Patricia Cornwell’s ace medical examiner character, Kay Scarpetta, has long seemed destined for the screen. Cornwell’s novels are widely read, hugely influential in the forensic crime genre, and the character herself is iconic. So the idea of finally seeing Scarpetta adapted for television should be thrilling. Sadly, this series is an absolute hot mess, and that’s particularly surprising given the sheer level of talent involved.
On paper, it looks formidable. Nicole Kidman leads the cast as Scarpetta, with Jamie Lee Curtis, Simon Baker and others bringing serious acting pedigree. Visually, the show also has a lot going for it. It’s glossy, moody and cinematic in exactly the way modern streaming dramas sometimes excel at. The opening sequence certainly promises something gripping: a horrifying discovery of a dead woman tied up, naked, by a railway line, her hands chopped off. Scarpetta is called to the scene, and we watch a brilliant medical examiner get immediately to work.
The case reminds her of a similar serial killer investigation from 25 years earlier, and the narrative quickly shifts between the present day and the 1990s, where a younger Scarpetta – played very well by British actress Rosy McEwan – is just starting out in her career. In theory, the dual timeline should create a compelling echo between past and present. In practice, the two strands never quite lock together. One storyline bleeds into the other, but they rarely meaningfully influence each other, leaving the backstory feeling oddly disconnected and, ultimately, a bit of a head-scratcher.
Where the show does work is in the investigative material within each timeline. Those sequences – autopsies, clues, procedural breakthroughs- capture the forensic intrigue that made Cornwell’s books so compelling. Unfortunately, they’re constantly interrupted by an avalanche of family melodrama.
Jamie Lee Curtis plays Kay’s brash sister Deborah, and much of their screen time together is spent arguing and shouting at each other. Deborah’s daughter Lucy is also in a near-permanent state of conflict with both of them. Meanwhile, Kay’s marriage to shady FBI agent Benton (Simon Baker) is on the rocks, while Deborah’s husband Pete -who was once Kay’s colleague – has problems of his own. The series really loves the idea of a loud, fractious Italian family, but the constant bickering becomes exhausting very quickly, and then simply dull. Worse still, it’s tonally jarring: the soap-opera shouting matches blunt the momentum of what should be a propulsive serial-killer hunt.
As if that weren’t enough, the show also indulges in some truly strange narrative detours. Lucy’s wife died a few years earlier, and she has built an AI chatbot in her image to cope with her grief, which leads to extended conversations with a digital ghost. One of the main suspects -both in the 1990s and the present day – is a cult leader, which adds another layer of oddness. The present-day victims share unusual medical commonalities involving biosynthetic skin grafts and a wider subplot about 3D-printed human organs. And then, in perhaps the most bewildering twist of all, a falling spaceship carrying the bodies of two astronauts becomes part of Scarpetta’s caseload. It’s… bonkers.
The greatest crime, though, is structural. The series builds toward two separate climaxes across its dual timelines, and neither really lands. For different reasons, both endings feel oddly unsatisfying and underpowered. After so much narrative sprawl and so many tonal shifts, the payoff simply isn’t there.
For a character as beloved as Kay Scarpetta – and with a cast this strong – that’s a genuine disappointment.
Paul Hirons
⭐⭐⭐
Rating: 2.5 out of 5.
Scarpetta is broadcast in the UK on Amazon Prime Video