Manhunt: Unabomber

***Manhunt: Unabomber*** is an American drama television miniseries created by Andrew Sodroski, Jim Clemente, and Tony Gittelson. It stars Sam Worthington and Paul Bettany and depicts a fictionalized account of the FBI's hunt for the Unabomber. It premiered on the Discovery Channel from August 8 to September 12, 2017.

Initially commissioned as a miniseries, it was later picked up as the first season of an anthology series; a second series, *Manhunt: Deadly Intent*, was produced without Discovery's involvement and released on Spectrum in February 2020.

## Premise

Ted Kaczynski, also known as the Unabomber, terrified the nation over the span of twenty years from the 1980s through the early 1990s. The miniseries tells the story of how the FBI brought down one of the most infamous criminal masterminds in the world from the point of view of an FBI profiler. It traces how FBI Agent Jim "Fitz" Fitzgerald challenged the old school ways with his approach to intelligence gathering. Fitzgerald had training as a profiler, but it was his focus on linguistics that became vital to breaking the case, as he believed the key to unlocking the identity of the Unabomber would be found in the language of The Manifesto, a detailed account of some of Kaczynski's plots.

## Cast

### Main

* Sam Worthington as Jim Fitzgerald
* Paul Bettany as Ted Kaczynski
* Jeremy Bobb as Stan Cole
* Keisha Castle-Hughes as Tabby Milgrim
* Lynn Collins as Natalie Rogers
* Brían F. O'Byrne as Frank McAlpine
* Elizabeth Reaser as Ellie Fitzgerald
* Ben Weber as Andy Genelli
* Chris Noth as Don Ackerman

### Recurring

* Katja Herbers as Linda Kaczynski
* Michael Nouri as Bob Guccione
* Jill Remez as Susan Mosse
* Wallace Langham as Louis Freeh
* Brian d'Arcy as Henry Murray
* Mark Duplass as David Kaczynski
* Diesel Madkins as Ernie Esposito
* Will Murden as Sean Fitzgerald
* Carter and Colby Zier as Ryan Fitzgerald
* Jana Allen as Heidi Shumway
* Griff Furst as Burkhardt
* Rebecca Henderson as Judy Clarke
* Bonnie Johnson as Wanda Kaczynski
* Steve Coulter as Anthony Bisceglie
* Mary Rachel Dudley as Lois Epstein
* Tyler Huth as Timmy Oakes
* Doug Kruse as David Gelernter
* Mike Pniewski as Charles Epstein
* Gregory Alan Williams as Garlan Burrell
* McKenna Grace Martin as Joanna Epstein

## Reception

The miniseries has an approval rating of 93% on Rotten Tomatoes and an average rating of 7.67/10 based on 29 reviews. The site's consensus reads: "Engrossing and affecting, *Manhunt: Unabomber* uses a taut, meticulously constructed narrative to uncover the facts behind the oft-exaggerated true story." On Metacritic, it has an average score of 71 out of 100 based on 19 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews."

## Historical accuracy

Greg Stejskal, a former FBI agent who was involved in the UNABOM investigation, criticized the show's writers on *TheWrap*, accusing them of making a "minor member" of the FBI investigative team "into the star player who won the game," referring to the show's portrayal of Jim Fitzgerald. He said that Fitzgerald never met Kaczynski, was not in Lincoln, Montana during the time of Kacynski's arrest, had no part in the search of Kacynski's cabin, and never interviewed him.

Fitzgerald himself told *Bustle* Magazine in August 2017 that the show is "high eighty percental" of accuracy, though "the Fitz character is a composite." He also stated that he had not interviewed Kaczynski, although he said that he was on his way to do so in 2007 when Kaczynski changed his mind.