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.

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.

A pretty good version of something we've seen before, but still: nothing exactly new.

Nicole Kidman and Jamie Lee Curtis star in a miscast, misshapen, misbegotten crime series that ends as a crime against the great Patricia Cornwall novels that spawned it.

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.

Overstuffed. .... A treat amid all the narrative disarray is watching Mr. Parrish and Amanda Righetti (the younger Dorothy) mirror the mannerisms and vocal tics of their older selves. Unlike so much here, their technique is both subtle and effective.

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.