We’ve all sat on our couch at night browsing through Netflix to find something new to watch. We’ve gone through the documentaries, dramas, and comedies, probably only to land on an old favorite, like "Friends," or "The Office." Some nights, however, you might venture into a category on Netflix that is almost bound to be exciting and entertaining – the Netflix original series. In the past few years, Netflix originals have taken the world by storm – everything from "Stranger Things" to "Orange Is The New Black." The shows dominate the Emmy Awards, and often, people will forgo their cable television packages so that they can invest in streaming services. Netflix is always coming out with new shows, it’s most recent being "Mindhunter." This show stars Jonathan Groff, a successful TV and Broadway actor, and it focuses on something that many people still find fascinating to this day – serial killers.

The show takes place in the early 1970’s and is centered around Holden Ford (Jonathan Groff), who begins the series as a tight-laced FBI agent who wants to make the world a better place. He teams up with Bill Tench (Holt McCallany), who is progressive enough to work with Ford, but old-school enough to tell Holden Ford when he’s gone too far. The pair begin research together regarding a new kind of murderer that has come about, sequence killers, as they call them. They travel across the country interviewing killers such as Edmund Kemper, Monte Ralph Rissell, and Jerry Brudos, always getting a little too close for comfort. The goal? To develop a new set of terminology and psychology that can be used to identify serial killers, possibly before they even act.

The show is provoking; Jonathan Groff gives an outstanding performance of a man whose obsession with violent crime drives his actions in all ways. He puts not only his career at risk, but also his personal relationships, his sanity, and his life. Additionally, while Holden’s character is fascinating and dynamic, the surrounding cast is fleshed out both specifically and meaningfully. Anna Torv plays Wendy Carr, the only female member of the team. She is intelligent, independent, and stands up for what she believes in. She’s a feminist ideal – a character that we hardly see on television without them coming off as an overbearing shrew. One of the most enthralling things about the show is not the characters themselves, however, it is their relationships with each other. Here you have a team of drastically different individuals who are all working in the basement of Quantico, trying to get inside the head of the nation’s most heinous murderers. To quote Allison Keene in The Collider, “They were more than co-workers, but something less than friends, and yet, there was a familial shade in their care for one another.” It is almost as captivating to watch the characters interact as it is to find out what was behind the serial killer’s actions.

In addition to the dynamic characters and exciting premise, the structure of the show is quite possibly what makes it so special to watch. It is a procedural in nature – much like other crime shows such as "CSI" or "Criminal Minds." There is a new story to watch every week (a new serial killer to unravel), but there is always a connection to the larger arc, the development of criminal and forensic psychology. It allows the audience to remain engaged at all times, always processing new information, but also allows for personal investment in the characters and their relationships.

It is this convergence of stunning cinematography (there is a surprising lack of gore, it’s almost as if what we don’t see is most impactful), honest acting performances, and a structure that has been proven to work again and again that turns "Mindhunter" from a simple crime series into an enthralling investigation into how humans develop the capacity to take each other’s lives.