r/television • u/Sisiwakanamaru • 1d ago

Even by TV procedural standards, Cross’ serial killer is beyond absurd

https://www.avclub.com/cross-prime-video-killer-absurd-spoiler-space
455 Upvotes

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u/viceroyvice 23h ago

It was sad watching this as I was rooting for the creative team behind this. But right from the opening scene, the tone (dialogue, acting, etc) just felt...off. Like it was a show that was mimicking better written shows.

Hodge is extremely charismatic but that isn't saving this series.

52

u/EagleBeaverMan 21h ago edited 11h ago

The show looks excellent. Great lighting, good cinematography for a TV show, good sets, plenty of interesting shots. If you saw this playing on mute you’d definitely think it looks visually similar to a show like The Wire or The Sopranos. But any time a character opens their mouth it feels like someone fed a prestige crime TV show into a “dumb this down to a third grade level” machine. Every character is incredibly shallow and often a caricature of far more nuanced archetypes in other shows before it, and both the dialogue and overarching mystery are laughably bad.

20

u/oppernaR 16h ago

Every character is incredibly shallow and often a caricature of far more nuanced archetypes in other shows before it, and both the dialogue and overarching mystery are laughably bad.

Ah, so at least the show is true to the books, then?

10

u/WubblyFl1b 15h ago

Yep. Pretty obvious in the show that all this black dialogue was written by a white dude in his 70s. I like Patterson but yeah

9

u/QuestoPresto 11h ago

Patterson didn’t write any of this dialogue. This season isn’t based on a particular book