THE best thing about being stuck indoors for an entire day due to inclement weather is the guilt-free TV binging – and Mindhunter provided a welcome distraction to ex-hurricane Ophelia on Monday.
Netflix's new10-part crime show explores how, in the 1970s, the FBI finally got to grips with America's rather worrying propensity for producing sadistic psycho-sexually motivated multiple murderers like the Zodiac killer and David 'Son of Sam' Berkowitz – or "sequence killers", as Mindhunter's straight-laced young G-man Holden Ford (Jonathon Groff) initially labels them.
Ford recognises that the FBI and the wider US law enforcement community are failing to spot such 'unconventional' murderers. To correct this, he believes they must attempt to pick the warped brains of 'sequence killers' (I don't think it's going to stick, do you?) already in custody.
Thus, he and his older, more sceptical partner Bill Tench (Holt McCallany) are soon out on the road conducting chilling yet illuminating prison interviews with captured crazies and encountering freshly committed murders which may be simpatico with their emerging new criminal 'profile'.
Based on the best-seller memoirs of FBI profilers John R Douglas and Robert Ressler, Mindhunter is an engrossing, well acted period piece with its roots in the most disturbing real-life crimes of the late 20th century.
David Fincher brings his signature stylish film-making skills to bear on four episodes of this slow-burning and hugely atmospheric series, which feels very much like televisual companion to the Seven director's other superb serial killer movie Zodiac.
Get stuck in(doors) today.
All 10 episodes available now via Netflix.com
