"Unforgotten" and "Van der Valk": Masterpiece Mystery returns

The broadcast home of British police procedurals, Masterpiece Mystery returns this month with new seasons of “Unforgotten” (London detectives work a cold case) and “Van der Valk” (detectives solve murders in Amsterdam) airing back-to-back Sundays.

Over six episodes, “Unforgotten” focuses on a single case. The series originally starred Nicola Walker, who has since moved on to a different police procedural (“Annika,” which returns on PBS in October). Sinéad Keenan steps into her shoes this season as the prickly Detective Chief Inspector Jessica James. She has problems at home (don’t they always?) but at work, in her trim black sweater vest and prim blouses, she is inscrutable and no-nonsense. Her underlings call her ma’am (“mum” in the British pronunciation) but she tells them “guv” will suffice. The show could use more of that dry humor.

The police have been called out to a house undergoing a renovation. A body, clad in a dress dating back to the 1940s or 50s, was found inside one of the chimneys. DCI James sees little point in spending resources on a murder that may have happened 80 years ago, much to the dismay of her team — including her quietly pained second in command Detective Inspector Sunil “Sunny” Khan (Sanjeev Bhaskar) — who are stunned to learn their new boss considers an old murder any less important than a new one.

From left: Sinéad Keenan joins the cast of "Unforgotten" as newcomer DCI Jessica James alongside Sanjeev Bhaskar as DI Sunil “Sunny” Khan. (Jonatha Ford/PBS /HANDOUT)

But that dress is a macguffin. Turns out it was bought from a vintage shop and the evidence suggests the murder was actually much more recent. This changes everything. Still, James requires some nudging when it comes to collaboration. “We need to come up with a thousand stupid theories, laugh at them and come up with better ones,” an exasperated Khan tells her.

I’ve always preferred the way British dramas depict police interviews. There’s a discipline to them. A controlled cadence. They’re carefully done and almost clinical. The questions are calmly delivered and might begin with, “What would you say if I told you … ?” The answer is inevitably, “No comment.” It’s very different, tonally, from the kind of cocky-petulant-violent interrogations that proliferate on American shows, where they’re really putting the screws to whoever is sitting across the table.

Previous seasons of “Unforgotten,” which I watched in Masterpiece’s weekly format, struggled to hold my interest. The show’s slow-burn, deep-dive approach (which includes unrelated story threads that eventually all come together) doesn’t work when it’s chopped up into chapters that unfold over a month-plus. This time out, I had the benefit of binging all six episodes and that works to the show’s benefit.

If I were to guess, Masterpiece Mystery is encountering a more competitive market in recent years, just in terms of which shows from the UK are available to license (many are getting scooped up by the streaming platforms BritBox and Acorn instead). The PBS series is better suited to a case-of-the-week format and would be smart to pursue more of those shows instead (the aforementioned “Annika” falls nicely into this category).

A recurring cliche of copaganda is that police work — the selfless dedication to that work — is incompatible with a healthy home life. Somehow, that old saw actually works for the new season of “Unforgotten,” though I cannot say the same for “Van der Valk,” which is a reboot (now in its third season) of a 1970′s British crime series based on author Nicolas Freeling’s “Van der Valk” novels.

The lead detective is Piet Van der Valk (Marc Warren), who is too focused on the job to maintain relationships outside of work. “You never were one for a private life,” an old acquaintance says pityingly. “Some things never change.” Van der Valk shrugs: “People keep killing people.”

From left: Maimie McCoy and Marc Warren play Amsterdam-based detectives in Season 3 of "Van der Valk." (PBS/HANDOUT)

Warren might be recognizable to American audiences as one of the stars of the British heist series “Hustle,” and I wish more of his sly wit was allowed to come through here. The characters are presumably meant to be Dutch — including Van der Valk, his partner who doesn’t take his cranky moods seriously (Maimie McCoy), and the medical examiner with a big personality and a great head of hair (Darrell D’Silva) — and yet they are all played by British actors.

Why set a show in Amsterdam when nothing about the show itself feels particularly Dutch except for the filming locations? I have a theory: Police officers and detectives in England do not carry guns. As a result, British procedurals are almost always focused on puzzling out who did what. Setting a show in Amsterdam means guns are back in play and the show is all too happy for its detectives to brandish them every chance they get.

Like “Unforgotten,” the season is also six episodes long; each case gets two episodes. A new sergeant from the traffic division is on loan to the team (Django Chan-Reeves) and when she arrives at the scene of a crime in the first episode, the medical examiner tells his colleagues: “We crossed paths in the lab, she’s bright as a button and twice as smart. You could do a lot worse than take her under your wing.” Van der Valk is unmoved: “Yeah, well, I’m a detective not a hen. Let’s focus on the body.” He’s taciturn but everyone treats him like a god with a badge. His intuitions are always bang on. He’s just that good.

Yet another old trope, but a reliable one.

Masterpiece Mystery: “Unforgotten” and “Van der Valk” — 2.5 stars (out of 4)

Where to watch: 8 p.m. on PBS airing back-to-back

From left: Maimie McCoy, Marc Warren and Darrell D'Silva in a scene from Season 3 of "Van der Valk." (PBS/HANDOUT)

Nina Metz is a Tribune critic.

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