Two immediate thoughts emerge early on while watching Scarpetta, the new series that adapts Patricia Cornwell’s first Kay Scarpetta novel, Postmortem, and her 25th appearance, Autopsy. First, when was the decision made that Nicole Kidman would become the queen of streaming series? Second, has Jamie Lee Curtis always been a ham, and I didn’t notice? If not, when did that start? For better or worse, though, the showgives one’s brain A LOT of questions to ponder, so these two initial queries came and went over the course of the eight-hour series.

As adapted by Liz Sarnoff, Scarpetta is as much a dysfunctional-family melodrama as a crime thriller. Kay Scarpetta (Kidman) returns to Virginia and her role as Chief Medical Examiner for the Commonwealth after some time away. When she arrives, she immediately finds herself facing old rival Elven Reddy. He quickly reassigns Maggie Cutbush (Stephanie Faracy) as Scarpetta’s assistant, someone the ME has long believed was a political mole for Reddy. Unfortunately, she doesn’t have time to process any of that because of a body discovered near the railroad tracks. The cause of death matches an MO from Scarpetta’s first case when she first became Virginia’s ME. It isn’t long before evidence suggesting she got that first case wrong emerges, as well.

Meanwhile, home is hardly a reprieve. For reasons never fully articulated, her husband, profiler Benton Wesley (Simon Baker), is returning to work for the FBI at the same time. Her sister Dorothy (Curtis), a children’s book author, and her sister’s new husband, Pete Marino (Bobby Cannavale), a former cop who worked cases with Kay, have moved into Kay’s house “temporarily”. Lucy (Ariana DeBose), Dorothy’s daughter, who Kay arguably spent more time raising, is on the property, too. A rich genius in mourning, Lucy spends most of her time in the in-law house, talking to an AI version of her late wife, Janet (Janet Montgomery). It’s a full house. Good thing everyone involved loves drinking, sneaking cigarettes, and screaming at one another. If you were hungry for the Thanksgiving social experience but don’t want to wait until November, here you go.

It is all very loud and, as noted, Curtis swings for the fences in a broad performance. It is not without appeal, one must admit, as it gives the show an anarchic kick. At first. By the time Dorothy starts issuing ultimatums and moving out in the middle of the night, the whole situation has worn thin. It reflects the show at large, especially its galling ending. Scarpetta simply does not know when to quit.

At least that’s the case in the modern day. In contrast, the flashback scenes feel smart, nuanced, and unsettling in a way the present never achieves. In them, Rosy McEwen steps in for Kay, Amanda Righetti for Dorothy, Jake Cannavale for Pete, and Hunter Parrish for Benton. McEwen isn’t a step up from Kidman, per se, but there’s a dimensionality to her Kay that Kidman’s lacks, something that one could attribute to the passage of time between the two versions. Simply put, young Kay isn’t nearly as brittle or caustic as modern Kay.

Still, the sibling rivalry feels less overblown as well. They clearly struggle with each other, but the near-hysteria of their modern clashes is absent. More importantly, there seems genuine affection between McEwen and Righetti’s flaky but decidedly more down-to-earth Dorothy.

It isn’t all perfect, though. The plot calls for past Pete to be a hotheaded misogynist and homophobe, while modern Pete has evolved. Even taking that into account, Jake suffers in comparison to his father, Bobby. The modern Pete is world-weary and honest. He’s an everyman surrounded by rich geniuses who frequently struggle to interact with reality. He’s still a bit rough, but tremendously likable. His younger version is immediately off-putting and never really sheds that. Neither DeBose nor Savannah Lumar, who plays flashback Lucy, is bad, per se. They just don’t ever feel like the same person. Time changes us all, yes, but in time-split dramas, you need an essential characteristic or two to carry over throughout. Lucy never has one.

A final complaint I can’t leave unmentioned involves Scarpetta’s odd dalliances with science fiction. They do not feel remotely integrated into the larger show. One particular subplot I won’t spoil seems especially grafted on in a manner that never offers dividends. Still, the worst offender is AI Janet. Montgomery’s performance is fine enough, one supposes, but basically amounts to magic. Ten years ago, this would have been a who cares situation. Now, given the current AI drumbeat, this reads as propaganda; a ghoulish snow job to imply a level of sophistication that we are nowhere near currently. If they went ahead and made Janet a friendly ghost, it would’ve grated less.

Long story short, the past version of the show is eminently watchable. It’s a real corker of a crime thriller with heart and a genuine sense of suspense and political machination. The present-day version has its charms, but those charms rapidly run out. As a result, Scarpetta isn’t a bad show. On the other hand, it isn’t exactly a good one either.

Scarpetta puts the gloves and starts the examination on Prime Video starting March 11.

Scarpetta Trailer: