“Nothing is black and white in his [writer Chris Lang’s] scripts and his characters are never black and white – we all live in brilliant shades of grey.”
–Sinéad Keenan
With this, Sinéad Keenan encapsulates why UNFORGOTTEN remains the best series on television.
But before talking about Season 6, which is airing now on PBS, let’s address the proverbial elephant in the virtual room: Nicola Walker’s departure from the show after Season 4 and Sinéad Keenan’s joining it in Season 5.
For a less brilliant show, changing stars would have been the beginning of a death spiral. Not so with UNFORGOTTEN. Yes, Nicola Walker was amazing as DCI Cassie Stuart, and her performances in Seasons 1-4 will always be ones that viewers will treasure. I’ll admit that I was skeptical about a new character joining the cast at the start of Season 5, but as DCI Jessica James, Sinéad Keenan quickly proved that she is very much up to the task. Jess is not a replacement for Cassie; she is a fully formed character in her own right.
Quick side note: If you have not seen Sinéad Keenan in LONDON IRISH, it’s well worth a watch, because she does comedy just as well as she does drama.
Now, on to Season 6…
When parts of a dismembered body are found in London’s Whitney Marsh, Jess and Sunny (DI Sunny Khan, amazingly played by Sanjeev Bhaskar) are called to the scene. As with each season of UNFORGOTTEN, the nature of the case is such that the story concerns two timelines, but without a single scene that begins with X YEARS AGO plastered across the screen. We meet each character today, and stay with them as Jess and Sunny investigate.
In this case, it turns out that the remains are those of Gerry Cooper, who disappeared during the Covid pandemic. So it’s not that long ago, but long enough for the case to be investigated by Jess and Sunny’s cold case unit. There are four stories that—eventually, over the course of six episodes—coalesce with Gerry Cooper at their center, those of: Cooper’s wife, an Afghani refugee, a TV commentator, and an autistic man.
Another side note: The man who has autism is played by Maximilian Fairley, an autistic actor.
As these four initially apparently disparate stories develop, we encounter deeply fraught societal issues (including the pandemic, immigration, and liberal and conservative views in media and academia), but UNFORGOTTEN is not preachy, which gives viewers permission to see and understand the people involved with a range of emotions, from rage to empathy. None of them are caricatures, and the level of detail we are given about each of the characters is perfect.
There are no filler episodes—you know, the one or two episodes we normally have to sit through right after the middle of a season where nothing really happens. With UNFORGOTTEN, each moment of the show moves the story, even if we’re not always certain of the direction in which it’s moving until we get a bit further on.
If you have yet to watch UNFORGOTTEN, I’d recommend starting with the first season, but it’s not absolutely necessary. And good news: Season 7 is already filming!
As if I didn’t already have enough to love about this show, I also adore the haunting song that plays over the credits. I finally looked it up; it’s “All We Do” by Oh Wonder.
So I’ll end as I began: UNFORGOTTEN is the best show on television, and Season 6 delivers everything we’ve come to expect from and love about it. You should watch it.
