Paramount Home Entertainment
Release Date: 7/9/2013
Poppy Montgomery stars as police detective Carrie Wells has hyperthymesia, a rare medical condition that gives her the ability to visually remember everything. As the show starts, Carrie is no longer involved in law enforcement. Her former partner (and boyfriend) Lt. Al Burns (Dylan Walsh) asks for her help on a case. After that, she agrees to stay on. A big part of that is so she has access to the police resources that might help her with the one thing she can’t remember: The day her sister was murder years earlier.
Midway through the season, Jane Curtain joins that cast and breaths a very large breath of fresh air into the show as Dr. Joanne Webster, a Chief Medical Examiner of New York that has been dumped in the Bronx as a way of punishing her to speaking out against those above her. Webster is delightfully blunt and razor sharp. She and Wells have some nice chemistry. Truth be told, at that point in the season, most of the cast seemed to relax a bit. It may well have been the presence of the TV vet. Other cast members are given little plots here and there (Office love from afar, trouble with children and significant others) but the show is all about Montgomery’s Carrie. Burns is also front and center, but mainly as a foil for Carrie.
While each episode features a stand alone tale, the season’s overall arc is who killed Carrie’s sister? The stories are mixed, some solid and some are your standard network television police storyline. The gimmick for Carrie’s memory is that things freeze and she walks through the scene, peering through her memories to see what she might have missed. It is done in somewhat interesting manner. Without the visual, folks would be lose interest quickly.
Curtain’s presence is, for me, the highlight of the show. I like Carrie well enough, but Curtan adds something very special. The biggest problem here is that it is a gimmick based procedural. So each ep, you know Carrie’s memory will be key. For the second season, I would suggest following the route of NUMB3RS, use the gimmick, but let it be just another resource instead of the day-saver.
If you enjoy network police dramas, give UNFORGETTABLE a shot. Montgomery and Curtain lead a likable enough cast on some fun adventures.
Jeremy Lynch