‘Broadchurch’ Fans Need To Watch The New York Times’ Best TV Pick

Published Jul 30, 2026, 8:39 AM EDT Amanda M. Castro is a Network TV writer at Collider and a New York–based journalist whose work has appeared in Newsweek, where she is an Associate Editor, and The U.S. Sun, where she previously served as a Senior Consumer Reporter. She specializes in network television coverage, delivering sharp, thoughtful analysis of long-running procedural hits and ambitious new dramas across broadcast TV. At Collider, Amanda explores character arcs, storytelling trends, and the cultural impact of network series that keep audiences tuning in week after week. Born and raised in Puerto Rico, Amanda is bilingual and holds a degree in Communication, Film, and Media Studies from the University of New Haven. There are plenty of British crime dramas that promise to scratch the Broadchurch itch. Most of them have picturesque seaside towns, emotionally guarded detectives, and enough red herrings to fill six episodes. What they usually don’t have is the one thing that made Broadchurch so unforgettable in the first place: the understanding that a murder mystery is about the people left behind. Unforgotten feels like a natural follow-up to this. While ITV’s acclaimed drama has spent six seasons solving decades-old murders, the investigations have never been its true focus. Every cold case becomes an excuse to peel back years of buried secrets, fractured families, and impossible choices, creating mysteries that feel every bit as emotionally satisfying as they are intellectually rewarding. It’s no surprise the series earned recognition from The New York Times as one of television’s best international dramas. If Broadchurch remains your gold standard for thoughtful crime television, Unforgotten deserves a place at the very top of your watchlist. Every Season Turns a Cold Case Into a Human Drama Image via PBS Masterpiece Unforgotten wisely avoids portraying the victims of crime as mere plot devices. Each new season starts with the familiar discovery of a dead body or skeleton in a run-down building, a chimney, a freezer, or scattered across a marsh; however, these scenes serve as reminders of how a person went missing, that life went on with no answers, and years of pain were frozen in time. The detectives are both investigating crimes and reopening family wounds that have been closed for many years. Rather than immediately introducing obvious suspects, Unforgotten spends its opening episodes following several seemingly unrelated people living perfectly ordinary lives, such as a teacher worrying about work, a politician trying to protect his reputation, someone caring for an aging parent, or someone struggling to keep a marriage together. At first, those storylines seem disconnected enough to belong to different television shows altogether. However, the threads start to interweave, and this process is happening almost unnoticed; each discovery turns what happened before it into something else and shows that coincidences are not what they seem. In the end, it becomes clear that what seemed, at the beginning, to be a simple criminal investigation is about memories, guilt, and the unbearable consequences of past decisions. While most mysteries reserve all surprises for the finale, Unforgotten thrills through the characters’ stories. Each interview brings increasingly unpleasant discoveries, every witness remembers events a little differently, and everyone is protecting someone, including themselves. The pleasure of watching the show comes from seeing the larger emotional picture slowly emerge until every seemingly unrelated storyline clicks into place. It’s One of the Few Procedurals That Never Loses Sight of Its Humanity Image via ITV In the end, it is what makes Unforgotten similar to Broadchurch, even though their stories differ. The two productions don't treat murder as entertainment. What makes the narrative interesting is that the people involved are engaging as well. Every revelation creates an effect because the audience knows what these characters are like and what happened to them. After six seasons, viewers can see something rather stable about this series. Chris Lang wrote every episode, and Andy Wilson directed each season; this guarantees the show will not lose the audience's attention, especially given its slow pace, restrained performances, and the time allowed to elapse in conversations, which viewers appreciate. While Broadchurch made audiences realize that a crime drama can be soul-crushing without losing drama, Unforgotten takes the concept further. Each season reminds viewers that the word "justice" has a complex moral meaning, with the end goal being finding the murderer. In some cases, it means giving the family the answers they thought would never reach them, while in others, it means facing decisions made long ago. Sometimes it is about the act of remembering the victim as a figure with a rich and complicated life beyond the mystery of their death.