‘Alienist’ alienates with suffocating atmosphere
PASADENA, Calif. — Based on the 1994 book by Caleb Carr, TNT’s “The Alienist” (9 p.m. Jan. 22) proves itself a period thriller in love with atmosphere. So. Much. Atmosphere.
Too much in the pilot gets short shrift at the expense of the show’s love affair with mood. Snow covers streets and then disappears in a scene set moments later; foreboding dialogue comes off as too on the nose.
When heroic Dr. Laszlo Kreizler (Daniel Bruhl, “Rush”) chases a suspect into an attic, he stops dead in his tracks. Is it fear? Maybe. But it mostly seems like Kreizler dillydallies his way across the attic at the slowest imaginable pace just so “The Alienist” can wallow in its dark broodiness.
To be sure, the production design is lush and detailed, immersing viewers in 1896 New York City. In the first hour it’s also quite gory as the camera zooms into the eye socket of the body of a dead child and lingers on the bloodied, oozing face of a syphilitic prisoner who bangshis head against his cell wall.
Kreizler is the show’s title character, an expert in treating mental pathologies in people who have become “alienated from their own nature,” aka an alienist, or what we would call a criminal profiler. He’s assisted by old college friend John Moore (Luke Evans), an illustrator for The New York Times, and police secretary Sara Evans (Dakota Fanning), the first woman to work for the New York police department. Their first case involves the murder of a boy prostitute, found dead and dressed like a girl.
By the second episode, Kreizler has assembled his dream team of investigators while Moore has some uncomfortable, intentionally ambiguous moments at the boy prostitute brothel.
The period and police investigation angle brings to mind the 201213 two-season BBC America drama “Copper,” set 30 years earlier in Manhattan. TNT’s series, call it “CSI: Gilded Age,” is more focused on a single case using then-new investigative techniques (fingerprints!).
Episode two shakes off the unsavory visuals and moves the story and character relationships forward with less emphasis on the heaviness that hangs over the first hour, but by then, some viewers will have moved on.
Making ‘The Alienist’
Mr. Carr’s novel has been developed as a media property before, beginning as a movie project before jumping over to TV.
Filmed in Budapest, this “limited series’” first season covers the entirety of Mr. Carr’s book.
“We’re able to tell the story of ‘The Alienist’ start to finish, this book, in 10 hours,” Ms. Fanning said at a TNT press conference during the Television Critics Association winter press tour. “It’s a beginning and a satisfying end. I think that there could be the potential to do [another season], 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.”
Kept/canceled
NBC renewed “Ellen’s Game of Games” for a second season.
TBS ordered two additional seasons of “Full Frontal With Samantha Bee” and “American Dad” and renewed “Snoop Dogg Presents The Joker’s Wild” and “Drop the Mic” for second seasons.
Hulu canceled the Hugh Laurie drama “Chance” after two seasons.
Channel surfing
ABC’s 1990s-set “Goldbergs” spinoff got passed over last May and failed to get a series pickup but the pilot will air as an episode of “The Goldbergs” at 8 p.m. Wednesday. … PBS’s “Masterpiece” and BBC One will co-produce a six-part adaptation of Victor Hugo’s “Les Miserables” — not a musical version — written by Andrew Davies (“Mr. Selfridge”) and starring Dominic West (as Jean Valjean), David Oyelowo (as Javert) and Lily Collins (as Fantine). … TNT gave a green light to a series adaptation of the movie “Snowpiercer” starring Jennifer Connelly and Daveed Diggs. … HBO signed journalist Ronan Farrow, who reported on sexual assault allegations against Harvey Weinstein for The New Yorker last fall, to an exclusive three-year deal. … CBS’s “Elementary” returns for a new season at 10 p.m. April 30 and “Code Black” is back at 10 p.m. May 2. … George Clooney will star in, write and direct a closeended six-episode adaptation of “Catch-22” for Hulu.
A portion of this column originally appeared online. Post-Gazette TV writer Rob Owen is attending the Television Critics Association winter press tour. Follow RobOwenTV at Twitter or Facebook. You can reach him at 412-263-2582 or rowen@post-gazette.com.