Brief Story Line
Story was told in two different timelines 28 years apart. In the present day, Dr. Kay Scarpetta (Nicole Kidman - Holland, A Family Affair etc) was just reappointed as Virginia's Chief Medical Examiner when a woman's body was found and her expertise was required to identify the cause of death. Kay enlisted her old colleague former Detective Pete Marino (Bobby Cannavale - Blonde, Super Intelligence etc) to assist her in specialist capacity. However Kay's work was sometimes a bit disturbed with her personal family issue from her older sister Dorothy (Jamie Lee Curtis - Haunted Mansion 2023, Knives Out etc) who she always had a fight with, to her niece/Dorothy's daughter the Tech genius Lucy (Ariana DeBose - Kraven the Hunter, Love Hurts etc) and Kay's husband the FBI profiler Benton Wesley (Simon Baker - The Mentalist TV series, Margin Call etc).
The current case itself reminded Kay a lot on her very first major serial killing case many years before when she (Rosy McEwen - Rabbit Trap, The Alienist season 2 etc) met young Pete (Jacob Cannavale - Inside Man, The Offer mini series etc) and Benton (Hunter Parrish - Weeds TV series, The Space Between etc) for the first time during the investigation, while also dealing with Dorothy (Amanda Righetti - Colony TV series, Reagan etc) and pre-teen Lucy (Savannah Lumar).
So what was the connection of the current and the old case? Would Kay be able to solve it? You could find out in the first season of the series.
End of Brief Story Line
Before I started this series, I had high hopes as it was dealing with interesting topic and was said to be based on various highly regarded novels. And when I watched the first episode, it did seem OK though not exciting enough that made me totally hooked. The story seemed to be focusing a lot on Scarpetta's family dynamics which was fine at first, but felt a bit overly emphasized. It did not feel that the cases were given sufficient focus.
As I continued to second episode, the story did become more interesting, especially the past case. In fact, till I finished the whole season, I found myself more caught up in that case which I thought was more intriguing and complex. The current case was actually not bad, but I felt there were too many distracting things, including the most surprising part shown in the fifth episode. It made me question why the story seemed to deviate a lot and personally I would have preferred it to be more grounded.
Of all 8 episodes in the first season, I thought the 7th was the best. However, I did not like the way the finale finished as it felt rushed with so many things left unanswered. I tried to find more info on the series and found out that it had 2 seasons initial order which would explain why they chose to have such ending since they could conclude everything then. To be honest, I would have liked it better if they just finished one or two stories in the first season and just provide a teaser for subsequent season. As I mentioned above, this was based on various crime novels which were written by well known author Patricia Cornwell. The character Kay Scarpetta herself was said to be inspired by former Virginia Chief Medical Examiner and forensic pathologist Marcela Farinelli Fierro who also served as FBI's consultant.
The series had a pretty large ensemble cast. I am not too sure why some people were saying the casting was bad cause I thought the casting department did great job to find actors/actresses who did not just have some sort of resemblance between the two different version of past and present people, but also able to portray them convincingly. I actually felt like seeing their younger and older self in here. Obviously Pete Marino was the rather easier one to convince since both were played by father and son Bobby and Jacob (no wonder they looked so much alike). This series was developed by Liz Sarnoff who was co-creator of Alcatraz series and writer of plenty of others like Lost, NYPD Blue, Barry and many more.
In addition to the cast above, there were additional people in support cast such as Tiya Sircar (The Fugitive TV series etc) as police officer Blaise Fruge, Janet Montgomery (New Amsterdam TV series etc) as Lucy's wife Janet, Anson Mount (Star Trek: Strange New Worlds TV series etc) as Matt Petersen, Anna Diop (Titans TV series etc) as Benton's partner Agent Tron and several others. Even Patricia Cornwell also became cameo in the first episode. In the closing credits, I did notice the well known name of Jason Blum (of Blumhouse) and David Gordon Green (director of Pineapple Express, 2018 Halloween trilogy etc) as executive producer along with Cornwell, Kidman, Curtis and few others. Critics did not seem to be very impressed with the series but they did not trash it either.
For a supposed crime procedural series, I thought the emphasis on Kay's family was a bit too much. If the aim was to highlight Scarpetta's ability and supposed to inspire, I personally felt it was not enough & lacking the part (autopsies and technical scenes were rarely shown). I know that the first season was based on two novels i.e. Postmortem and Autopsy which were the first and 25th books and it was the creative decision to combine two stories into one. However, I would prefer they split into two separate seasons or maybe instead of basing on the novel, just make a series inspired by the character like that wonderful Bones TV series which was also based on real life famous person (forensic anthropologist Kathy Reichs). It would likely be more exciting for me. So whether the second season (also had two timelines based on two novels) would be more successful remain to be seen. For now though, if you are interested in serial killings cases solved from medical examiners point of view combined with the dysfunctional family of the lead character which could be annoying for some, then you could give this a try. I myself thought this one was just OK.
Mike's movie moments rating: 3 out of 5 stars
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