Unforgotten Season 7 Is on the Way: Everything We Know About the Hit British Crime Drama

There are some crime dramas that seem to get louder and bigger with every season. Unforgotten has always gone in the other direction.

Since arriving on British television in 2015, the ITV series has built its reputation around old crimes, quiet conversations, careful police work and ordinary people who have spent years living with secrets.

There are no flashy detectives racing around London or elaborate villains leaving clues behind. Instead, a set of human remains is found, a cold case is reopened, and gradually a group of people who appear to have absolutely nothing in common are pulled into the same investigation.

It has turned out to be a formula viewers really like, and more than a decade after the first episode aired, Unforgotten remains one of ITV’s biggest returning dramas, and there is plenty more to come. All episodes are also on PBS Masterpiece, if you want to watch from the US.

Season 7 has officially been commissioned, filming began in January 2026, Sanjeev Bhaskar and Sinéad Keenan are back, and ITV has already revealed the basic outline of the next mystery.

So, what do we know about Unforgotten Season 7, and how did the series get to this point?

Unforgotten Season 7 Is Officially Happening

ITV actually confirmed Season 7 back in February 2025, shortly after the sixth season began airing in the UK, and to be fair, the decision was not particularly surprising once the viewing figures started arriving.

The opening episode of Season 6 eventually reached a peak audience of 7.4 million after 14 days, while ITV later said the season launched to 9.2 million viewers and averaged 8.5 million across its run. According to the broadcaster, it became the biggest returning drama of 2025 across UK channels and streaming services.

Filming on Season 7 then officially began in January 2026, with creator Chris Lang once again writing the series and Andy Wilson returning as director. Wilson has directed every season of Unforgotten, giving the show a consistency that is becoming increasingly rare in long-running television drama.

Given that production began in early 2026, there is no confirmed UK premiere date yet. A 2027 broadcast appears possible, but anything more specific for now would be guesswork.

What Is Unforgotten Season 7 About?

We already know considerably more about the next mystery than you might expect.

The season begins when human remains are found hidden in the crawl space of a house in Ladbroke Grove, London. Initial forensic work suggests something particularly disturbing. The remains appear to belong to a child and seem to have been deliberately concealed for several years.

Then the investigation takes another turn. DNA links the victim to a historic case that had previously been closed, forcing Sunny Khan, Jess James and their team to go back over an old police investigation and ask whether something important was missed the first time around.

It sounds very much like classic Unforgotten. Something buried years ago comes back into the present, and people who thought that part of their lives was safely behind them suddenly find the police asking questions.

Sanjeev Bhaskar and Sinéad Keenan Are Returning

The good news is that Sanjeev Bhaskar will once again play DI Sunny Khan, the character who has been at the center of Unforgotten since its first season.

Alongside him will be Sinéad Keenan as DCI Jess James, who joined the drama in Season 5 following the departure of Nicola Walker and initially had the rather difficult task of becoming Sunny’s new boss while both the character and the audience were still dealing with the loss of Cassie Stuart.

The relationship between Jess and Sunny was deliberately awkward at first, but over Seasons 5 and 6 that changed. The pair slowly learned how the other worked, and by Season 6 there was noticeably more trust between them, with their working relationship becoming increasingly in sync as the latest case progressed.

Why Did Nicola Walker Leave Unforgotten?

Anyone who has not reached Season 4 yet should probably skip this section, because one of the biggest moments in the show’s history is impossible to discuss without spoilers.

For the first four seasons, Nicola Walker starred alongside Sanjeev Bhaskar as DCI Cassie Stuart.

Cassie and Sunny became one of British television’s most popular detective partnerships, but Season 4 ended with Cassie’s death following a car crash, which was a major change for a series built so heavily around its two lead characters.

Thankfully, Nicola Walker did not leave Unforgotten because of a row, another job, or because ITV wanted to replace her. Her exit was a planned creative decision made with writer and creator Chris Lang.

Lang later explained that he and Walker had been talking about Cassie Stuart’s eventual departure as far back as Season 3. They both felt that Cassie’s story should come to an end with Season 4 rather than keep the character going indefinitely.

Walker has also said that the decision was closely tied to what the job was doing to Cassie. Across the first four seasons, viewers watched Cassie become increasingly affected by the cases she investigated.

By Season 4, she had already suffered badly from the emotional strain of the work and did not really want to return to the police. She only went back because she needed to complete a few more months of service to receive her full pension.

Walker later described the thinking behind the exit by saying that Cassie was “not a superhero” and that she and Lang had always discussed the character’s overall story arc.

That is also why they chose such a final ending. Lang said they could have written Cassie out in a way that allowed her to return one day, but neither he nor Walker felt that was right. He wanted Season 5 to force Unforgotten into something different rather than leave open the option of simply bringing its old partnership back.

Rather than replacing Cassie immediately with someone designed to copy her, Chris Lang took a different approach. Sinéad Keenan’s Jess James arrived in Season 5 with a completely different personality and her own troubled home life.

Where Can You Watch Unforgotten?

UK viewers can currently find Seasons 1 through 6 on ITVX and STV Player.

For American viewers, Unforgotten is shown as part of PBS MASTERPIECE, with episodes also available through PBS and the PBS app. ITV has already confirmed that Season 7 will once again be broadcast and streamed in the United States through MASTERPIECE.

For anyone who has somehow missed the series until now, that leaves plenty of episodes to catch up on before Sunny opens another file.

Season 7 may still be some way off, but the important part is settled. Unforgotten is coming back, its regular team is returning, and another long-buried crime is waiting for them.