more prickly, angry and unreasonable, with her dad and her son especially. It seems to me that she's happier when she's working. I find myself hoping that at the end of her 3 remaining months till retirement, she'll stay on, because she's so good at what she does.
 

elbkup

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I have now watched all 4 episodes.
I suspected from the first who the perpetrator was and this was not the case in past seasons. By episode 4 Cassie definitely shows the toll the stresses and strains of the job have taken on her mental and physical health.. but she is a strong intelligent women who knows she must make psychological adjustments to keep her family intact and continue to do the job she loves.. it would have happened, I think. The suspects were not terrible people; all felt and expressed remorse for the parts they played in the crime. The victim was actually sociopathic.. the difficulty Cassie and Sonny and their team face is to focus on the crime, solve it, provide justice. The ending broke my heart, of course. Wonder if there will be a Season 5… will the team carry on?
 

auser

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I have now watched all 4 episodes.
I suspected from the first who the perpetrator was and this was not the case in past seasons. By episode 4 Cassie definitely shows the toll the stresses and strains of the job have taken on her mental and physical health.. but she is a strong intelligent women who knows she must make psychological adjustments to keep her family intact and continue to do the job she loves.. it would have happened, I think. The suspects were not terrible people; all felt and expressed remorse for the parts they played in the crime. The victim was actually sociopathic.. the difficulty Cassie and Sonny and their team face is to focus on the crime, solve it, provide justice. The ending broke my heart, of course. Wonder if there will be a Season 5… will the team carry on?
PBS announced last night there will be a Season 5. According to RadioTimes, Nicola Walker's (Cassie in Unforgotten) new procedural drama called Annika starts this week in the UK. It is based on a BBC Radio show that she also performed in. I listened to a few 15 minute episodes. It had a bit of quirky humor that I thought might make an entertaining TV show. I hope PBS picks it up.
 
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elbkup

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PBS announced last night there will be a Season 5. According to RadioTimes, Nicola Walker's (Cassie in Unforgotten) new procedural drama called Annika starts this week in the UK. It is based on a BBC Radio show that she also performed in. I listened to a few 15 minute episodes. It had a bit of quirky humor that I thought might make an entertaining TV show. I hope PBS picks it up.
Thanks.. good to hear about Season 5… Annika sounds interesting .. hope the quirky humor remains if it materializes since I enjoy that genre.. and anything with Nicola Walker is a “go”!! Her character in Last Tango in Halifax was as darkly quirky and lovable and contrary as she could be.. amazing performance too!!
 

skylark

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I have now watched all 4 episodes.
I suspected from the first who the perpetrator was and this was not the case in past seasons. By episode 4 Cassie definitely shows the toll the stresses and strains of the job have taken on her mental and physical health.. but she is a strong intelligent women who knows she must make psychological adjustments to keep her family intact and continue to do the job she loves.. it would have happened, I think. The suspects were not terrible people; all felt and expressed remorse for the parts they played in the crime. The victim was actually sociopathic.. the difficulty Cassie and Sonny and their team face is to focus on the crime, solve it, provide justice. The ending broke my heart, of course. Wonder if there will be a Season 5… will the team carry on?

SPOILERS for S. 4 ahead, and only speculation for S. 5 and "what might have been." (Hint: I'm still mad.)


Season 5 is in the works, thank goodness. I read some recaps & comments from The Guardian. It sounded like the writer/creator Chris Lang was hinting that he had an actress in mind for Sunny's new partner, and if I'm not mistaken, it sounds like (another heartfelt 'thank goodness') Sunny will be the team leader. Personally, I'd rather see Fran graduate up to partner with Sunny. I think it would be interesting to see if Fran would take Sunny's more objective, balanced, questioning role -- which I think she would, if I get her character right. And it would be really, really interesting if we found that Sunny became more of the force for empathy and emotional involvement, which was what Cassie had that made Unforgotten such an unusual police story. I have a theory that when a person's partner dies (usually spouse, but it could work just as well here), the surviving partner will take on some of the partner's personality. It could work that way just as well if the partner retired or was otherwise completely out of the picture. That would, in fact, add validity to Sunny's assertion that Cassie was his mentor.

I was out of town on the night of the final S. 4 episode, but I had a chance to watch it. There was no way I was going to wait several days to watch with my husband. When I got home, he asked me if I was in mourning. I said yes, and I'm irretrievably stuck in the Anger stage! Yes, Nicola was leaving, but they could easily have had Cassie retire and move to Brighton or something with her boyfriend and not had this gut-wrenching ending for her. I would have missed both Cassie and boyfriend, her father and especially her son Adam. But it would have been preferable to me to imagine them all happier, because Cassie would have gotten to retire, as she wanted to. I think that as a devoted fan, I deserved that happy ending for her!
 
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skylark

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I have more to say, and I'd love to hear other people's thoughts on my post above and this one.

I was starting to worry in the past few episodes that my favorite of the four suspects would be the perpetrator, and of course he was. His speech about how it happened was insightful and almost made up for my disappointment. (But not quite.) When he said that he'd been "drenched in violence" by his family since the day he was born, and violence was a daily occurrence whether it was abuse against each other or them against the world, I thought it was an eloquent illustration of the principle that a person's first 5 years are the most formative. I felt that he changed his life and was able to live up (mostly) to his truer values. So it was a sad ending on several levels for me. Not the least of which, as @elbkup said, the victim was sociopathic. So it was almost as though it would have been better not to have solved this cold case. I hadn't felt that way at the end of any of the previous seasons.

What do you think?

Oh yeah, and people commenting on the Guardian recaps and reviews pointed out that in England, you don't need a license to be a practicing therapist. Fiona's degrees, including a Ph.D., were authentic. So why the assertion that she'd have to do time for not having a license? To show that she would be punished? Did it seem like she was getting off easier than the others?

It did seem like there were more loose ends in this final episode than in previous seasons. In #1, 2, and 3, I felt that the writer purposely left some things for viewers to wonder about. But this time, those loose ends just didn't feel purposeful or valid. I suppose I ought to remind myself that they filmed 11 weeks pre-covid, and then had to rewrite a lot of things to do the last 5 weeks of filming, under the restrictions of pandemic regulations. But I don't really think that that caused the things to happen in the story that I'm actually complaining about.
 
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