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CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION | ||
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Positive:
6
Mixed:
16
Negative:
2
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Critic Reviews
Mar 10, 2026
Season 1 Review:
An engrossing depiction of horrific femicide, dysfunctional families and the lies that can change perceptions. Gliding seamlessly between the present and the past, the show follows Dr. Kay Scarpetta (a fantastic Nicole Kidman). .... “Scarpetta” is excellent storytelling. Even as the narrative grows more complicated, the show manages to keep the audience grounded in the crimes and Kay’s methodology.
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Mar 11, 2026
Season 1 Review:
If Scarpetta has a flaw, it’s that the identification of the killer feels like a bit of an afterthought. All the mysteries surrounding that mystery—the undercurrents in Kay’s family and the way the past haunts its members—have become much more intriguing. Or is this a flaw? In a genre rife with shopworn tropes, it’s the detective series that captivates while breaking the mold that is the most worth celebrating.
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Mar 10, 2026
Season 1 Review:
Although Kidman’s performance and the show as a whole falter a bit in the final episodes, McEwen never does. Family and colleague interactions and clever dialogue engage more than the crime-solving aspects of “Scarpetta,” partly because gratuitous shots of nude female corpses cheapen that aspect of the show. But action-oriented scenes have their merits.
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ColliderMar 10, 2026
Season 1 Review:
Its performances are captivating, and the chemistry between all the actors is electric. That said, while its murder-mystery storyline is competently spooled out, its bizarre detours into unfamiliar territory lead to mixed results. .... But Scarpetta is still worth exploring to see what secrets might lie beneath its surface.
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Mar 11, 2026
Mar 10, 2026
Season 1 Review:
The series is packed tighter with incidents than a Marx Brothers stateroom, including a pseudo-spiritual grief cult, 3D-printed human organs, a fallen space station, intra-office rivalry and crushes and, not to forget, murders. .... Cannavale is the series’ MVP, grounding Kidman in their scenes and Curtis in theirs, and seeming, more than most of these characters, like a person you might meet in this life we call real. As younger Kay, Rosy McEwen carries the past-set scenes, and could support a series of her own.
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Mar 10, 2026
Season 1 Review:
The show cuts between the two tracks metronomically, giving them roughly equal time, and there is a lot of evidence to keep track of; cellphone checkers may find themselves lost pretty quickly. What you can’t miss, however, is how the contemporary story has been conceived as histrionic soap opera. .... The early timeline, by contrast, is rational and reasonably absorbing, a straightforward (if grisly) procedural mystery that is not insultingly silly by the standards of serial-killer drama.
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The GuardianMar 10, 2026
Season 1 Review:
Kidman and Curtis have terrific chemistry, and they clearly have good fun as warring siblings whose childhood animosity has bubbled over into adult hostility. But, really, their scenes could have come from any half-decent drama, and they alone cannot save Scarpetta.
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RogerEbert.comMar 10, 2026
Season 1 Review:
The ensemble is so jam-packed that the characters overwhelm any semblance of narrative the show is trying to achieve. It’s unfortunate that most of them feel like caricatures rather than fully realized characters, as conversations between them often end in a cacophony of overwhelming yelling backed by crocodile tears. Thankfully, in the ’90s timeline, McEwen breathes some much-needed life into the series.
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LooperMar 11, 2026
Season 1 Review:
The direction and cinematography is often eerie and atmospheric, and again, the performances are really good for the most part. The way that the characters speak to each other, though, is so egregiously distracting and genuinely dumb that it makes the entire enterprise just feel absurd.
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