Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Mastermind: To Think Like A Killer’ On Hulu, A Docuseries About Dr. Ann Burgess, Whose Methods Changed The Way Serial Killers Were Pursued

Mastermind: To Think Like A Killer is a three-part docuseries, directed by Abby Fuller and produced by Dani Sloane, Dakota Fanning and Elle Fanning, about Ann Burgess, a psychiatric nurse and college professor who pioneered how law enforcement pursues serial killers. Fuller not only gives viewers a biographical look at Burgess and her career, but Dr. Burgess gives a firsthand account of the cases she worked on.

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Opening Shot: We see the feet of a woman pulling back in a chair and sitting down. Then we see her loading paper in a typewriter and typing.

The Gist: Through interviews with Dr. Burgess, her four children, authors and law enforcement experts, as well as reenactments and archival footage, Fuller tells the story of how Dr. Burgess started to change the minds of the male law enforcement establishment, starting with the FBI, when it came to rape, where she interviewed victims, then got into the minds of serial killers by talking to them directly.

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Burgess talks about how she became a psychiatric nurse; nurse was one profession women in the early 1960s regularly got jobs in, but she was one of the few nurses who asked patients how they felt instead of just worrying about their symptoms. She then co-wrote a book about how rape victims are often blamed for the sexual assaults that are inflicted on them, a revolutionary notion at the time. That got the attention of the FBI, who asked her to go to Quantico and lecture recalcitrant male agents on how women aren’t “asking for it” when they get raped, showing them slides of the real injuries rape victims suffer.

She started working with the FBI’s Behavioral Science Unit, specifically agents John Douglas and Rob Ressler. They were interviewing and pursuing serial killers, and Dr. Burgess was interested in interviewing them to see how they were brought up, as well as get them to open up about what feeds their murderous impulses and how they feel after killing someone. We hear audiotapes of interviews with a number of famous serial killers, and we hear about how she assisted on the case of the Ski-Mask Rapist that terrorized women in Louisiana in the early 1980s.

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What Shows Will It Remind You Of? Given the data points Dr. Burgess compiled about various serial killers, we were reminded of the recent series Sasha Reid And The Midnight Order , because Reid has taken the kind of information Burgess compiled 45 years ago and put them in a database to make a more granular analysis.

Our Take: The key to Mastermind is that Dr. Burgess herself is interviewed for the docuseries. It isn’t often when the subject of a biographical docuseries can actually talk to the person who is being examined, and her perspective is invaluable. Her descriptions of how skeptical FBI agents were with her initial presentation on rape victims could only come from her. But it was also refreshing to hear her determination to make a career for herself, despite the severe uphill climb women had back when she was establishing herself.

The interviews with her adult children also illustrate just how Burgess’ determination rubbed off on them. This isn’t a story where she was so wrapped up in her work that she neglected her family. No, this is about a woman who set a great example for her kids, who have gone on to their own distinguished careers. If that lack of conflict makes for boring TV, so be it. It may not make for the most interesting storytelling, but it’s a refreshing perspective.

Where the show really comes to life, though, is her involvement in raising awareness of the Behavioral Science Unit within the FBI and with the general public. Her analysis of interviews with serial killers like Monte Rissell, who was a serial rapist before he started killing people, was fascinating to learn about; she felt his case could inform the ski-mask case, given that the perpetrator there changed what he did to his victims after doing it a certain way for awhile. That led to the adrenaline theme, which led us to hearing tapes of Ted Bundy and Ed Kemper, two infamous serial killers that Burgess analyzed.

Where the first episode trips up is not doing enough to discern what Dr. Burgess’ contribution to the Ski-Mask Rapist case was. She not only identified possible patterns the rapist might follow via interviews with serial killers, but then interviewed victims to gather more information. It gets a little confusing that she actually did both, and doesn’t quite get to the heart of how interviews with Ted Bundy and Ed Kemper would inform the Ski-Mask Rapist case.

Sex and Skin: None.

Parting Shot: As we hear reports about the Ski-Mask Rapist committing his assaults in multiple states, we see Burgess looking out an office window. The frame slowly tilts.

Sleeper Star: As we stated, Burgess’ adult children are all great examples of how she set a standard for her kids, despite a busy career that gave her a modicum of national fame due to her media appearances.

Most Pilot-y Line: When Dr. Burgess talks about her first lectures about rape to the FBI, we cut between video of her giving a lecture with a number of vintage films of tie-clad men from the 1960s and ’70s. It’s obvious that the audience shots are stock footage, but the trick was used for a maddeningly long time.

Our Call: STREAM IT. Mastermind: To Think Like A Killer is an interesting look at the fascinating career of Dr. Ann Burgess, highlighting how she changed the way law enforcement looked at rape victims as well as serial killers.

Joel Keller ( @joelkeller ) writes about food, entertainment, parenting and tech, but he doesn’t kid himself: he’s a TV junkie. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Slate, Salon, RollingStone.com , VanityFair.com , Fast Company and elsewhere.

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