Prepare to Wet Yourself: Netflix Is Rebooting Unsolved Mysteries

By Maria Sherman | June 24, 2020 | 2:20pm

Entertainment TV

Prepare to Wet Yourself: Netflix Is Rebooting Unsolved Mysteries

Most reboots reflect popular culture’s insatiable hunger for nostalgia, which is why those programs are often terrible and cheap. But most reboots are not centered around the cold cases and paranormal activity of Unsolved Mysteries, the show responsible for bringing families together over a shared paranoia, between the years 1987 and 2002. (For some, it was longer, but those are the years Robert Stack hosted the show, and when you saw that man, you knew some wild shit was about to go down.) Netflix’s choice to revive the beloved, nightmare-inducing franchise but maintain the integrity of its title music, as seen in the trailer below, is a genius move. I am prepared to feel real terror over real occurrences and fight with my friends over the existence of ghosts and UFOs once again, just like we did all those years ago.

In fact, my only real qualm about the reboot is that the team behind Stranger Things produced it, and because of that, the production value will undoubtedly be much higher than the original. Of course, technology calls for those advancements, but one of the reasons the vintage Unsolved Mysteries was so great is that the show spooked its viewers with inexplicable cases, and then demonstrated those heinous crimes with low-budget re-enactments portrayed by mediocre actors. Those skits weren’t meant to be comic relief, but they certainly were comic relief. I’m genuinely worried the new Unsolved Mysteries will be much scarier than the original without them, but it’s not like anyone is sleeping well these days anyway… right?