If you enjoyed Netflix's Mindhunter, and how that series explored the late-1970s roots of FBI behavior profiling for serial killers, then your next big TV addiction/obsession just might be TNT's upcoming macabre event series, The Alienist - based on Caleb Carr’s award winning bestseller.
Starring Captain America: Civil War's Daniel Brühl, Beauty and the Beast's Luke Evans and The Twilight Saga's Dakota Fanning, The Alienist - which premieres January 22nd at 9/8c - transports us back to 1896 New York when nobody believed that such a thing as serial killers even existed. Controversial "Alienist" Dr. Laszlo Kreizler (Brühl) uses then-controversial methods to track down a ritualistic killer targeting boy prostitutes in the city's underbelly.
Check out the trailer for TNT's The Alienist...
The stars and producers of the limited series appeared recently at the Television Critics Association Winter Press Tour for a quick preview and Q&A panel. "All our characters start off as sort of societal outcasts," explained executive producer Rosalie Swedlin, "and all of them, to use the appropriate word, are alienated in some way or another from the life in which they’ve grown up. Or, in the case of Dr. Kreizler, his family immigrated to the United States. They start off just being loners, outcasts."
As for Brühl, it wasn't just the dark, sinister subject matter that attracted him to the project - although that didn't hurt. "I've always loved the darkness," he said. "Even when I was a teenager, I read Edgar Allen Poe and Jekyll and Hyde and Sherlock Holmes and whatnot. I read this book almost with a torchlight under the blanket and I was so fascinated by it. But it’s not only that. It was a history lesson for me as in the history of New York at the time, probably the most fascinating city in the world, the exploding melting pot. A history lesson about corruption, about politics - still incredibly current."
"I think people who love historical fiction, people who love great procedurals, people who love the novel, and people who love elevated drama, who watch Masterpiece Theatre - there's something for everyone here" added Swedlin, speaking to how the series contains, within it, real historical figures like (a young) Teddy Roosevelt, lJ.P. Morgan, and gangsters Bill Ellison and Paul Kelly.
The Alienist has been in development ever since the book came out back in 1994 - but as a feature film. Once the decision was made to turn it into 10-episodes of TV, years of attempts finally became reality. "Now we’re able to tell the story of The Alienist start to finish, this book, in ten hours," star Dakota Fanning stated. "And that’s what this is. It’s a beginning and a satisfying end. I think that there could be the potential to do it again, and I think I can safely speak for everyone in saying that we would love to. But I think we’re happy to have completed the story of The Alienist for now."
Additional reporting by Terri Schwartz.
Matt Fowler is a writer for IGN and a member of the Television Critics Association (TCA). Follow him on Twitter at @TheMattFowler and Facebook at Facebook.com/MattBFowler.