TV Show review
August 1, 2017 · 42 min · TV-MA · Ended
Woke Score
Lower is better
Breakdown
These are the editorial factors and ratings behind our score for Manhunt.
Woke representation / casting
Casting follows 1990s historical demographics and real figures in prominent FBI and suspect roles with no audience-visible diversity signaling, quotas, or mismatched identity emphasis.
Woke political dialogue
Dialogue stays procedural and character-focused on evidence, profiling, and bureaucracy with no activist language, identity lectures, or modern social-justice framing.
Identity-driven story themes
Stories center on catching terrorists through traditional investigative work and the human impact of bombings and media errors; no recurring race, gender, or sexuality identity plotlines.
Western institutional / cultural critique
Shows FBI internal conflicts and media rush in the Jewell case as examples of institutional missteps and the value of persistence, presented as historical caution without reframing into anti-patriarchy, anti-whiteness, or current identity politics.
Review
Manhunt is a two-season true crime anthology series that dramatizes real FBI investigations into domestic terrorists. Season one centers on the 1990s hunt for the Unabomber through linguistic profiling and task force work, while season two covers the 1996 Centennial Olympic Park bombing, the wrongful suspicion of security guard Richard Jewell, and the later capture of Eric Rudolph. The narrative focuses on investigative methods, institutional friction inside law enforcement, media pressure, and the personal costs to those involved, all set in straightforward historical recreations of 1990s events with no visible modern identity or activist framing.
Woke character or canon changes
Not relevant; dramatizations add fictional tension for storytelling but introduce no identity-driven alterations to real historical figures or events.
Anti-woke backlash and complaints
Only scattered fringe online remarks about isolated scenes; no meaningful public complaints accusing the series of woke, DEI, or identity-driven content.
Creator track record context
Most key creatives have low or no documented activist histories focused on identity or DEI; one writer has separate theater work exploring race and queer Southern themes, but this does not shape the series’ content or marketing.
Production
