I’m a complete sucker for maverick cop shows. Pop-psychology and people getting punched in the face is the perfect balance between dumb and dumber for a dimwit like me. Effectively, if someone strings a sentence together that sounds clever enough and drops a few swears in it, I’m pretty happy. So watching last night’s debut bow of Luther (BBC One, Tuesday, 4 May, 9pm) very much flicked a whole bunch of good switches.
From the off, this show didn’t muck about. Within the opening moments it was all gritty warehouses, action, people dying, instant kicks and a dog with its jaw blown off. Grunting, blood, entrails and a perfect murder – all in the space of what felt like 3 seconds flat.
As openings go, it’s really not a bad way to draw your audience in.
While a lot of crime dramas focus on the bobbies on the beat and the suffocating air of red-tape and overbearing bosses, Luther taps the seam of shows like Cracker, forgoing all that boring TV admin in favour of coughing up philosophies between drags on a Lambert and Butler.
The set up for this new series isn’t wholly unlike Cracker too, with the troubled wild-eyed criminal dissector battling crafty crooks as well as the plethora of personal turmoil. Of course, 90% of crime dramas do this… Morse was drunk and lonely and Frost was blighted by his resemblance to Del Trotter… but this is steeped in headfuckery.
It’s all in the mind.
And our star role of DCI John Luther is an absolute peach of a character, one pulled off expertly by Idris Elba. As preposterous as our leading man is, there’s something incredibly believable about the whole thing. He’s three-dimensional and all broody knuckle-clenchery and cryptic crossword headache.
His foe again, is someone to believe in. Alice Morgan, played by Ruth Wilson is the least convincing baddie ever aired in real life terms. You just don’t get attractive killers in real life do you?
When you see murderers on the news, they all look like brick-layers from Stoke with podgy faces and grizzled chins that have collected their fair share of egg yolks and dribble. Not in telly. Luther’s adversary was a raven haired pouty professional who purrs threats like she’s talking dirty down the phone.
As such, the storyline is tight and coiling and leaves us with the pleasure of trying to work out how this is going to unravel and who is going to get hurt along the way.
It’s not a Whodunnit… but rather, a Whyandhowdunnit? It’s a brilliantly far-fetched programme that the BBC have needed for a while. Their crime dramas have been a bit sketchy for a while, save for Maxine Peake‘s star turn in Criminal Justice.
This has the potential to be very, very good indeed.
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Loved every second of it. Maybe the following comparison is unfair, but I truly felt I was watching a better written version of Law and Order: Criminal Intent’s Robert Goren played by Vincent D’Onofrio. Brilliant acting from Elba’s part. Being a Romanian I feel objective when saying that BBC’s shows are better than NBC’s or USA’s put together, well, excepting Supernatural. But that’s a personal favourite.
Oh and law and order (even criminal intent) squats and unloads a steamy pile of you have no idea how it is done on Luther.
yankys do it better…again
Oh dear, Luther.
It’s the female characters and awful casting that have made this show a stinker…
Saskia Reeves’ appalling mockney accent is reminiscent of Eliza Doolittle; a dated, hackneyed attempt to sound tough – yet all that comes across is an RSC actress who lucked out.
The villainous temptress character doesn’t work, either – pouting, duck-faced Ruth Wilson doesn’t convince at all with her panto performance (where’s the black cape and evil laugh?).
And as for the script – wow. Every word is spoken as if it carried great weight and importance – it’s exhausting to listen to as you feel you’ve missed something. Otherwise competent actors are being made to over-compensate – they don’t look relaxed in their roles and with their over-written, ‘profound’ dialogue.
Ruth Wilson’s character ‘raven-haired’? Not sure I’ve ever seen a ginger raven… anyway, I’m quite enjoying Luther. Good silly fun.
Luther is a great show. Love Idris. I think one of the finest black actors we’ve seen on TV and it is unusual that we have seen so few black actors on TV, especially to star in the main roles. Alice and Luther are so brilliant together – they both deserve an oscar! Generally though, the acting in Luther is all very high standard, completely believable and absolutely mind blowing.
BBC has done a fantastic job. I just hope the finale isn’t a flop.
And what is with the negative comments? If you ask me, some people don’t know a great show when they see one.
I agree I cant understand the negative commments for such a brilliant programme.
I absolutely loved Luther- watched it from start to finish and was totally gripped throughout. The finale didnt dissappoint for me and was left thoroughly scared after every episode due to the sheer brilliance of the acting! Top class! Made the whole programme very believable.
I think the BBC should put more money into producing wonderful dramas like Luther, gutted its finished. Fingers crossed for some more!