'Cross' review: Solid debut that's a bit of a stretch at times

'I envy you ... you're just here a couple of minutes to show everyone how clever I am. Now me, I have a whole season of suffering ahead.' Photos: Handout

James Patterson's vaunted detective/psychologist Alex Cross – memorably played by Morgan Freeman in two movies (the actor being the best part of those uneven efforts), not so enduringly by Tyler Perry in a reboot that quickly got the boot – now gets the streaming treatment in a series that examines the character at a turbulent time in his life.

Far from the grizzled veteran of Kiss The Girls and Along Came A Spider, here we get Cross (Aldis Hodge, Leverage, City On A Hill, Black Adam's Hawkman) as a younger man, reeling from the family tragedy that shaped him through Patterson's series of some 30 or so stories to date.