Cross

I have read a couple of the Alex Cross books, and I found them to be too gruesome for my taste even though I thought they were well-written with good stories and characters. Somehow, I've found the show more palatable with just as good writing and characters. But the picture is just so dark. I have to switch all the lights off in my room and turn the TV to bright mode (I have an LG OLED). It's like the people responsible for picture quality were out to lunch. The cinematography is great in one respect, but in terms of picture brightness it is so far off from all other shows, it just throws me. If they fixed this, it would be great.

To start with, it's a good, solid, serial-killer show. So I've got that out of the way.

However, I think it's the poor cousin to the UK's Luther with Idris Elba. Both he and Cross are billed as having extraordinary psychological analysis skills. With Luther you get that. With Cross you don't. There are only two times in 8 episodes where he does the whole "Spideysense" thing and gives an analysis that others just don't see.

Then there's the inconsequential acting from some of the big part actors. Their scenes just don't do justice to the great acting of the main characters.

And the last point is Iasiah Mustafa. In this show he is the spit image of Andy Farrell, the Irish Rugby team coach. One's a black guy and the other's a white guy but, boy, the resemblance is uncanny!

Enjoyable show but I think Luther does it better.

I just got done binging all eight episodes of Cross and have to say I absolutely loved it. I've been looking forward to it ever since I first heard about it so I had pretty high expectations. Well, this show not only met those expectations but surpassed them in every way. Aldis Hodge gives a breakout performance as Alex Cross here. There was an Alex Cross movie that came out in 2012 starring Tyler Perry that was just awful. Please don't let that deter you from watching this because they are different in every way. That movie was trash, this series is fantastic. Another great adaptation for Amazon Prime, they have done an amazing job with their adaptations for tv series (Reacher, Fallout, Lord of the Rings, Jack Ryan, The Boys, Bosch, The Wheel of Time, Daisy Jones and the Six, Good Omens, etc, etc.). Amazon has so much faith in this show that they already renewed it for another season before the first episode ever aired.

I have been struggling, the picture is so dark. I actually have to hit pause to see which characters are on the screen. Everyone wears black and the background is dark even in the daytime. Visually, it's very unappealing. I had planned on binging the series in one day but this constant pausing to see who is in the scene is frustrating. The story is interesting and I want to watch all the episodes but I'm not super excited about the series now that I've watched half of the episodes.

I love the characters in the books but in my opinion, this series does not accurately measure up.

I think I was expecting a show as good as Reacher or Bosch. Those two series got the characters spot-on.

The James Patterson novels were some of my favorite and to me Aldis Hodge is a perfect Alex Cross. Always liked his character on Leverage, but this role shows another range of his acting chops. Can't go further without saying Ryan Eggold plays a perfectly evil villain. Their interaction at his birthday party was gold. The storyline moves along to reveal surprises and unexpected relationships. My kind of slow burn. I will agree with another commenter that the editing needs to lighten up the scenes. Way too dark and detracts from the viewing. Character development is strong and it's easy to buy in to the friendships and family dynamics. Hope they plan on making this a regular series.