The long-anticipated television adaptation of Patricia Cornwell’s “Scarpetta” novels, starring Nicole Kidman in the titular role and executive produced by Jamie Lee Curtis, finally arrives on screens after decades in development. Despite a storied history that saw major stars like Demi Moore, Angelina Jolie, Jodie Foster, and Helen Mirren considered for the part over the years, this series unfortunately falls far short of expectations, proving to be a confusing and deeply flawed drama, notably featuring an AI chatbot as a central character.
While Nicole Kidman and Jamie Lee Curtis—who also appears on screen—share a compelling on-screen chemistry, their considerable talents are largely underserved in a production that can only be described as perplexing and often “trashy.” The show attempts to modernize Cornwell’s beloved forensic pathologist, Dr. Kay Scarpetta, with a “cynical techy spin” that includes the aforementioned AI chatbot, alongside a convoluted narrative structure featuring two distinct timelines.
In the present day, Kidman portrays Virginia’s Chief Medical Officer, a professional yet somewhat icy character haunted by past secrets. She is called to investigate a gruesome crime scene involving a woman’s naked body, bound with rope and missing hands. These scenes are intercut with flashbacks to the 1990s, where a younger Scarpetta (Rosy McEwen) is hot on the trail of a similar killer, distinguished by a strange, glittery residue left on victims.
This dual timeline approach, a notable departure from Cornwell’s original novels, initially suggested an intriguing premise: the possibility that Scarpetta and her colleague and brother-in-law Pete Marino (Bobby Cannavale) might have wrongly convicted a man in the early days of DNA evidence. Such a setup could have formed the foundation for a smart, suspenseful whodunnit. Instead, “Scarpetta” devolves into a sluggish procedural that struggles to build any genuine tension. Moments of gratuitous gore appear abruptly, significant revelations in the case arrive as convenient, unearned “deus ex machina” plot devices, and the female victims are reduced to mere plot fodder, contributing to a tone that feels both retro and unsettlingly crude. The series wavers erratically between the somber psychological thriller aspirations of works like *The Silence of the Lambs* and the lighter, almost campy mystery feel of *Diagnosis: Murder*, ultimately failing to establish a coherent identity for itself.