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The Alienist (TV series)

2018 American television period drama TV series

Manuscripts, fine bindings, an engraving plate and preserved performance ephemera
Arts and lettersInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionAug 11, 2026
Entity authorityQ27988195
Source-derived summary

The Alienist is an American period crime drama–thriller television series based on the 1994 novel by Caleb Carr. The series stars Daniel Brühl, Luke Evans, and Dakota Fanning as an ad hoc team assembled in mid-1890s New York City to investigate a serial killer who is murdering street children. It incorporates both fact and fiction by including the characters that are historical figures, such as Theodore Roosevelt, who held the post of police commissioner from 1895 to 1897. The ten-episode limited series aired on TNT from January 21, 2018, to March 26, 2018. In August 2018, TNT ordered a sequel series based on the 1997 follow-up novel The Angel of Darkness. The second season, titled The Alienist: Angel of Darkness, premiered on July 19, 2020, and aired through August 9, 2020.

Premise

The first season is set in 1896, when a series of gruesome murders of boy prostitutes has gripped New York City. Newly appointed police commissioner Teddy Roosevelt calls upon Dr. Laszlo Kreizler, a criminal psychiatrist, and John Moore, a newspaper illustrator, to conduct the investigation in secret. Joining them in the probe is Sara Howard, Roosevelt's headstrong secretary, as well as twin brothers Marcus and Lucius Isaacson, both detective sergeants in the New York City Police Department (NYPD).

Editorial summary

“The Alienist (TV series)” enters the record as 2018 American television period drama TV series. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Alienist, series and American can confirm, complicate or overturn.

Editorial reviewBest approached as a cultural-object dossier: authorship and date matter, but circulation and reception often explain the wider significance. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1994, 1895, 1897, 2018—that can be checked directly. The selected authority fields contribute no independent date. Its strongest next move is a source search built around Alienist, series and American.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

“The Alienist (TV series)” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Alienist, series and American provides the most credible route into that argument.

Evidence profile

Object files, edition statements, performance records and contemporary criticism preserve different stages of the work’s history. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 11, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q27988195. The first chronological checks are 1994, 1895, 1897 and 2018.

Critical limits

Rights, attribution and provenance may remain disputed even when a general reference summary presents a stable account. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Separate the work, its editions or performances, and its later reception. Catalogue records, publication histories and object files often preserve different parts of that story.

Best used for
  • Identifying works and editions
  • Tracing reception history
  • Finding collection records
Verify next

The original object or edition, catalogue raisonné, performance record, rights file and holding institution.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “The Alienist (TV series)”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow The Alienist (TV series) primary sources, The Alienist (TV series) archive and Alienist research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “The Alienist (TV series)”?
  2. How did later circulation or interpretation alter the work’s reception?
  3. Where is authorship, date or provenance documented?
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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from The Alienist (TV series)” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.