‘SCARPETTA’: A DARK CRIME MYSTERY WITH A GOOD CAST
One title that received quite a bit of tease in publicity, Scarpetta, a crime drama, finally drops its first season and lines up a stellar cast!
Scarpetta Season One (2026) Prime Video TV Review
Her career has been one with impressive statistics, and Dr. Kay Scarpetta (Nicole Kidman) isn’t done yet. She has a talent to give voice to the victims of the terrible crimes she sees as a medical examiner. 20 years earlier, at the start of her career, Kay worked a case that changed everything.
Now, remnants of that case are back in her life, which forces her to reexamine everything, including her present.
An adaptation that I’ve seen promoted quite a bit through different editorial pursuits, Scarpetta is an adaptation of the Patricia Cornwell novels that have the bestselling tag and reportedly have sold over 120 million copies. First published in 1990, this is a character that has been around and entertaining us for a while, but in 2026, it finally gets a TV show format, albeit on streaming.
‘SCARPETTA’: A DARK CRIME MYSTERY WITH A GOOD CAST. Review of #Scarpetta featuring #NicoleKidman. #CrimeDrama #TVShow #PrimeVideo Share on XI don’t know anything (as is the usual truth for adaptations) about the novels, but I do think this one is well produced. Part of this is its great cast. In addition to Kidman, the series also has Jamie Lee Curtis (as a loud character never backing down from a fight); Bobby Cannavale; and Simon Baker returns to the TV format after his turn as the memorable Patrick Jane in The Mentalist. Also playing past versions of these characters is Rosy McEwen and Baker’s The Mentalist co-star Amanda Righetti. These actors portray these characters across two timelines as Kidman’s Kay returns home (where a murder awaits her expertise!) and McEwen plays her in her early career hunting a serial killer.
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The show has a lot of back and forth, both in the past and in the more recent past, and while Kay is said to be inordinately bright, she makes a mistake or two that is basic and surprising to see. Some of the subplots are a little weird too, and don’t really fit in the creation of good stories. Still, I’ve seen both positive and negative reviews, so it all just depends on the viewer.
I don’t know if this will get any additional episodes, but I did think Scarpetta was really good. It’s darker than some of the broadcast TV procedurals in this genre, but it has a solid cast and the intrigue is certainly present, too! For me, watching this brings a good story not only because it sounds interesting plus because I got to see Simon Baker return to the crime drama, and Amanda Righetti too. I don’t know that this one, as other features say, is enough to stand out and be unique enough to stand out.
But beyond just this, the show does fit the crime drama mold and if you don’t need anything different or unusually unique, well, you may enjoy this.
Photos: Alamy
Stream, at publication, Scarpetta on Prime Video; all eight episodes are now available.
Content: the violence of this show doesn’t shy away from details. We see naked bodies (full shots) often because of the work Kay does. She examines them (both at her workplace and at the various crime scenes she works). There are also scenes of the murders and how they unfold, often in graphic fashion. There is some crude sexual content and conversation. Teenagers heavily make out and presumably have sex in a car; one character was / is in a same sex relationship if this bothers you. Death and loss play a big role. The show uses the F-word and other profanity. The show is TV-MA.
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nice review