• by Adam Buckman , Featured Columnist, November 13, 2024

In the new Amazon Video police drama “Cross,” detective Alex Cross is a great character in search of a great show.

The show itself is good, not great. It is a very proficient police procedural, but that can be said about a dozen (or more) other such modern cop shows that have been on TV basically since the debut of the original “CSI” in 2000.

That too was a good show -- maybe even a great one. It was a huge hit and spawned very successful spinoffs too.

But for better or worse, here is the mindset where our subscription streaming services are concerned: We expect something more on our streaming services than TV shows that are the same as we can see any time for free on network television.

These are two different realms -- streaming TV and network TV. In the last, say, 10 years or so we have come to expect streaming shows that are “special” or a cut above network TV -- whatever that means. 

Specifically, in the case of “Cross,” it means that here is a TV show that is ordinary -- when we expect, or at least hope for, something a few degrees above that on Amazon Prime.

The central character in “Cross” comes from a series of Alex Cross novels by James Patterson. Wikipedia lists 32 books in the series, three of which were turned into feature films. 

In two of them -- “Kiss the Girls” (1997) and “Along Came A Spider (2001) -- Cross was played by Morgan Freeman. Tyler Perry played Cross in the third one, titled “Alex Cross” and released in 2012.

In the TV show, Cross is played by Aldis Hodge (photo above). In the show, Cross is a homicide detective for the Washington, D.C., police department -- MPD (Metropolitan Police Department).

Like characters on a number of network police procedurals already, Cross is highly educated and possesses skills for analyzing evidence and plumbing the mental state of suspects that are rare for the police department in which he works. He holds a Ph.D. in psychology.

Part of his personal backstory is the murder of his wife, which is still unsolved as the new “Cross” series gets under way. Since this happens at the very outset of the first episode, this is not a spoiler.

The eight-episode series picks up a year after her death with Cross living in a house in D.C. with his mother and his two young children.

In the show, Cross gets on a murder case that will lead him to a serial killer. This is not a spoiler either, since this is revealed early in the episode as well.

Later, a character turns up in the world of Cross -- “crosses paths” with him, as it were -- whom I guessed would turn out to be the killer, based primarily on instincts honed over decades of TV police procedurals. I was correct.

So, these are the elements that consign “Cross” to the annals of the ordinary -- easy-to-guess plot points and a serial killer storyline.

Concerning the latter, I have written many times that TV has been awash in serial killers for the better part of 25 years. Who needs another one?

“Cross” starts streaming on Thursday, November 14, on Amazon Prime Video.