LIMITED SERIES PREMIERE: This new 10-part TNT drama, simulcast tonight on TNT and TBS, is a period police and medical mystery story, set in 1890s New York, the same basic time and place as a few other dark-leaning TV dramas presented in recent years. Daniel Bruhl stars as a doctor who’s an “alienist” (a vintage term for a psychologist of sorts, who tried to understand human behavior, however aberrant), Luke Evans plays a sketch artist who documents some mysterious murders of the time, and Dakota Fanning plays a character who’s described as the first female employee of the New York Police Department. Together, in tonight’s pilot, they team up to study a pair of murders that might be connected, in which boys dressing as girls are brutally murdered and butchered. The Alienist looks good, and the period scenery and buildings are persuasively designed – but you could say the same about Deadwood, yet you really, really cared about the characters in Deadwood. So far, not so good with The Alienist – not even close. Based on the 1994 novel by Caleb Carr. For a full review, see David Hinckley's All Along the Watchtower.

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