TV - Lucifer

Susan Omand makes a deal with the devil and watches the pilot episode of Lucifer on Amazon Prime...

I’d heard great things about this show so was very pleased to see it drop as “one episode a week” on Amazon Prime. It’s apparently based on the Lucifer character from the DC/Vertigo Sandman comics, a comics series that I absolutely adored, so I had very high hopes when I sat down to watch it.

Lucifer Morningstar is a devil... in fact The Devil. He got bored of running the show in Hell, retired and came topside to run a bar called Lux in LA with his sidekick Maze and generally interfere with the lives of those around him, much to the annoyance of Amenadiel, sent to bring Lucifer back to his rightful place in Hell. In the pilot episode, superstar singer Delilah, whose career Lucifer “helped” by introducing her to people that “owed him favours,” although the subsequent drink binges, drugs and topless selfies he claimed were her own decisions, turns up outside Lux in a mess, Lucifer asks her to pull herself together as a favour to him. She agrees but, before she can do any more, she is gunned down and killed in a drive-by shooting. Lucifer is also shot but, being immortal, gets up and gives hell (figuratively speaking) to the gunman whose car crashed after the shooting, finding out that he was only the trigger-man and that someone else paid for the hit. Enter lady detective Chloe Dancer of the LAPD, intent on solving the case in order to annoy her detective ex husband and to make amends for screwing up a previous case and Lucifer sees a chance to get involved, partner up and get some justice for Delilah.

Now, maybe I’ve watched too many “celebrity/actor/author/doctor/etc helps out the local constabulary solving crimes by seeing things differently” type shows in my life to find this anything novel or different. Set in LA, the city and the cars are wonderful and the soundtrack in the club is incredible but this is pretty much Supernatural meets Castle with a splash of 90210 thrown in. Tom Ellis (who I’ve watched and really enjoyed before in Miranda of all things) overplays his part as Lucifer Morningstar, coming across as camply arrogant and annoying rather than in any way devilishly charismatic and menacing, and Lauren German (Chicago Fire) is yet to impress as anything other than a run of the mill, hard done by lady cop. The only light in the mediocrity so far is DB Woodside (24) as the angel Amenadiel, a part he plays with much menace, potential and very cool black angel wings. However, since this is only the pilot episode on Amazon Prime, with the second episode due to drop today, I will give it the benefit of the doubt and will likely watch the next one, now the character building is hopefully all out of the way and the stories can maybe develop moreso.

For now though, if you enjoy the easy watch of daytime TV detective series and can get over the smug smarminess with which Tom Ellis plays the character of Lucifer, it’ll pass 40 odd minutes for you without much effort, just don’t expect anything groundbreaking. Yet.

[Addendum: I gave up after the second episode of Season 1 as smug-Castle-clone was starting to annoy me. Let me know if it got any better/ different]

Image - Amazon