History YMMV / UnsolvedMysteries

** The "Unexplained" segments which profiled stories about possible ghosts, UFO sightings and religious experiences[[note]]Bob Stack was raised Catholic and the show did many pieces about Catholic saints, visions and folklore[[/note]] tend to be among the most controversial. Much of the fanbase thinks they were the most interesting part of the show, while others find them wacky and ridiculous, expressing annoyance that these segments took up valuable airtime that could have been used to help find a missing person or solve a murder case. Nevertheless, there are plenty of viewers who enjoy the paranormal stories, enough to warrant the production of special DVD boxsets devoted exclusively to them.

* RetroactiveRecognition: Creator/MatthewMcConaughey, Creator/DanielDaeKim, Creator/HillHarper, [[Series/CurbYourEnthusiasm Cheryl Hines]], Creator/JamiesonPrice, Creator/DougJones, and [[Series/MadTV Stephanie Weir]] all made early appearances on the show.

* IdiotPlot:
** Jim Boumgarten. This segment revolves around a man who has a doppelganger living in the same city. He keeps getting mistaken by his townspeople for this "twin." Jim wants to know who this person is, so he decides to go on national TV to get to the bottom of this curious mystery...instead of just asking one of his neighbors who they were mistaking him for. It is still debated as to whether this was a gag segment.
** In the minds of viewers anyway, with missing persons or murders it's often very obvious if one of the interviewees is the guilty party and it will be questioned how they haven't been arrested and charged yet. This goes for many cases where the suspected party was the last one to see the person alive, they've changed their story of what happened, and/or they acted in a suspicious manner after the crime happened. Sometimes mitigated when the investigators on the case state they know who ''probably'' did it, but lack enough solid evidence to press charges.
*** The disappearances of Wendy Camp, Cynthia Britto, and Lisa Kregear. Wendy slipped into a coma during childbirth and her husband Chad divorced her, and custody of her newborn son Jonathan went to Beverly, her mother-in-law. When Beverly came out of her coma, re-married, and was granted visitation rights, Beverly spent months avoiding letting her see Jonathan, until the day she ''invited'' Wendy for a visit -- Beverly refused to let her new husband come and was upset that Wendy brought her sister and her daughter from a previous marriage. The three went missing that day and Beverly claimed she had dropped them off at a shopping center last she saw them. The [=YouTube=] upload of the segment includes an update that their remains were found buried on property owned by Beverly's brother, along with a knife and gun; just from reading the description of the case, this should not come as a surprise. Beverly's family also complained they have no idea how Chad's mother got custody of Jonathan when neither Wendy, her parents, nor Chad signed off on it, and custody was never taken away from Beverly after she repeatedly ignored court orders to let Wendy see her son.
** [[https://unsolvedmysteries.fandom.com/wiki/Rae_Ann_Mossor The death of Rae Ann Mossor]]. Simply put, the police ruled it a suicide based on her boyfriend's account (he was with her at the time). Not only was the shotgun found in his trunk, but as the family repeatedly demonstrated by calling their own experts to look at the case, it is simply '''impossible''' for her to have shot herself in the chest with the shotgun in the manner that she was found. Little wonder there's speculation if there was a cover up to protect the boyfriend for whatever reason.

** Many viewers, especially the younger ones, watched the show almost solely for its segments on the Unexplained, which were strange and fascinating enough to [[NightmareFuel/UnsolvedMysteries lead directly into...]] The current distributors of the show are even fully aware of this trope and have published several "best of" [=DVDs=] with nothing but the fantastical mysteries like paranormal events and lost treasures.

*** The disappearances of Wendy Camp, Cynthia Britto, and Lisa Kregear. Wendy slipped into a coma during childbirth and her husband Chad divorced her, and custody of her newborn son Jonathan went to Beverly, her mother-in-law. When Beverly came out of her coma, re-married, and was granted visitation rights, Beverly spent moths avoiding letting her see Jonathan, until the day she ''invited'' Wendy for a visit -- Beverly refused to let her new husband come and was upset that Wendy brought her sister and her daughter from a previous marriage. The three went missing that day and Beverly claimed she had dropped them off at a shopping center last she saw them. The [=YouTube=] upload of the segment includes an update that their remains were found buried on property owned by Beverly's brother, along with a knife and gun; just from reading the description of the case, this should not come as a surprise. Beverly's family also complained they have no idea how Chad's mother got custody of Jonathan when neither Wendy, her parents, nor Chad signed off on it, and custody was never taken away from Beverly after she repeatedly ignored court orders to let Wendy see her son.

* BrokenBase: The "Unexplained" segments which profiled stories about possible ghosts, UFO sightings and religious experiences[[note]]Bob Stack was raised Catholic and the show did many pieces about Catholic saints, visions and folklore[[/note]] tend to be among the most controversial. Much of the fanbase thinks they were the most interesting part of the show, while others find them wacky and ridiculous, expressing annoyance that these segments took up valuable airtime that could have been used to help find a missing person or solve a murder case. Nevertheless, there are plenty of viewers who enjoy the paranormal stories, enough to warrant the production of special DVD boxsets devoted exclusively to them.

* BrokenBase: The "Unexplained" segments which profiled stories about possible ghosts, UFO sightings and religious experiences[[note]]Bob Stack was raised Catholic and the show did many pieces about Catholic saints, visions and folklore[[/note]] tend to be among the most controversial. Much of the fanbase thinks they were the most interesting part of the show, while others find them wacky and ridiculous, expressing annoyance that these segments wasted valuable airtime that could have been used to help find a missing person or solve a murder case. Nevertheless, there are plenty of viewers who enjoy the paranormal stories, enough to warrant the production of special DVD boxsets devoted exclusively to them.

** The Camilla/Cam Lyman story. Born biologically female, Camilla transitioned to a man in the late 1970s and early '80s: he legally changed his name to Cam and apparently underwent hormone treatments as it's mentioned he grew facial hair. Cam would probably be identified as a transgender man if the segment were to air today, yet even in 1999, at the time the segment first aired, Cam was portrayed as an eccentric woman who enjoyed "posing as" a man just because "she" could. The show also described Cam with female pronouns, whereas male pronouns would likely be used today.

** Averted by the 2020 Netflix version, which opted not to use a host out of respect to Stack's memory. [[TheyChangedItNowItSucks Though this created the opposite problem of many longtime fans deeming the show as boring without a narrator.]]

** Averted by the 2020 Netflix version, which opted not to use a host out of respect to Stack's memory. [[UnpleasableFanbase Though this created the opposite problem of many longtime fans deeming the show as boring without a narrator.]]

** Averted by the 2020 Netflix version, which opted not to use a host out of respect to Stack's memory.

* CriticalResearchFailure:
** The sister of Tami Lynn Leppert (who went missing in the 80s) once criticized the UM segment featuring her as they got many facts about her disappearance wrong, from the clothes she was wearing, to the car she was last seen getting into. Her sister also pointed out that Tami was ''pregnant'' at the time of her disappearance, but the re-enactment doesn't mention that. Predictably, when the case was shown again years later during the Dennis Farina era, none of the above mistakes were corrected (the era was fond of reusing the same segments from the original series untouched aside from flashy new effects and transitions).
** Less-than-savory aspects of the lives of some of the murder/missing person stories are also left out, despite the possibility that they could provide information as to who is responsible for their death/disappearance--[[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disappearance_of_Sneha_Anne_Philip Dr. Sneha Philip]] reportedly had a drinking problem and a habit of bar-hopping, either of which could have caused her to meet with foul play, but neither of which is mentioned in the segment.
*** The lengthy piece about the death of Cindy James completely omits the fact that her husband's co-worker, Dr. James Tyhurst, was ''known'' for doing similar things to women and was caught, tried and convicted for it less than two years after Cindy's death. The case was thrown out on appeal. The four women he'd tortured brought civil action. He settled for $500,000 each ''and walked.'' '''He is still out there.'''
** The "Billy the Kid" segment omits the facts that Brushy Bill's own family denied that he was Billy the Kid, and that then-recent computer analyses of photographs of both men called Brushy Bill's claim into question. Additionally, the show regarded Brushy Bill's claimed age (in 1950) of 91 years as an undisputed fact, when his own family maintained that he had been born in 1879, making him 71 at the time of his death (and only two years old when the 21-year-old Billy the Kid was killed).
** The Amy Billig segment left out the fact that a man who has since died confessed to her murder on his deathbed, and that authorities consider the confession credible. This actually was included in the Amazon Prime segment as an update, perhaps since Amy's mother has died and her brother has expressed a desire to move on.

** One segment, titled "Black and Blue", involved an interracial couple (John Elias, who was Black, and Eleanor Platt, who was White), forcibly separated by her parents in TheFifties, who, decades later, were looking for the daughter Eleanor was forced to put up for adoption. (They did find her, thanks to the program, and reunited as friends.) Nowadays, many people, especially parents, would object to the forbidden relationship for a reason entirely unrelated to race -- at the time, he was twenty-nine while she was only seventeen.

** One segment, titled "Black and Blue", involved an interracial couple (John Elias, who was Black, and Eleanor Platt, who was White), forcibly separated by her parents in TheFifties, who, decades later, were looking for the daughter Eleanor was forced to put up for adoption. (They did find her, thanks to the program, and reunited as friends.) Nowadays, many people, especially parents, would object to the forbidden relationship for a reason entirely unrelated to race -- at the time, he was twenty-nine while she was only seventeen. (In earlier times, a wide age gap could be perfectly normal, especially since men were expected to support women and would take their time to build a career and save some money before pursuing marriage and family.)

*** The disappearances of Wendy Camp, Cynthia Britto, and Lisa Kregear. The short version is that Wendy married Chad Noe, and after she slipped into a coma in childbirth he divorced her and his mother Beverly got custody of their son Jonathan. After Wendy came out of her coma and re-married, Beverly spent months avoiding letting her visit Jonathan, until one day she ''invited'' Wendy to a visit. Wendy attended with her sister Lisa and her daughter Cynthia from a previous marriage, something that upset Beverly on the phone (and she flat refused to let her new husband come). The three went missing that day, with Beverly claiming she dropped them off at a shopping center the last time she saw them. The [=YouTube=] upload of the segment includes an update that their remains were found buried on property owned by Beverly's brother, along with a knife and gun; just from reading the description of the case, this should not come as a surprise. Beverly's family also complained they have no idea how Chad's mother got custody of Jonathan when neither Wendy, her parents, nor Chad signed off on it, and custody was never taken away from Beverly after she repeatedly ignored court orders to let Wendy see her son.

*** Speaking of Dottie Caylor, was she really agoraphobic as her husband claimed (note that he's the only one in the segment who claims this about her), or was she being kept isolated by him, as has happened to so many abuses women?

** Quite a few of the missing person mysteries seem to be the result of the person's family being in denial/not wanting to accept that the person is dead.

** In the Tom Kueter case, it's pretty safe to say that he murdered Tina Marcotte and then killed himself a couple days later in a way to look like an accident because the police were close to fingering him as being the murderer. However, his wife contacted Unsolved Mysteries adamant that he was murdered. No killer was ever found and the police eventually concluded the aforementioned when they closed the case in the 2010s.

** Other foster children of the Zelinskis have since come forward and claimed that they weren't the wonderful people that Sharon Stevens portrayed them as in the segment. It has been stated that they were often abusive and neglectful to boys in their custody while they conversely doted on girls.

** One segment, titled "Black and Blue", involved an interracial couple (John Elias, who was black, and Eleanor Platt, who was white), forcibly separated by her parents in TheFifties, who, decades later, were looking for the daughter Eleanor was forced to put up for adoption. (They did find her, thanks to the program, and reunited as friends.) Nowadays, many people, especially parents, would object to the forbidden relationship for a reason entirely unrelated to race -- at the time, he was twenty-nine while she was only seventeen. (In earlier times, a wide age gap could be perfectly normal, especially since men were expected to support women and would take their time to build a career and save some money before pursuing marriage and family.)

* RetroactiveRecognition: Creator/MatthewMcConaughey, Creator/DanielDaeKim, [[Series/CurbYourEnthusiasm Cheryl Hines]], Creator/JamiesonPrice, Creator/DougJones, and [[Series/MadTV Stephanie Weir]] all made early appearances on the show.

** The 2008-2010 Spike TV run, which was basically comprised of ReCut versions of the original episodes, mostly the true-crime segments, with a plethora of unnecessary video/audio effects added, Robert Stack swapped out for Dennis Farina, and the iconic theme song and background music replaced with generic rock tracks. The announcement that they were going to focus on "male-oriented" stories had even male fans snarking on discussion boards.
** The Farina version is despised among most fans of the series as they simply re-aired stories with Farina's tough guy Chicago accent recorded over the preferred spooky Stack narration.
*** It also pointlessly continues to feature stories that were solved years ago from any one of its initial airings on Creator/{{NBC}}, Creator/{{CBS}}, or Creator/{{Lifetime}}.

* JustHereForGodzilla: Many viewers, especially the younger ones, watched the show almost solely for its segments on the Unexplained, which were strange and fascinating enough to [[NightmareFuel/UnsolvedMysteries lead directly into...]]
** The current distributors of the show are even fully aware of this trope and have published several "best of" [=DVDs=] with nothing but the fantastical mysteries like paranormal events and lost treasures.

* SugarWiki/MostWonderfulSound: Anytime Creator/RobertStack said "Update!" It usually meant that a mystery had been solved, or at the very least there was a good strong clue.
** Unless of course, the resolution was a sad one--that a missing person had been found dead, or worse yet, was still missing.

* ReplacementScrappy: Dennis Farina, and really anybody who isn't Robert Stack, who unfortunately died in 2003.
** Strongly averted by Stack (There were narrators before him such as Raymond Burr and Karl Malden) thanks to his haunting narration (adding a certain amount of pathos to what may have been otherwise mundane stories), which was completely different to the other hosts.

* ValuesDissonance: It may be a little jarring to viewers when cases that involve people growing marijuana are treated with the same level of horror by the show as criminals that commit murder, rape, robbery, etc.

* SugarWiki/AwesomeMusic: [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gFuGfwIhv14 The OP]]. Gary Remal Malkin outdid himself. There is built-in MoodWhiplash when combined with the original intro video.

* SugarWiki/CrowningMusicOfAwesome: The [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gFuGfwIhv14 theme song]], which uses the phrygian musical mode to create what is unquestionably one of the creepiest songs in all television history. Go ahead: find it, put it on an [=MP3=] player or [=iPod=], and walk outside at night.
** The originally-aired, [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IXKO5stenYs non-symphonic version]] of the song had some subtle differences...that might have made it even creepier.
*** Also, the [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1VJuzTUB3Zg updated theme from the Lifetime era.]]
** The [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tgdu6NsUQxg ending credits music]] was also extremely haunting. Every single thing about the show's music was awesome, really. Gary Malkin has a long and distinguished career in film scores, [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F88tLNEDerU atmospheric space music]] and jazz, but he'll be remembered for this.
** The show ''itself'' used to acknowledge how awesome its theme music was by including a link to the Lifetime-era remix in their website (keep in mind this was during the 2008-2010 era, when said theme music was replaced by generic rock tracks). The site has since been redesigned.
** Artificial Fear liked it so much he [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2pzUgn6N-So covered it, beautifully]].

* CriticalResearchFailure: The sister of Tami Lynn Leppert (who went missing in the 80s) once criticized the UM segment featuring her as they got many facts about her disappearance wrong, from the clothes she was wearing, to the car she was last seen getting into. Her sister also pointed out that Tami was ''pregnant'' at the time of her disappearance, but the re-enactment doesn't mention that. Predictably, when the case was shown again years later during the Dennis Farina era, none of the above mistakes were corrected (the era was fond of reusing the same segments from the original series untouched aside from flashy new effects and transitions).

** A large number of the stories about adopted children looking for their parents always mention how the kid was often abandoned by their young mother. While being a single teen mother isn't ''ideal'' nowadays, it's not exactly "abandon your child" horrible. In several cases, the children were split up and put in foster care because the parents were ''working'', leaving the oldest to care for siblings. This used to be quite normal.