MARATHONS | ‘Unsolved’ will do in a pinch

I’m working nights these days and thus have been distracted by some daytime television.

Spike TV has been repurposing old episodes of Unsolved Mysteries since October, and I have to say I was initially not impressed. To their credit, Spike fixed whatever was causing that weird sideways letterbox problem in the first episodes I saw last fall. I guess I’ve made a sort of peace with it, because I can’t bring myself to change the channel today. (Worse, this crap is on all day every day this week. Sigh.)

Sarah Bunting hit the nail on the head in her review of the show’s makeover. The shiny graphics and fancy computer technology bring the whole thing down, like dollar store merchandise at Macy’s. As I noted in protest a year and a half ago, my dead TV grandfather Robert Stack was what sealed the deal. Farina didn’t cut it for me as a replacement for the late Lennie Briscoe (another of my TV grandpas), and he’s sure as hell no Bob Stack.

In a related story, I have got to find a day job.

Unsolved 2.0: This is how a heart breaks

“Long, long time ago / I can still remember how that music used to make me smile”

As far back as I can remember (up until sometime last year), Unsolved Mysteries has been the best thing going in interactive crime solving television. Robert Stack’s grandfatherly voice was a comforting guide through worlds of murder, mayhem, and of course mystery.

Sure, the reenactments were cheesy, at least to the naked eye. But the show made it work by combining the human-interest element of real cases, the first-person interviews, the reenactments themselves, and most importantly, the fact that Robert Stack sold every single segment by at least making us think he believed what he was saying.

And the show solved some mysteries, for sure. After a few years, the case updates were one of the best parts of the show. I used to scare myself to death watching Lifetime reruns of the show in my parents’ basement late at night, thinking the murderer the show had just profiled would be kicking in my windows any second, and then Stack saved the day with an update on how home viewers helped solve the case.

When Stack died in 2003, I mourned for a week. Now, I’m mourning again.

HBO TV Distribution is teaming up with Cosgrove/Meurer Productions to overhaul the original series and sell 175 refurbished episodes in cable syndication. And they’re cutting Stack out of every last one. Mind you, no one is lined up to replace the man. The distributor plans to let whoever buys the show pick the host — and there may be an option for new episodes!

They’ve got me over a barrel here. It seems like blasphemy to replace Robert Stack, America’s mysterious grandfather, despite the fact that he passed away four years ago. At the same time, I’m curious enough about the promised case updates that I’ll be tempted to watch the new, 21st century Mysteries.

No matter who they ultimately choose to take the helm, no one, but no one, will be able to draw me in quite like Stack did for fifteen years of reruns: “Join me,” he’d say with a smile. “Perhaps you may be able to help solve a mystery.”