• by Adam Buckman , Featured Columnist, July 17, 2020

So many TV shows come along one after the other that all seem to cover the same old ground.

Among the categories that come to mind: Police procedurals whose stories are invariably about exotic serial killers, family sitcoms that are invariably about the mundane lives of ordinary people, and workplace comedies in which every employee is eccentric, or worse, crazy.

Against this backdrop of dreary sameness comes “The Alienist,” which stands out because it stands alone. It is a police drama, to be sure. And it also happens to tell stories about serial killers.

But this show is about crime and crime investigators in 1890s New York. It is not the same old thing. 

“The Alienist” returns this coming Sunday night (July 19) for only its second season after an absence of more than two years (Season 1 ended in March 2018).

This time around, it has a subtitle -- “Angel of Darkness” -- reflecting a new story in which, once again, children are the victims of an unknown killer. 

In this manner, this stark and violent TV series cannot possibly achieve mass appeal. In Season 1, the killer preyed on underage boys involved in the city’s seamy sex trade. 

This season, the killer goes even younger -- kidnapping and murdering babies. Ordinarily the TV Blog would dismiss such lurid fare, but “The Alienist” is produced at such a high level that it cannot easily be dismissed.

In Season Two (as in Season One), the Alienist of the title is still the behavioralist Dr. Lazlo Kreizler played by Daniel Bruhl. 

And yet the emphasis seems to have shifted slightly to Sara Howard, the plucky (now former) policewoman played by Dakota Fanning, who is seen in Season Two running her own all-female detective agency.

She is the one who first becomes involved in this new storyline when the tearful wife of a Spanish diplomat hires her agency to find her missing baby. 

Once again, the scientific methods that Sara and Lazlo rely on to investigate their cases are frowned upon by the NYPD, which seems to revel in its backwardness.

Naturally, they are not too keen on lady detectives either. In fact, the status of women in the society of 1897 New York seems also to be a theme of the second season of “The Alienist.”

In Episode One, women -- with Sara Howard at the forefront -- lodge a protest to try and prevent the execution of a young woman convicted of killing her infant child.

Despite its darker aspects, “The Alienist” is a pleasure to watch. The producers have apparently worked hard to evoke a world no longer here, and their hard works pays off.

When you watch “The Alienist,” you feel transported to a different time, and to a place that is different but also strangely familiar.

“The Alienist: Angel of Darkness” premieres Sunday (July 19) at 9 p.m. Eastern on TNT.