Don't waste your time on It.

About three episode in...it is just ok.

Binged it straight through in one weekend (Me and Mr. Sedona had colds)

We're on to Stranger Things Season 2. Also awesome.

Nice to escape the orange shit gibbon.

It makes my wife uncomfortable, so I have to watch solo. It makes me wonder whether a new generation of forensic psychologists will look into domestic terrorism with the same determination as those who began studying serial killers in the late '70s.

It just makes me very uncomfortable.

If you're "very uncomfortable," then the show worked. That's kind of the point, in fact. If you felt uplifted by Kemper's story or Speck's, I'd be inclined to worry about you.

Since the series doesn't actually show the murders, and the murderers are never portrayed as anything but cruel monsters, I don't see how one can claim that the show expects anyone to be "entertained by violence against women."

It's true that the series discusses the killers' childhoods and traumatic experiences, but at no time does anyone claim anything like "these killers are the real victims" or "we shouldn't hold them responsible for their crimes."

If anything, the message is the opposite: despite the traumas of their upbringing, these killers still bear the responsibility for their actions.

I have 3 episodes left but I'm enjoying it. Great acting and well produced. Captures the mood of the late 70s. No car chases or gun fights so that's a great thing!

Very good show. Does a good job at explaining how back-asswards the FBI was in the '70s, and how opposed to new ideas.

But then as it got toward the end, I realized there was so much stuff cribbed from the 1986 film Manhunter (including cinematography, music, plot situations, and even dialogue), that I couldn't tell if it was an overwrought homage, a blatant ripoff, or just mining so many "serial killer movie" tropes that it couldn't help but repeat them.

And the lead actor and his girlfriend are terrible actors. I didn't mind so much at first, because I thought that was just the way their characters were written. But then the Manhunter comparison kept entering my head, and I remembered how kickass William L. Peterson was in a similar role

E.g., the whole "You sound like you're sympathisizing with him" thing, and having to run out of the interview and have a panic attack outside after meeting with the killer. A lot of the music atmospherics were very similar, as well.

The "sounds like you're sympathizing" bit seems fairly generic, not to mention a realistic and natural response, so I'm hesitant to dismiss it as a rip off of any particular work.

Also, I don't know for sure, but if the meeting with Kemper in the hospital and the panic attack actually happened, then you can't really fault the series for dramatizing it.

I can't really comment on the music or atmospheric because I haven't seen Manhunter in years, but I don't recall the music or atmosphere to have been especially striking. Not a big fan of the film, truth be told.


YMMV.

knew what to expect.

I read "Mind Hunter" several years ago. John Douglas is an interesting person, saw him speak at a college hear in Mpls a while back. At one point played a portion of a phone call from Larry Gene Bell to the family of one of his victims. Can't ever unhear that.
I'm glad that made his character kind of a straight laced uptight workaholic jerk, rather than some suave ladies man hero.
The guy they got playing Ed Kemper freaking nails it. The flat affect, the constant little reminders of how intelligent he is etc. chilling.

It is a David Fincher project, so it has his vibe all over it, but Fincher does a good serial killer tale (Se7en, Zodiac,)

I'm also glad they didn't just turn it into a serial killer of the week show.

I've been interested in profiling ever since my friend Tammy Zywicki never made it to campus our senior year.

peace,
Noodleboy

Watched a couple of episodes then thought, meh. What do you think?

I thought it was very well done, but I am troubled watching something about murdering women. It just unsettles me.

At the bookstore I started noticing how many crime fiction and mystery books had images of dead, bloody women on their covers. Really? We have to do that to sell books? It so reflects our misogynist culture.

Just like some fans of Breaking Bad just like watching a 50 year old White guy dominate the meth business over younger Latino men.

Although, on the other hand, I'm becoming more upset by it and starting to change my viewing/reading habits, so I dunno.

The most highly praised drama in the history of television, and one in which the protagonist ruins everything in his life, and you suppose that people watched it as a fantasy fulfillment? Who, exactly?

Obviously there are assholes in any viewership, but come on!

Univision adapted Breaking Bad more or less identically into Metástasis, set in Colombia, so somehow the developers saw more to the story than "middle aged white guy beats younger Latino men."

It's helped me crystallize some theories I have about modern American society. I'm not quite at a point where I'm ready to express those ideas but watching the series really ticked some boxes for me.

Also, I'm jazzed to see Holt McCallany get a good role.