In the US: Tuesdays, 10/9c, CBS
Interesting fact 1: There are apparently about five or six people in America with very impressive memories. Thanks in part to OCD, they can remember more or less every detail of their lives: ask them what they were doing on 4th March 2006 at 6.02pm and they’ll tell you.
Interesting fact 2: Marilu Henner, one of the stars of sitcom Taxi, is one of these people. As well as cameoing on the show, she is also a consultant to CBS’s Unforgettable, which stars Marilu Henner-lookalike Poppy Montgomery as a former police detective with this condition who uses her skills to solve crimes.
Interesting fact 3: CBS has so many sure-fire hits and such a seemingly captive audience they can commission some of the most boring programmes imaginable and provided they’re about cops, people will watch them. And even if they don’t, CBS won’t care.
Here’s a trailer.
Plot
UNFORGETTABLE stars Poppy Montgomery as Carrie Wells, an enigmatic former police detective with a rare condition that makes her memory so flawless that every place, every conversation, every moment of joy and every heartbreak is forever embedded in her mind. It’s not just that she doesn’t forget anything – she can’t; except for one thing: the details that would help solve her sister’s long-ago murder. Carrie has tried to put her past behind her, but she’s unexpectedly reunited with her ex-boyfriend and partner, NYPD Detective Al Burns (Dylan Walsh), when she consults on a homicide case. His squad includes Det. Mike Costello (Michael Gaston), Al’s right-hand man; Detective Roe Saunders (Kevin Rankin), the junior member of the team; and Detective Nina Inara (Daya Vaidya), a sassy, street-smart cop. Being back on the job after a break feels surprisingly right for Carrie. Despite her conflicted feelings for Al, she decides to permanently join his unit as a detective solving homicides – most notably, the unsolved murder of her sister. All she needs to do is remember. Ed Redlich, John Bellucci, Sarah Timberman and Carl Beverly are executive producers for Sony Television Studios in association with CBS Television Studios.
Is it any good?
Despite the best efforts of the talented Poppy Montgomery and Dylan Walsh and the show’s attempts at depth and verisimilitude when it comes to police procedure, this is a truly dull show.
It does all it can to be interesting, ranging from a back story about how heroine Carrie can remember everything except the murder of her own sister through her former romance with Dylan Walsh (who has mysteriously ended up in the same part of New York as her) to the various CGI ways the producers use to show Carrie walking through her own memories.
But it fails horribly. There’s no charm, no humour, no chemistry, no truly interesting characters, no decent dialogue, no sparks of true intelligence. The crimes are exactly what you’d find on any other cop show except saddled with the need for Carrie to have been nearby to remember things.
Despite a shout-out to CSI and a thin veneer of scientific plausibility, there’s very little about the show that even gets close to reality. It’s clunkily written, so we have a dreadful “spell it out for the audience” pre-credit scene.
And since it’s inevitable in such things, despite the fact there’s no need for Carrie to go out exploring alone, she does so she can confront the bad guy and have a fight with him/her.
It’s forgettable. Don’t bother with it.
Come on, you knew that was coming, right?
