'Scarpetta' is star-studded airport bookstore fluff − Review

The tone of "Scarpetta" is set with the bodies.

Naked, bloody, trussed and horrifying, the nauseating and disturbing display of the murder victims in Amazon's adaptation of author Patricia Cornwell's best-selling crime novels preview a series that will not be easy to stomach, nor will it be subtle or particularly artful. No amount of gore or ghastliness is off limits for the series, produced by horror champions Blumhouse, as Nicole Kidman's titular medical examiner pores over the remains of the dead.

These gratuitous images of the tortured and sexualized dead are among many signals that "Scarpetta" (streaming March 11, ★★ out of four) is supposed to be serious and prestigious. Amazon nabbed Kidman to play the hero, Dr. Kay Scarpetta, for one thing, and her supporting cast includes Jamie Lee Curtis, Ariana DeBose, Bobby Cannavale and Simon Baker (making the three-fifths of the core cast Oscar winners). The series, although on the streaming service known for adaptations of "airport bookstore" crime thrillers, is clearly aspiring to something more than your average crime drama.

But not all of us get to achieve our goals.

Serviceable but unremarkable, "Scarpetta" has its murder but not much else. The cast does its best, but the show is something of a slog to get through at times, not sure if it's about serial killers, investigators, forensics, grief or family. Going for all of the above, as it does, makes it scattered and convoluted, not deep or profound. If you want to follow the mystery to the end, "Scarpetta" will get you there. But I doubt anyone will learn anything along the way.

Kay Scarpetta is, like many protagonists of these sorts of stories, a remarkable and mythical investigator, returning to her old job as chief medical examiner of the commonwealth of Virginia so she can spend more time with her grieving niece, Lucy (DeBose), who has lost her wife. An unfortunate side effect of that is she's also spending more time with her flaky sister Dorothy (Curtis), Dorothy's husband and Scarpetta's former partner and retired police detective Pete (Cannavale). Nipping at the heels of these more dramatic family members is Benton (Baker), Kay's husband and some kind of fed.

The messy family business comes to a head when the desecrated body of a woman is found by the railroad tracks. Scarpetta investigates, deputizing Pete to help her as she navigates the politics of her new (old) position. The series interlaces flashbacks to Kay and Pete investigating a serial killer a quarter of a century earlier, a grisly case that may have dire consequences for their work in the present.

For fans of the genre, it's all standard (and aggressively predictable) fare. The show struggles to illuminate the relationships between the characters or anything at all about Benton, from what his job actually is to even a flicker of a personality. Weird tech and conspiracy theories are threaded throughout, from Lucy's AI copy of her dead wife to space age biotech to spies who might coincidentally be serial killer victims.

It doesn't quite mesh together into a cohesive narrative, but there are parts that are compelling. The story in the past feels far more dynamic and interesting than the one in the present, in spite of its distinct lack of award-winning actors. Rosy McEwen, who plays the young version of Kay, may just have a better handle on the character than Kidman (Cannavale's son Jake takes over his character in flashbacks, so he has a genetic leg up).

What "Scarpetta" brings, more than anything else, is the novelty of seeing A-listers mucking it in the crime procedural mud. Whoever thought we'd see Kidman go all "Rizzoli & Isles"? And I suppose these days, if you need an eccentric and problematic Italian-American family member, you call Curtis (see also "The Bear" on FX/Hulu).

But though the actors are famous and talented, they can't pull "Scarpetta" up from its ho-hum bootstraps into something bigger and better. What we have here is a very OK murder show with a (likely) very expensive cast.

That may be enough to make you tune in. I'll be waiting for something that tries a little harder.