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.

I started following Aldis Hodge's career when I fell in love with his character in Leverage. His performance as "hacker" Hardison was superb, and I am totally buying his performance as Alex Cross as well. The writing is strong, the performances are excellent all around, and the directing and editing are top-notch. Here is my problem...

The lighting stinks.

I don't know anybody who lives every moment of their indoor life in such darkness. I am only 40 minutes into the first episode, but I already struggle to see details of many scenes. In particular, three scenes stand out. First was the cocktail lounge. I don't frequent cocktail lounges and bars myself, but even the darkest restaurant I ever visited had enough lighting that I could see the faces of the other people at the table. Second was the bad guy's lair. Would anybody working on detailed plans and projects really do it in such dim lighting? Certainly a perfectionist would want to see clearly everything he or she is doing. Third, is the house Alex shows up at for dinner. This is not a romantic dinner for two. It is a gathering of family and friends. The whole house is dark - the entry hall, the living room, and the dining room. Plus, every room in the police building is dark. Would a forensic expert not have a very well-lit operating room?

Why so dark? If they are trying to set a mood, I am more focused on struggling to see than I am on plot and dialogue.

This is a choice made by a lot of shows in recent years. You know, anybody with failing vision would simply not be able to watch this. Certainly my Father could not.

That being said, I could be wrong about the reason for the darkness. I stopped watching "How I Met your Father" on a different streaming service because it also was so dark it was not enjoyable. A little digging on the internet revealed that the problem was with the service, not the show. When the show aired on the network, the lighting was just fine.

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.

I watched 3 episodes and stopped. I'm not into serial killers, but I watched by recommendation.

The script , the plot and everything else, I predicted. No surprises. No thickening plot. No suspense.. Seemed like a blaxploitation film. The bias of the characters was in overdrive and dated. They would've done better doing a film about the black men being lynced in the south every other week, the police coverup, and being called suicide with no mainstream media attention., then this fictional mess. My cat could have written a better script and plot.. the best thing about it was the lead actor. FYI.

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!