We Should Be More Excited That ‘Mindhunter’ Has Brought
Anna Torv Back Into the Spotlight
There are so many reasons to love Mindhunter, the new Netflix series about the dawn of criminal profiling from producers David Fincher and Charlize Theron. With its muted color palette and focus on the processy work in tracking down serial killers — not to mention Fincher’s involvement — it’s drawn multiple comparisons to 2007’s Zodiac. This is only right and correct. But for a smaller subset of Mindhunter‘s viewers, another show may have also come to mind: the JJ Abrams-produced sci-fi series Fringe, which ran from 2008-2013.
On the surface, Fringe‘s examination of scientific anomalies and parallel dimensions puts it worlds apart (pardon the pun) from Mindhunter‘s sober investigative work, but the similarities are there. Mostly it’s the stuff about working in the basement on a law enforcement/academia hybrid project that nobody wants to go public and is partially set in Boston. And then there are those location title cards that stand large and in charge and are reminiscent of Fringe‘s showy 3-D location cards. But mostly, it’s the presence of
Anna Torv, who shows up in episode 3 as Dr. Wendy Carr, a Boston University psychologist who partners up with FBI agents Holden Ford and Bill Tench (Jonathan Groff and Holt McCallany) on their research into incarcerated murderers.
Strip away the particulars (Fringe‘s future science; Mindhunter‘s serial killers) and it’s an interesting inverse of
Torv’s role on Fringe, where she was the FBI agent tasked to work with (literal) mad scientist Walter Bishop (John Noble). And while Wendy Carr is a distinct character from Fringe‘s Olivia Dunham, it’s definitely a comfortable dynamic to find
Torv in.
Mostly it’s just great to have her back on a TV show. Fringe ended in 2013, and since then it’s been four years where she’s been pretty much forgotten by American TV audience. Which should not have happened! Fringe was decidedly a cult show, but cult shows are supposed to have ride-or-die fans who evangelize and pester their friends and eventually hound the rest of the industry into giving the Tatiana Maslanys of the world Emmy awards and movie roles. So where were y’all for
Anna Torv then?? Initially brushed off as an anonymous blonde opposite Noble and Joshua Jackson,
Torv earned the respect of sci-fi fandom via performances that were constantly revealing hidden depths in Olivia. By the time she was channelling Leonard Nimoy and playing mirror-universe characters,
Torv finally began to get her due. Noble was doing something special as Walter Bishop, but besides him, nobody was working on a higher level on that show than
Anna Torv. By all rights, it should’ve been a leapfrog for her from there to other big projects, in the sci-fi realm and beyond.
After Fringe, though,
Torv returned to her Native Australia to do a scant few film and TV projects, none of which ever made it to American shores in any significant way. Perhaps
Torv was happy to be home for a while, but her return to TV four years later should be a bigger deal. One of sci-fi’s most underrated lead performers is back, and she’s on a project worthy of her talents.
Torv’s performance as Dr. Wendy Carr is a work of peculiar, understated brilliance. Of the three characters working on the show’s central project, Dr. Carr works the hardest to be dispassionate and above board. She’s the scientist here, and thus the most dedicated to procedural rigor. But she’s also constantly negotiating her place on the team. She doesn’t want to become the scold or the snitch, but she also won’t be steamrolled by her two male partners. The few occasions in which we get to see Dr. Carr in the field, we see her bedside manner makes her an odd fit for people work.
When the series veers away from the serial killers and gives Wendy some solo scenes, we learn a lot about the character. Her secret love life (featuring a surprise guest star who shares
Torv’s status as JJ Abrams alumni) and her obsession with feeding a stray cat in her basement become recurring peeks into the life of a closed off character.
Torv nails all of these beats and makes you hugely piqued for whatever season 2 might have in store for her.
So welcome back to American television,
Anna Torv. You’re making it a much better place than it was while you were gone.
https://decider.com/2017/10/18/mindh...a-torv-return/