Try to remember....everything.
By writtenbyQ4u, 9th Nov 2011 | Follow this author
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Posted in WikinutReviewsFilm & TVCrime
A review of the new show Unforgettable, starring Poppy Montgomery, better known for her role in Without A Trace.
If I could just remember that one thing....
Hyperthymesia is a rare condition by which, the person who has the condition, can remember everything. Not like everything told to them maybe, or read, or even seen; everything they have lived through. That means specific minutiae on a specific date, even at a specific time. That is just spooky. Also very, very rare.
This is the idea or premise behind another new show, that took a bow for the fall season Stateside, the not at all imaginatively named Unforgettable.
Carrie Wells, played by Poppy Montgomery (best known for Without A Trace) is an ex-police detective, who happens to have the extraordinary condition of hyperthymesia, hence is able to recall events on specific dates unerringly. We learn this at the beginning of the show.
We open with Carrie being kindly to some doddery old woman in a nursing home. In the background another carer is trying to persuade an elderly gentleman to take his medication. He calls out to Carrie, asking if he has taken his medication. She tells him what medication he has taken and at what time. He promises to take his medication if she can recall what happened on a certain date. She does and they all laugh.
So far, so predictable. Later that evening, she is woken by noise coming from her neighbor's apartment above her. She gets up to check out the commotion and finds her neighbor dead in the street.
When the local homicide team turns up, she recognises one of them. He is her ex partner, lover, Al Burns (played by Dylan Walsh). They parted on uncomfortable terms.
He convinces her to help them out with the murder case, as she can recall, as we know, things others would miss.
Later we find out that Carrie had an older sister, Rachel, who was killed when both were very young. As a small twist, the only event Carrie cannot recall is the death, murder, of her sister.
The pilot is basically an introduction to the main characters, with the story of the murdered neighbor - a very mundane and predictable aside - used to pull Carrie back into the investigative world.
I did enjoy Unforgettable, even if some of the plotting was risible and predictable. Poppy Montgomery carries the look of a haunted soul well, though is does get a little House-esque with the recollection sequences.
I will probably watch the second episode just to see if it, as I hope, builds on a competent, if not entirely mesmeric, opening episode.
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