Unsolved Mysteries has been around since 1987, making it an early pioneer in true crime TV—a genre that’s only gotten more popular in recent years thanks to streaming. Netflix revived Unsolved Mysteries in 2020, with a fifth entry in that format arriving this week. While volume five is the shortest season yet, it might also be pound for pound the weirdest, which is saying a lot because Unsolved Mysteries is no stranger to freaky oddities .
This time around, just one episode, “Park Bench Murders,” hews to the classic true-crime formula, tracing an exceptionally baffling double murder. It’s the kind of case that old-school host Robert Stack would have framed by addressing the audience and solemnly asking for their help in solving the crime, a task now handled by on-screen text at the end of the episode. Elsewhere, however, things lean even harder into the “mystery” part of Unsolved Mysteries ; while it would have been nice to see more bizarre true-crime cases included—frankly, those are often the scariest stories—it feels like this grouping was carefully selected for a pre-Halloween binge.
“My Paranormal Partner” follows a paranormal researcher whose spirit guide (improbably named “Becky”) helps him investigate hauntings, and the fellow researchers who tag along to verify his findings. “Mysterious Mutilations” digs into a rash of recent cattle mutilations on ranches across Oregon, and “The Roswell UFO Incident” examines the famous claims that a.