Cross

I'm a fan of the Alex Cross books and was pleased to see an actor that fit the bill, at last. He played the character well with just the right amount of aggression and emotion. Ryan Eggold didn't disappoint and played a blinder with his part. He proved how versatile he can be with Blacklist and New Amsterdam. I would've given a much higher score had I been able to actually see who was on the screen at any given time. The lighting technician was having a laugh with the dark, beyond moody and atmospheric set lighting. It was dismal and often made the series difficult to watch. I loved the plot but hated the inadequate lighting needed to follow the story. I hope that there will be another series and they read all the reviews. I'm not the only one who feels this way.

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 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.

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.

Seriously, the plot and the show is great, but can somebody tell the video editing dude to turn the damn brightness up please. The show is SO dark, literal dark not metaphorically dark, that you can't see what in the heck is going on like 75% of the time. Don't you dare try to watch it in the day time. I really want this review to make it to the editor so they can do something about the lack of brightness. I feel like i've made my point not, but I have one hundred and twenty characters left minimum before I can post, so I'll keep on typing until I get there. Sorry for the inconvenience, almost there, there we are!