In the 19th Century, the mentally ill were thought to be alienated from their own nature. Experts who studied them were known as alienists.
The Alienist is an upcoming American drama television series on TNT and it is based on the best-selling 1994 novel of same name by Caleb Carr.
The psychological thriller drama is set in New York City in 1896 and The Alienist begins with the horrifying discovery of a mutilated body of a young boy in women’s clothing. An underage prostitute in a brothel catering to a wealthy clientele with illicit appetites, the immigrant victim is too poor to be of interest to the police no matter how grotesque the nature of his death.
Dr. Laszlo Kreizler (Daniel Bruhl), a criminal psychologist—aka alienist—in the newfangled study of people “alienated from their natures,” begins to believe this murder is part of a string committed by the same disturbed perpetrator.
He forms a gumshoe team that comes to include New York Times illustrator John Moore (Luke Evans), a rising police commissioner named Theodore Roosevelt (Brian Geraghty) and wealthy proto-feminist Sara Howard (Dakota Fanning), who is a headstrong secretary at the Police Headquarters.
Starring Daniel Brühl (Rush), Dakota Fanning (The Runaways), Luke Evans (Beauty and The Beast 2017), Matt Lintz (Pixels), Martin McCreadie (Transformers: The Last Knight), Matthew Shear (The Boy Downstairs), Douglas Smith (Vinyl), and David Wilmot (Black Sails).
The 10-episode series premieres on TNT on January 22 at 9pm EST.
