First Look: ‘The Alienist’ Series Starring Daniel Bruhl and Luke Evans

The Alienist Star Daniel Bruhl
Daniel Brühl stars in TNT’s ‘The Alienist’

TNT is bringing Caleb Carr’s critically acclaimed, award-winning bestseller The Alienist to the small screen as a new series and the network’s just released the first trailer for the much-anticipated series. Black Mirror‘s Jakob Verbruggen is directing and Cary Fukunaga (True Detective), Eric Roth (Forrest Gump), Hossein Amini (Drive), E. Max Frye (Foxcatcher), Steve Golin, and Rosalie Swedlin executive producing.

The psychological thriller stars Daniel Brühl (Rush), Luke Evans (The Girl on The Train), Dakota Fanning (American Pastoral), and Brian Geraghty (The Hurt Locker). The cast also includes Douglas Smith (Miss Sloane), Matthew Shear (Mistress America), Matt Lintz (Pixels), Robert Wisdom (The Wire), and Q’orianka Kilcher (The New World).

The Plot: The Alienist is set in the Gilded Age of New York City in 1896, a city of vast wealth, extreme poverty and technological innovation. When a series of haunting, gruesome murders of boy prostitutes grips the city, newly appointed police commissioner Theodore Roosevelt calls upon criminal psychologist (aka alienist) Dr. Laszlo Kreizler (Brühl) and newspaper reporter John Moore (Evans) to conduct the investigation in secret. They are aided by a makeshift crew of singular characters, among them the intrepid Sara Howard, a young secretary on Roosevelt’s staff who is determined to become the first female police detective in New York City. Using the emerging disciplines of psychology and early forensic investigation techniques, this band of social outsiders tracks down one of New York City’s first serial killers.