Unsolved: The Murders of Tupac and The Notorious B.I.G.

[Unsolved] manages to permeate the layers upon layers of conspiracy theory, mythology and true crime intrigue that still envelops the unsolved crimes, with a painstaking recall of key events. With compassion and respect for the victims of these crimes, they explore what may have happened, and the results are intriguing, especially if you've followed the case over the decades.

While Unsolved isn’t quite as slick and incisive as that FX series [American Crime Story: The People v. O.J. Simpson], it is an absorbing, provocative, and extraordinarily well-acted work of television that takes a narrative approach just novel enough to make you feel like you’re seeing these long-cold cases through fresh eyes.

Where all this ends up, you already know. But at least Unsolved does a good job of making you care about the failure. Engaging, interesting, watchable.

Long and Hemingway take a lot of chances with Unsolved, and sometimes come dangerously close to confusing their audience. But their collective drive pays off. Even if we don’t always know where we’re going, the ride is never less than exciting and challenging.

In the end, despite its the ungainly amount of information it tries to unload and parse, for reasonably long stretches, Unsolved has the propulsive energy and stylish pop of a pretty good nighttime soap. But it’s one that, to its credit, never loses sight of the untimely deaths that brought this whole complicated story to life.

Free of fact-checking chores, Unsolved does fine by luring viewers along as a decently written and well-acted crime procedural, as Kading and his crew chase new and old leads that both affirm and contradict the work that Poole and others did a decade earlier.

Unsolved is a surprisingly entertaining watch. It’s not as thematically dense as “ACS” but it’s incredibly watchable--I busted through the seven episodes sent for review in a sitting and was totally engaged. Watching in a single chunk reveals some tonal inconsistencies and the structure of the show will be too frustrating for some viewers--there are also some regrettable decisions to soften the rappers’ realities to heighten their legacies--but the performances here are uniformly strong and the mystery around these two murders remains fascinating all these years later.

Unsolved is equal parts appealingly pulpy and workmanlike, sometimes paced like a procedural and sometimes like a prestige drama.

The absence of justice crackles with real-world energy, but the show lacks a dramatic center, cycling through musical-biopic hagiography and procedural-miniseries dullness.

A cut above NBC’s ultimately disappointing “Law & Order True Crime: The Menendez Murders” but not quite on par with FX’s “American Crime Story.”

Unsolved wants to bring a "True Detective"-like approach to these sensational cases, and winds up feeling more like the latest miniseries version of "Law & Order." That's not necessarily a bad thing, but there's an earnest banality to this USA network limited series, which tackles the story largely from a law-enforcement perspective, while operating on three separate planes.

The adaptation never feels too reverential in any timeline, nor does the 90s setting ever feel like it’s being seen through all-knowing hindsight. It’s fresh and very grounded, and there is a clear desire by its creators to deliver as complete a picture as possible of the lead-up to the crimes and the mismanagement of the investigation. But there are too many creative visions here, and too many different stories to tell, and every time we leave a timeline behind--particularly if Poole or Tupac are involved--it’s frustrating.

Not ambitious enough to break the mold but generically effective while fitting within it, Unsolved isn’t all that it could be or enough of what it should be.

Sprawling and messy, Unsolved is ambitious and boasts a deep ensemble featuring a wide assortment of TV's finest character actors. It's also full of lead-eared dialogue and repetitive plotting and, for a series with music at its center, has a near-crippling lack of music from its two title figures. So as often as Unsolved is compelling and entertaining, it's also infuriating.