Unsolved Mysteries Viewing Guide: How Many Episodes There Are & Where To Watch

Summary Unsolved Mysteries, a long-running series since the late 1980s, has released a total of 607 episodes and specials as of July 2024.

The show has had a turbulent history with various hosts, network changes, and cancelations, yet has remained popular and enduring.

Netflix revived Unsolved Mysteries in 2020 with a new documentary-style format, focusing on single stories per episode for a more immersive experience.

The classic series Unsolved Mysteries is the gift that keeps on giving to cold case and paranormal phenomena fans, with hundreds upon hundreds of episodes to show for and more still yet to come. As its title suggests, the documentary-style TV show created by John Cosgrove and Terry Dunn Meurer explores a range of unexplained cases, from true crime whodunits to supernatural stumpers, and has done so since the late 1980s. In 1987, to be exact, Unsolved Mysteries began as a procession of TV specials before burgeoning into a full-fledged series in 1988, hosted by Emmy-award-winning actor Robert Stack.

The series churned out episodes for nearly four decades - though its run wasn't always easy. Unsolved Mysteries ran through a handful of hosts, encountered periods of low ratings, and survived numerous cancelations and syndications, which saw it hop from network to network across its broadcast history. Yet, the show's endurance throughout has come to prove just how special the mystery documentary is, something that Netflix was aware of when it picked up the series after a decade-long hiatus. Unsolved Mysteries arrived on Netflix in 2020, marking an exciting return for the series and extending its lengthy episode catalog further.

Related 15 Best Unsolved Mysteries Episodes The popular true-crime series Unsolved Mysterious gets viewers thinking about the mysteries presented. Here are the show's best episodes.

607 Of Unsolved Mysteries Have Released (As Of July 2024)

600 Episodes and 7 Specials Across 17 Seasons

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As of July 2024, Unsolved Mysteries has released 600 episodes and seven TV specials, investigating multiple cases within each episode or special. As alluded to before, Unsolved Mysteries commenced as a series of seven NBC television specials, which were presented by Raymond Burr, Karl Malden, and Robert Stack and explored cases, including but not limited to, The Unabomber, the disappearance of Wanda Jean Mays, and the mystery of Beale's treasure. NBC then picked up Unsolved Mysteries as a full-fledged series hosted exclusively by Stack and aired nine seasons from 1988 to 1997.

By the time Netflix was ready to try its hand at reviving Unsolved Mysteries, the series had produced a whopping 581 episodes altogether.

Due to poor ratings, Unsolved Mysteries was canceled at NBC after season 9, which started a vicious cycle of broadcast difficulties and the efforts of numerous networks to revive the series. CBS, Lifetime, and Spike all tried in some capacity to keep Unsolved Mysteries going. Although the series never lasted more than two years on any post-NBC network, it still generated scores of episodes and explored hundreds of cases. By the time Netflix was ready to try its hand at reviving Unsolved Mysteries, the series had produced a whopping 581 episodes altogether.

Season No. Of Episodes Release Date Network Specials 7 January 20, 1987 NBC 1 28 October 5, 1988 2 31 September 20, 1989 3 33 September 19, 1990 4 37 September 18, 1991 5 35 September 16, 1992 6 33 September 22, 1993 7 30 September 25, 1994 8 30 October 20, 1995 9 27 September 20, 1996 10 6 November 13, 1997 CBS 11 6 April 2, 1999 12 55 July 2, 2001 Lifetime 13 48 June 10, 2002 14 175 October 13, 2008 Spike 15 (Volume 1) 6 July 1, 2020 Netflix 15 (Volume 2) 6 October 19, 2020 16 (Volume 3) 9 October 18, 2022 17 (Volume 4) 5 July 31, 2024

Unsolved Mysteries Moved To Netflix With Season 15 In 2020

Unsolved Mysteries Returned With Some Changes

With Unsolved Mysteries' potential but tumultuous broadcast history in mind, Netflix revived the series within a new format. Whereas previous Unsolved Mysteries seasons typically presented various mysteries per episode and accentuated them with host narrations and dramatized reenactments, Netflix's seasons, or volumes, have been stripped down to a more conservative documentary style. They consist of episodes focused on one story at a time and incorporate interviews over using narrations and reenactments. Netflix's new direction for Unsolved Mysteries unsettled some original series fans, but otherwise the TV show as a whole seems to be faring well on the streaming service.

Stranger Things executive producer Shawn Levy partnered with Cosgrove-Meurer Productions to produce the revived Unsolved Mysteries series on Netflix.

Unsolved Mysteries has maintained itself on Netflix for four volumes since 2020, with a new volume of four episodes set for release in time for Halloween this year (per Variety). The fifth installment comes off the back of Unsolved Mysteries' recently released fourth volume, which inspired the series' current trending status (no. 2 of Netflix's top 10 TV shows in the U.S. today). In the wait for volume 5, viewers can access Unsolved Mysteries' volume 1 through 4 on Netflix and can stream or buy previous seasons of the series on various sites.

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Related 10 Shows To Binge If You Like Unsolved Mysteries True crime fans can't get enough of Netflix's rebooted Unsolved Mysteries. For your next binge-worthy crime series, check out these recommendations.

Where To Watch Past Seasons Of Unsolved Mysteries

Unsolved Mysteries Is Available On Multiple Streaming Sites

Though Netflix now helms the series, the streaming service doesn't have Unsolved Mysteries seasons other than the volumes it produced available for streaming. Viewers will have to look to other sites and streaming services for episodes that predate Netflix's revival, and even then, it's hard to find every episode from seasons 1 through 14 accounted for and available to watch, rent, or buy. It's not unusual for series of Unsolved Mysteries' age or length to have inaccessible episodes for many reasons, such as a platform's rights to the series or episodes' suitability for streaming.

That said, as of this writing, Tubi, Pluto TV, Xumo Play, The Roku Channel, and Prime Video offer limited episodes of Unsolved Mysteries seasons 1 through 12 for free. Streaming service Plex also offers limited episodes from seasons 1 through 12 for free but has an array of episodes from season 14 to stream as well. Additionally, if interested, viewers can shop from a selection of Unsolved Mysteries episodes for $1.99 per episode on Apple TV and Google Play.

Source: Variety, Netflix