Joe Penhall has created an incredible new series with producers Fincher, Theron, Donen and Chaffin. "Mindhunter" is based on a book written by a former member of the FBI, John E Douglas, with author Mark Olshaker, the series is an intense look at early criminal profiling.

John E Douglas and Mark Olshaker

John E Douglas and his partner Robert Ressler (deceased 2013) were part of the FBI Behavioral sciences team in the early 1970's. Up until then, crime had largely been solved by answering the questions Who? and Why? In other words, crimes of passion, people caught in armed robberies; solvable crimes as most were usually motivated by greed, anger or both.

Then something changed. The series does not explore the change, but rather the people who changed it.

In order to pick and choose from the tome "Mind hunter; Inside the FBI's Elite Serial Crime Unit", the producers have created two characters, Bill Tench (Holt McCallany) and Holden Ford (Jonathan Groff) who are loosely based on the two FBI agents that John E Douglas's book features, himself and his partner, Robbert Ressler. By creating two imaginary characters rather than sticking to the non-fictional book, the producers have left themselves space for artistic license allowing for character development and storylines, in a way that is not constrained by the book on which the series is based.

This is not just another Blood And Gore policing series.

Yes, there is some blood and gore but the focus is not on the actual crime but rather on the perpetrators and their motivations. It is not about the rhyme, it is more about the reason. As real-life crime shifted from understandable motivations such as greed and passion, the police had no way of solving crimes in the more modern world in which victims appeared to be selected at random.

Motivations had shifted and there were no tools with which to solve these new criminal acts.

Dr. Ann Wolbert Burgess

The real-life work done by Dr.

Ann Wolbert Burgess, a prominent college professor who worked with John Douglas and the FBI, not only in the study of what makes people into abusers and murderers but also how to counsel surviving victims. Dr. Burgess was instrumental in assisting with the procurement of grants for their research to continue and together as a team, they began to develop systems and knowledge for profiling. Represented in the series as the character Dr. Wendy Carr, Anna Torv who plays the part is nothing short of brilliant.

"Mindhunter" is a fascinating series and is literally the story of the mind games behind serial killers. It is more about what makes people crazy as opposed to the crazy things people do. Do not miss this one.
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