Mindhunter released the first season on Netflix this past Friday, and I watched the entire season Friday night - Saturday morning. I really enjoyed it and found the subject matter gripping. I have always had a fascination with how criminal profiling works (not so much that I’ve ever read any books or studied it in any way) and have loved watching it being done in TV and movies.
The show started off a little slow for me (with the exception of the hostage taker blowing his own head off in the first 5 minutes). Once Holden started traveling with Tench I started to see potential. Once the first interview with Kemper took place I knew I was hooked.
I don’t really care for Dr. Carr’s character at all. I started off liking her, but as it became clear she had completely different goals for the project than either Holden or Tench I started liking her less and less. Especially when it became clear that she would throw them under the bus. Also, I really could have done without the love story between Holden and his hippie GF. The relationship portion of the show seemed really slow to me. I did like the aspect of Tench’s family life being difficult for him and the problems he was having with his adopted son.
All in all I really enjoyed the show and am kind of wishing I hadn’t watched it all so quickly. Now I have to wait at least a year for more of it.
I was underwhelmed by the first episode, particularly the dialogue, which struck me as really… dialogue-y. Actors reciting lines at each other rather than real people talking. My wife was ready to bail, but I gave it another shot.
It improved a lot in the second episode, IMO, after they begin interacting with the serial killers. I think we’re about six episodes in, and despite some quibbles, enjoying it. The actor playing Holden doesn’t really stand out in any way, but that seems to be somewhat intentional and suits the character. The hippie girlfriend looks like a Photoshop morph of two or three well-known actresses whom I haven’t quite quite placed yet, which is bugging me.
I binged this show while I was on vacation this week. My husband and I were supposed to watch it together but I sat up one night and accidentally finished the season (sorry honey!).
I enjoyed it. I remember reading Mind Hunter by John Douglas and like that kind of stuff - I find the serial killer books interesting and I enjoy watching them slowly come up with terms we use often now for the different types, etc… I am not sure how I feel about Dr. Carr. I want to like her because I love the actress Anna Torv since she was on Fringe. I don’t think about her throwing them under the bus so much as having a clear goal with the study and no letting the shenanigans of the others get in the way. Debra is… just the worst.
Let’s take a moment to appreciate my favorite character in the show: the blue Chevy Nova. If you don’t like another thing about this show surely you can appreciate the assortment of 70s vehicles shown throughout!
[aside]If you like serial killer series, have you watched Wire in the Blood? Stars Robson Green. I loved it. And him.[/aside]
I watched the first episode of Mindhunter last night, but I bailed halfway through. I’ll watch it sometime, but wasn’t in the mood right now. That’s the beauty of watching streaming shows!
The only way I knew about it was because of the Netflix adds in my FB feed. It seemed to be about every third ad. I guess maybe I was targeted more than you through my FB. Weird…and kind of spooky if something in my feed flicked the “he likes serial killers” switch at Netflix.
Started watching it Fri. night and somehow had finished it by the end of the weekend.
Lead guy started off very wooden and I couldn’t tell if it was his acting, the script or maybe intentional. I’m still not sure but I’ve warmed to him. I very much don’t care for either of the female leads;characters or actresses. The standout, to me, is Tench. I’m not usually that attracted to the cynical cop character but this guy really sends me.
The guy playing Brudos (red haired prisoner) kept reminding me of John Goodman which was distracting. Speaking of red heads, did it seem like a lot of the supporting cast are gingers? <Seinfeld> Not that there’s anything wrong with that, it just struck me that many people had the same general look.
The show kept my interest (obviously) and I’ll watch when / if they put out another season. At the same time, I probably won’t think about it again until then.
mrAru and I started watching it Saturday, we are 5 episodes in.
The actor they found for Kemper is scary-close in looks. I love the interactions they are having with the different killers. I am not fond of Carr, she has her own agenda and I doubt it is ‘pure’ as she keeps wanting to push a book - I know academia is ‘publish or perish’ but the profilers are in it for altruistic reasons, they want to do their jobs better and help the law enforcement agencies work better.
Yes parts of it are slow, but real life is slow. We will probably finish binge watching it this weekend.
A bunch of people whose opinions I value were going on and on about how great it was. I mean, it was ok, but it wasn’t the October Surprise of last year’s Stranger Things. I’ll rewatch it at some point when S2 comes out, but I wasn’t like spending 3 hours on TV Tropes reading and editing entries. If I found out it got canceled tomorrow, it’d be a mild “That’s a shame.” If a new season dropped tomorrow, it’d “Oh, that’s nice.”
There is a second series and possibly a third in the pipeline. I googled.
I really enjoyed it - storytelling, performances, score, visuals everything! I especially liked the attempts of the other directors to out-Fincher Fincher. Man they made everything bare and austere. Washed out colours and flat surfaces everywhere.
I thought the pacing was great. Largely slow slow, but occasionally brisk.
The only thing i felt was clunky was the dialogue when thinking of terms - ’ he’s a sequence killer, no not sequence…another ‘s’ word…’. But I’m happy to let that slide by as it’s better dialogue than any tv show i’ve written.
I like it, but I am fastforwarding through all the relationship nonsense. I don’t give a shit about their home lives. That’s not what makes them interesting. Getting into the heads of killers and solving crimes is all that interesting.
Kinda wish they would stop teasing us with BTK every episode.
Okay, first of all I really enjoyed the show. I didn’t mind the slower pace because I felt I was watching a high quality drama and it had me very interested. Secondly, although I know the FBI agent characters are based upon real people I really didn’t catch on to the serial killers also being from real life. In fact until I read Typo Negative’s comment I didn’t know that was a real-life serial killer being portrayed in the Kansas scenes. (BTK, didn’t even know who that was until now) I thought we were being shown a serial killer in the early stages, not BTK in the midst of his killings. I suppose then the scene where he became frustrated and left was when he was going to kill Anna Williams? (I just learned of this via wiki. Clearly the topic of serial killers isn’t something I’ve looked at in depth before.).
Oh, and thirdly… Anna Torv is the hottest “smart” character on a show since Olivia Moon/Sloan on The Newsroom.
It’s interesting how they portray Ford as such a naïve character. The real person (John Douglas) was an Air Force vet with sniper training when he started working with Robert Ressler. My guess is that they wanted a clearer contrast between Ford and the more grizzled, old-school Tench. Truth be told, I have a hard time keeping Douglas and Ressler straight in real life, so this is probably a good idea.
Reaching the end of the binge, and have enjoyed it very much.
One disconcerting thing for Australian viewers is that Holden Ford is also the names of the two leading competing car manufacturers in Australia, although Holden shut its final production line earlier in October. Its a bit like having a character named Special Agent V.H.S. Betamax or Dr Pepsi Coke M.D.
