‘American Crime’ Fans Might Find Their New Favorite Show In ‘The Alienist’

“In the 19th century, the mentally ill were thought to be alienated from their own nature,” the trailer for TNT’s new television show, The Alienist, opens up with. “Experts who studied them were known as alienists.” And they just to happen to be the focus of the 1896-set series based off of the best-selling book by Caleb Carr of the same name.

When “boy whores” start disappearing and getting murdered in New York, criminal psychologist Dr. Laszlo Kreizler (Daniel Brühl) is called on to help track down the serial killer. It's as soon as Sara Howard (Dakota Fanning), a no-BS secretary from the police headquarters, comes into the picture that things start to get interesting though. She’s determined to become the first female police detective in New York City and beware anyone who tries to get in her way.

The executive producer, Cary Fukunaga, was behind True Detective (season one, the good one), and it doesn’t look like he’s straying far from his whodunit roots, much to our relief. Come up with your own theories of who the “cold-blooded killer” is that walks amongst—or maybe beside—the cast when it comes to the small screen “soon!”

Watch the trailer above in the meantime.