Latest ‘Mystery’ a Change of Pace

It doesn’t take Sherlock Holmes to deduce that “Mystery!” has changed.

PBS has moved the 22-year-old series from its regular Thursday night slot to Mondays, repositioned it as limited summer programming and made plans to air “Mystery!’s” first American production in November. And although this season’s first installment, “Forgotten,” is indubitably British, it doesn’t much resemble the adventures of Holmes and Dr. Watson, Brother Cadfael or Inspector Morse.

“Forgotten” is not so much a traditional whodunit as it is a psychological thriller, in three parts, the first of which airs tonight at 9 on KCET and KVCR. You know it is going to be different from its stiff-upper-lip predecessors early on, when Ben Turner (Paul McGann) and his lovely wife Natalie (Zara Turner) engage in some passionate snogging. Rather than a period piece, it is set in the late 1990s, in the rolling countryside of the Cotswolds, in the quaint village of Brompton-on-the-Water.

During a festival, young Katie Longden disappears, only to be found strangled with a jump rope. Chief Inspector Paris (Kathryn Howden)--who speaks with a lilt reminiscent of Mrs. Doubtfire and, though younger, resembles her a wee bit too--takes on the case.

Yet, to assume that “Forgotten” closely follows Paris’ investigation, as many other mysteries might, would be a miscalculation. Instead, the series focuses on Ben, who, coincidentally or not, served a prison sentence for the strangulation of a young girl with a jump rope 20 years prior. He’s since faked his own death, changed his name and built an idyllic life with the wife and daughter (Karis Copp) he adores.

Yet he cannot escape his past, as embodied by Rachel Monroe (Amanda Burton), mother of the first child killed. Rachel checks in to the Turners’ B&B;, demanding, with a fervor bordering on psychosis, that Ben tell her where her daughter’s body is buried.

“Forgotten” is full of twists and turns, but it ends rather inelegantly. Here’s hoping that in two seasons’ time, “Mystery!” won’t meet the same fate, due to lack of funding.