Here is a little gift for those who can’t calm their minds long enough right now to dig into long haul television and would rather be entertained with brief screen chunks of intrigue and laughs. You will add a little to your general true crime knowledge bank too as you soak in the casual docuseries that is BuzzFeed Unsolved True Crime. If you’ve not yet heard of Shane Madej and Ryan Bergara, you will know them like brothers after a few weeks, we promise.
BuzzFeed’s dynamic duo are rather at home on YouTube but you can also watch the episodes of Season Six of Unsolved True Crime as they drop also onto Amazon Prime Video. Bergara and Madej appear on several documentary style series including the original BuzzFeed Unsolved, BuzzFeed Unsolved Supernatural and BuzzFeed Unsolved True Crime. Having binged on them all during last year’s flu season, I can say with confidence that Unsolved True Crime is the most freakishly interesting of the lot, and all of them definitely have their charm.
Unsolved was created in 2017 by Ryan Bergara as a web series (with another on screen partner, who still pops up from time to time) and has run for eleven seasons. The format of Unsolved has changed little over the years, other than to have the boys slouch around slightly more impressive sets and report from locations further afield.
Each episode there is a new case to be dissected by Shane and Ryan who sit together throwing shade where it needs to be thrown, speculating on popular theories of what may have happened to the missing or deceased. The three Unsolved series don’t need to be viewed one after the other, so just hit subscribe on their YouTube channel and see all the weird and wonderful content these two extremely clever presenters constantly churn out for the attention deficit masses.
Bergara, who generally would seem to the one more likely to have drunk the Kool Aid, sketches out the basic information and timelines of each case, allowing for plenty of banter and for sidekick Madej to cut through any possible flaws in his presented theories with his customary comedic scythe. Neither play it much to the script – and in fact delight going off on tangents – and it is these interactions that are the true gold in each episode. Both hosts are utterly charming, and often hysterically funny, and absolutely know how to not take each other or anyone else running them down at all seriously.
The visual aids used to illustrate Bergara’s case summaries and quotes from witnesses make you feel like you’re a in game of Cluedo, and Unsolved True Crime has the same cozy conspiratorial air you enjoy when listening to your friends rip apart popular urban legends and true crime cases.
BuzzFeed Unsolved True Crime Season six is streaming now an episode a week on Amazon Prime Video, and is free to watch on YouTube also where you will find their back catalogue. Enjoy!
Andy Thompson
Other reviews you might enjoy:
- Unsolved Mysteries (Netflix) – streaming review
- Picard (Amazon Prime) – streaming review
- Supernatural S14 (Amazon Prime) – streaming review
Andy is a Perth based reviewer who has been moderating online book clubs and working with not-for-profits roughly a bazillion years. Andy contributes to The Blurb on books, streaming TV, movies and various other shiny things she picks up. She is also a bit obsessed with podcasts.