• by Adam Buckman , Featured Columnist, March 11, 2026

Sometimes you can load a TV drama up with top stars, direct them to go around with serious expressions on their faces, and base the show on a series of grotesque, violent crimes, and somehow, the thing still comes across as run-of-the-mill and unpersuasive.

The drama seems forced in the new coroner-detective drama “Scarpetta” starring Nicole Kidman in the lead role as a crack coroner in northern Virginia.

The character originated in a series of novels by Patricia Cornwell in which Kay Scarpetta is Italian-American. 

Whether or not a viewer accepts Nicole Kidman as possessing that ethnicity is up to each individual.

The show’s story is told in two time periods -- 1998 and 2026 -- possibly because the gruesome murder case unfolding in the present day may have a relationship to another case Dr. Scarpetta worked on 28 years earlier.

To accomplish this method of storytelling, the show has two casts. In addition to Kidman, the 2026 cast consists mainly of Bobby Cannavale as Pete Marino, a former detective and husband of Kay’s mentally unstable sister, Dorothy, played by Jamie Lee Curtis; Simon Baker as Kay’s husband Benton Wesley; and Ariana DeBose as Kay’s niece Lucy.

In the 1998 “younger” cast, Dr. Scarpetta is played by Rosy McEwen, young Dorothy is played by Amanda Righetti, Hunter Parrish plays young Benton; and Savannah Lumar plays young Lucy.

Last but not least, the young Pete Marino is played by Bobby Cannavale’s son, Jake Cannavale. Naturally, his resemblance to his father is understandable.

But the casting of all the other characters as their younger selves is uncanny in their resemblances to the older characters from 2026. Congratulations to whomever cast this show.

In the show, Dr. Scarpetta is especially gifted as a coroner-sleuth. The scenes in which we watch her at work at crime scenes and the morgue are the best ones in the show (although an autopsy she performs in Episode One might be too much to handle for some viewers).

But when it comes to Kay’s private life, the relationships between some of the characters comprise some of the elements of “Scarpetta” that seem forced.

For example, Kay and Dorothy tussle twice in the first episode. The first one was acted and written in such a way that it came across as almost benign, which might not have been what the producers and writers had intended.

Later in the episode, they have a much more vicious exchange that is better acted and written. But at the same time, it was hard to accept Nicole Kidman and Jamie Lee Curtis as sisters.

In addition, Det. Marino’s marriage to Dorothy is hard to explain too. Perhaps it gets fleshed out in subsequent episodes.

At one point in Episode One of “Scarpetta,” the song “House of the Rising Sun” by the Animals is heard, but there seems to be no reason for it to be there.

Later, near the conclusion of the episode, the song is heard again, but this time it is sung like a sad, slow dirge in a dreary female voice.

Its meaning in this instance cannot be determined either. If memory serves, the song has something to do with New Orleans, gambling and a brothel. 

None of these three subjects arises in Episode One of “Scarpetta,” which takes place in Alexandria, Virginia.

Besides, the use of the song in the Martin Scorsese gangster movie “Casino” was so memorable that no movie or TV show should ever use it again.

In “Casino,” the tone of the song matched perfectly with the scene it was paired with. In “Scarpetta,” the music is applied to heightening the drama in scenes where there is none.

“Scarpetta” starts streaming Wednesday (March 11) on Amazon Prime Video.