There was nothing scarier for kids in the ’90s than seeing Robert Stack in a trench coat tell stories about alien abductions, ghosts, and killers on Unsolved Mysteries. Now, with the series receiving a new burst of popularity thanks to these original episodes airing on Amazon Prime and Hulu, a new reboot of the series may soon debut.
The original series’ creators, John Cosgrove and Terry Dunn Meurer, revealed earlier this year in a Reddit AMA that they are looking at producing new episodes, and in a new statement to Decider they claim we could see those episodes by the end of 2017. “We are actively talking to a couple of broadcasters who have shown interest, and we’re very optimistic that we’ll have something by way of new episodes by the end of the year,” Cosgrove said. “It’s too early to go into much detail, but we’ve had our research producers look into possible stories and they’ve found some excellent ones which can be ready to go quickly.”
If the show does return, it actually wouldn’t be the first time its seen a revival. After Stack’s run on the show ended in 2002 and he passed away the following year, a reboot was hosted by Dennis Farina from 2008 to 2010. Needless to say, the Farina-led version of the show didn’t inspire the same type of following of the original, as it only featured repackaged versions of cases featured on the original series and no new cases. It sounds like the reboot version that’s being planned will feature new cases, which is definitely something to get excited about.
The real key to making the new show work, however, will be the host. Finding a suitable replacement for Stack isn’t easy — in many ways he is inseparable from Unsolved Mysteries — and Farina’s performance in the role was never really up to snuff (Farina has also since passed away). So whoever they get, I hope they have that Robert Stack-like ability to creep out and traumatize children while standing in mist and rocking a trench coat.
