TV Review: ‘Unforgotten’ Season 6

It usually takes two years for a new season of Unforgotten to come out, but fans will find it worth the long wait. That’s true of the latest season of the hit UK crime drama, which is airing on PBS Masterpiece and available for streaming on PBS Passport. For their Season 6 cold case, DCI Jess James (Sinéad Keenan) and DI Sunny Khan (Sanjeev Bhaskar) try to unravel questions around a dismembered body found in Whitney Marsh.

Jess and Sunny met in Season 5 with a rather bumpy start to their partnership. Several months later, they are on a positive footing this season. They banter more and lead their team adroitly through the case’s twists and turns. It’s not perfect yet, but it’s a delight to see how they support each other. Jess holds back about her personal life details, but she’s working on it with Sunny.

On This Season’s Case

Writer and creator Chris Lang seems to be trying something a little different with Season 6. Social issues, prejudices and politics do come into play with the cold cases of Unforgotten. But recently the show is pulling in political issues from the last several years. The pandemic directly influenced some of the circumstances surrounding the Whitney Marsh case.

Most of the body decomposed to skeletal remains due to the marsh, but one leg is better preserved because it was still wrapped up. Jess and Sunny tap Dr. Leanne Balcombe (Georgia Mackenzie) for her forensics expertise. She eventually comes up with a match in Gerry Cooper, a landlord and pub owner who was reported missing in 2021. Jess and Sunny interview a wide range of potential suspects: Cooper’s wife Juliet (Victoria Hamilton) and daughter Taylor (Pixie Davies), controversial TV personality Melinda Ricci (MyAnna Buring), immigrant Asif Syed (Elham Ehsas), and former pub employee Marty Baines (Maximilian Fairley).

Mr. Cooper’s political leanings were Brexit and anti-immigration, which fueled a lot of the tensions between him, tenants, and real estate contacts. In the investigation, Detective Sergeant Murray Boulting’s (Jordan Long) heartbreaking interviews and DS Fran Lingley’s (Carolina Main) social media research stand out in bringing Jess and Sunny to the finish line. I don’t want to give away a huge spoiler, but I didn’t expect a certain character from a previous season to return.

On Personal Challenges

Jess’s personal life is still stressful as she considers rebuilding important relationships with her husband (Andrew Lancel) and her sister, Debbie (Gráinne Keenan). Interestingly, Sinéad’s sister in real life is Gráinne! Season 6 doesn’t include many scenes with the sisters, but be sure to keep the tissues handy for those sibling moments of tension, honesty and new possibilities.

Sunny’s life is far less complicated and a lot happier than in the previous season. To be fair, Sunny—and viewers by extension—needed a grieving period after losing DCI Cassie Stuart (Nicola Walker). But now it’s great to see more glimpses of his old self peeking through and where he’s heading next in his life.

So How Was Season 6?

After the heartbreak from Unforgotten Seasons 4 and 5, Sunny’s moments of joking and good cheer were much needed in this latest season. It was also important for the show not to introduce a character who was a copy of DCI Cassie Stuart. Thankfully, Chris Lang, creatives, and Sinéad Keenan laid the groundwork well for making Jess her own person but still a good fit for the team. It’s easy to see the show going for a few more seasons yet.

Overall regarding the plot lines, Lang did a fairly good job at weaving them in and showing where persons of interest and suspects intersect in the timeline. Of the actors, Victoria Hamilton’s performance stands out as Juliet, whether it’s in juggling problems with her teaching job, her daughter’s disciplinary issues at school, or the reopened investigation. In spotlighting recent political and social issues—Brexit, immigration, professor-student dialogues, and mental health—the show delicately handled those while venturing into the darker aspects. It marks a fruitful starting point for discussions.

Unforgotten Season 6 is airing on PBS Masterpiece and available for streaming on PBS Passport. If you need a refresher about what’s happened so far, revisit my Season 5 interview with actor Sanjeev Bhaskar.