Scarpetta - Amazon Prime March 2026

[snowibunni]

Love the Scarpetta books, love Patricia Cornwell

Dislike this new adaptation, feels very misogynistic. Nicole Kidman is wrong - too tall, too willowy and too pretty. Jamie Lee Curtis, is wrong as well for about a million reasons. Bit of a vanity project?

Potential trigger warning - it feels like a throw back to when cop shows took great delight in showing dead women in all their gory details.

I dunno it just jars.

I've just given up after episode 1, the timeline switching is annoying. The family dynamics are odd and the casting jars too. I love a good thriller and read the books a few years ago. This series does not represent the books at all.

What a shame! These books were ripe for film/tv adaptations but for whatever reasons it wasn't done back when the initial books were popular. And now this?

I'm not sad I don't have Prime. Thanks to everyone who's detailed the episodes, much appreciated X

Have to say the story really picked up in episode 4 and now i can't wait to finish the last episode. There are some gems in the script too, lines like 'you make bad shit worse' and 'men can fail upwards'. Nicole has grown on me too! after I posted here i thought how i've become less expressive now i'm closer to my 50's - is that really a bad thing? Time has taught me to reserve judgement, slow down, be less impulsive etc Now i really like the flashbacks woven in - to me it captures how her experiences influence her now mature circumspect guarded character.

I, too, had always thought Benton Wesley was black. I like the young version, but old bent Mentalist is not suitable.

I stopped reading the books because of that insufferable Lucy, who became more and more or a focus - and here she is, somehow even more grating and insufferable. I tried fastforwarding through all the family and Lucy scenes, but my device couldn't handle it and froze.

Super disappointing. I was so looking forward to it. I don't mind an old Nic TV series, even if her face is sometimes odd, and young Scarpetta (I wish they'd both stop ostentatiously smoking) is pretty good in her role.

Just watched this series after loving the books circa 25 years ago and agree with you 100% OP. Casting, apart from Marino, acting, the house, the clothes all wrong.

I will most certainly not watching season 2. Too much liberal licence was given for it to be done for TV. Having Kay kill someone at the end was the last straw for me! I also don't undefstand why they had it start with a book written in 2021, what about the rest of the series prior. Nicole wasn't the right person and I am a big Jamie Lee Curtis fan but didn't likd her portrayl of Kay's sister!
Another book series wrecked by tv writers only out for viewing numbers!
Will stick with the books as this series won't last!

I wish Nicole Kidman would stop ruining things.

I really loved Patricia Cornwell's Scarpetta novels.

I couldn't get passed the 2nd episode, truly awful. I was warned, as I remember a film journalist friend of mine telling me 'if Nicole Kidman's in it, it will be bad' and that saved me for years from so many crappy Nicole Kidman films.

Unfortunately she’s had so much work done to her face that it’s hard to tell what emotion she is trying to elicit.

I abandoned it halfway through episode one. So so boring .

SPOILERS!

I read quite a few of the books many years ago, I don’t actually remember any of them but I do remember stopping reading them because I didn’t like them anymore.
I’ve just finished the series. I don’t know what to make of it. Couldn’t make head nor tail of the spaceship storyline , still have no idea what that was all about and how it fits in except the two women were murdered and had skin grafts. Don’t really know why the man was kidnapped and put in the truck.
JLC’s acting was so bad in the first few episodes but it got better as the series went on.
The AI Janet was v strange, but it was a vehicle for some plot lines.
Nicole Kidman is Nicole Kidman, I didn’t find her good or bad just average.

To be honest the throw back scenes were the best part of it. The newer date stuff was chaotic

And the ending is obviously set up for series 2

I wish they would have adapted Karin Slaughters books about Sara Linton instead (and did a better job than Will Trent)

What an absolute shit show!
Totally miscast, nothing like the characters at all.
I have every single book in this series as I picked the first one up years ago in a hotel book swap in 1990 and kept it!
The acting was awful, Dorothy is supposed to be younger than Kay, WTF is going on with Benton, no just no ... I won't go on!

I quite liked it, although picked it apart while watching, so that was probably annoying for my husband!

I liked the young Kay but she would never whack the skull and bones with a baseball bat - she has much more respect for the dead than to do that. I actually thought JLC was pretty good as the sister. I agree Lucy was annoying (I liked her in the books) and present day Marino was a lot better looking that I envisaged, but nowhere near as oaf like and unrefined as he was depicted in the books. NK as Kay is a big fat no.

That being said, I was gutted at the total cliffhanger of an ending and the age I’d have to wait to see what happens next!

I always imagined Scarpetta looking like Gillian Anderson

I’m with you op!

Went from so delighted to see this was on, to gutted when it became apparent that NK was Scarpetta. She’s simply not right for the role!

Scarpetta should be short, intense, academic, practical.

And I agree with pp that although the plots are of its time, it’s really disappointing in this day and age to see the pornification of dead female bodies.

I always imagined (and I dont know why because I dont do this with other authors) that scarpetta looked like Patricia Cornwell herself.

@TessTickle0 me too. Probably because there was usually a photo of her in the book.

Yes, I always imagined Scarpetta looking like PC, because of her picture at the back cover. I have a vague memory of reading somewhere that PC indeed modelled Scarpetta on herself. But couldn’t go for the whole hog and make Benton a female as 90’s weren’t ready for a lesbian leading couple.

Not seen this series but I agree Gillian would be an improvement over NK's frozen face. She definitely describes herself as blond in the books so I suppose she's accurate in that sense but she should be short and curvy.

I too was a massive fan of the early books and then went off them over the ludicrous Benton Wesley back from the dead storyline. I also thought he was black. We can't have all made this up in our head?

What a shame the casting is so crappy, I'd have liked to watch it (we don't have prime)

Awful. Casting is so off it’s jarring and Kay chain smoking and screaming is so off kilter I couldn’t bear it. Let alone Benton talking like an extra from Deliverance. Gave up after two episodes.

On episode 5 now. NK not at all convincing as Scarpetta.

Also agree with the skull bashing thing being completely out of character with the book Scarpetta.

No idea what this alien storyline is about. Or why they decided to skip back and forth between modern day and 1st book.

Scarpetta is petite blonde and large breasted for her frame She (and Dorothy of course) are Italian. Honestly alot is made of her breasts over the book series and definetly at times Marino is clearly staring at her breasts. Never imagined her as Nicole Kidman or Angelina Jolie who I had read was considered for the role in the past

now Benton being black is interesting especially as two posters mentioned this. He was from a wealthy east coast family or mainline Philadelphia or Boston. I always imagined tall thin nice head of hair and very waspy features…nose forehead and chin. He is elegant and refined and has fabulous suits and watches. Cornwell often describes cis and fine as very very fit and that’s how I imagine him

That’s the image I had of him. Distinguished east coast old money family. Tall, thin, sharp suit. Silver fox type.

90s Pete is much less of a dick than in the book too.

i didn’t intend to type cis in the previous post and reading back now I’m not sure what i was trying to type…him as fine or him as FBI and very very fit??? Cornwell does mention the fitness level of the fbi agents.

Bump