Unforgettable (CBS) - Series Premiere: Synopsis and Review
‘Unforgettable’ is a new drama/mystery series on CBS, based on the short story ‘The Rememberer’ by J. Robert Lennon. It stars Poppy Montgomery (‘Without A Trace’), doing her best American accent. Actress Marilu Henner serves as consultant on the show, as she has hyperthymesia, just like the lead character. Ironically, Henner also plays Carrie’s aunt, who suffers from early-onset Alzheimer’s disease. The series first premiered on September 20th 2011, and it airs in the Tuesdays at 10/9c timeslot.
Carrie Wells (Poppy Montgomery) has a very rare condition called hyperthymesia. Due to this condition she can remember every single detail of her life, except for the one thing she is always trying to remember; what happened to her sister Rachel. Carrie used to be a Syracuse detective, and because of her condition, one of the best, but she gave up her career after reopening and failing to solve the case of her sister’s murder.
One day, she becomes a witness in a murder investigation. She finds the victim, her upstairs neighbor, just after she is murdered, and with her impeccable memory, she is able to give the police some crucial information. One of the detectives, Al Burns (Dylan Walsh, ‘Nip/Tuck’), a former colleague from Syracuse, involves her in the investigation as a consultant. Because of all this, she starts to get some memories back of the day that Rachel died.
Montgomery is clearly in her element portraying Carrie. You can really feel the trauma that Carrie still has from her sister’s murder, and the guilt she feels that that is the only thing she can’t remember. It becomes clear too that it isn’t always a blessing to remember everything. Apparently, Carrie left the police force in Syracuse because she couldn’t handle remembering every case, every murder. Also, she broke off her short relationship with Al; she couldn’t let go of their fights and the things he had said in an outburst of anger.
The fact that Carrie has hyperthymesia definitely gives a twist to the standard procedural police drama concept, though it is unlikely that Carrie is going to witness murders time after time. The murder case itself isn’t really spectacular, but that is an aspect that makes the show more credible, as opposed to the hyperthymesia, of which there are only 20 confirmed cases
worldwide.
Overall, if you are willing to believe the coincidence that Carrie and Al meet again over a murder in her apartment building, ‘Unforgettable’ is a very watchable new police drama with a nice twist.
What do you think of 'Unforgettable'?
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