Watch Luther Season 1

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Ms. Nuschler

Taut, suspenseful well acted psychological UK police procedural. A MUST see!

Reviewed in the United States on October 27, 2017

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Oh.My.Gawd!!
This is the actor Idris Elba at his very BEST. Smooth, intelligent, complex psychological criminal procedural in London. His department handles the worst serial killers and twisted minds. Makes “Criminal Minds” look tame by comparison.

I have PTSD so am usually unable to watch ANY violence, but Elba as DCI John Luther is such a large protective presence that I never felt the need to stop watching..although I DID fast forward through the torture scenes. There is no need for a **Spoiler Alert!!** as all four seasons and every episode has at least ONE torture scene. In fact in the UK where this is filmed, the series is considered an unintentional comedy for the amount of violence.
Superb actors in the supporting roles and these bad guys are REAL bad guys.

Idris Elba has been projected to be the next James Bond after Daniel Craig does one more movie. However the world is still so very racist that a reviewer felt that Idris is too “street” to play a suave Bond. Well Daniel Craig proved that one doesn’t have to be silky smooth like Sean Connery to play the part. And I think that Elba is incredibly smooth...with superb insight and intelligence.

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Margaret Opine

LUTHER WINS SOME EPISODES AS EYE CANDY, BIG & STRONG...BUT

Reviewed in the United States on January 10, 2019

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I BOUGHT SEASON 1 and I quit. I even like the role of She Who Killed Her Parents; the performance was what it should be: disgusting and vile. But now, she is partnering with Luther because '''the law'''' can't get their sensory straight. And, they preach a sermon that no matter what or who, as officers of the law, they will arrest or kill anyone they think did the crime or is involved in the crime. (At some point the writers will have to do something with Creepy Woman Who Killed Her Elderly Parents. Can this entire production do something with The Murder of the Elderly Parents so that murdering your parents won't seem normal?) I'm a dog owner as well.
I quit, may try again at some point later, but I didn't like the bloody murder of parents & their dog in the first season. This is a blatant no-no for me.

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Patrick D Sand

Exceptional intelligence & complexity make Luther far more than just another "cop show"

Reviewed in the United States on September 17, 2019

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The headlines states that "exceptional intelligence & complexity make Luther far more than just another 'cop show'," which IMO makes it a rarity on all of English-language TV and a must-watch for anyone looking for a show with these qualities. I find most police shows almost unbearable to watch, with the exception of The Wire, which started off seeming like another cops v. criminals show but quickly became much, much more, and remains IMO the best TV show I've ever seen, period. I mention this because that's when I first encountered Idris Alba, the star of Luther, and thought he gave the most outstanding performance on that sprawling show, an ensemble with a cast of many dozens of major characters. Still, Alba and his character Stringer Bell stood out from the crowd, and it wasn't until after watching every ep of The Wire twice that I learned that he seems to be a well known and respected British actor (I'm from the US). It was because of him that I gave Luther a try, and he is equally good at playing the protagonist of this smaller show: London detective John Luther, a character quite different than Stringer. As good as he is in his own right, though, I think that the show works best when it highlights the interaction and interplay between Alba's central character and the apparently sociopathic astrophysicist Alice Morgan (played brilliantly by Ruth Wilson) -- his ongoing nemesis, foil, and eventually much more. Thankfully, the show establishes this dynamic very quickly in series 1 ep 1, so anyone can get a taste of everything that's coming by spending an hour of their lives checking that out. Though the symbolism of characters named John LUTHER and Alice MORGAN -- i.e. Christian hero v. pagan witch, i.e. good v. evil -- might mislead some into believing that the two are polar opposites, the show very quickly starts playing with this surface level symbolism to unfold both characters as deeply disturbed geniuses, to different degrees and in different ways, who engage in a years-long intellectual game and struggle to understand each other as well as themselves and "big questions" like the nature or very existence of genuine love or the nature of the real good and evil that permeate the world. Without losing any of the permanent tension between them, they gradually end up needing each other as much as yin needs yang and vice versa, and there are times when it's more than reasonable to question who's more in the right or in the wrong, factually or even morally. IMO, the show also needs this ongoing dynamic between them to rise to the level that it does, which is why series 1, 3 and 5, which all feature Alice prominently, are definitely the best. When Alice has little to no presence, however, it can bog down into something close to "just another cop show" in which Luther tries to catch psychotic serial killers etc. by trying to get inside their heads, which holds little interest for me in itself and also lacks the originality of the show overall. (maybe it's just me, but it can begin to feel like once you've seen enough psychopaths, you've seen them all, which is why I tend to stay away from police/ detective shows in general. But Luther is still much more than that: while some people seem to find it "too dark," I suspect that most of these people have led sheltered or at least relatively comfortable lives (or maybe have experienced enough darkness in their lives that they don't want to see more of it on TV. To me, it doesn't seem dark at all -- at least not any darker than any of the innumerable other cop shows etc. featuring serial killers and other people who do all sort of evil things. It just doesn't pretend that the human beings can be neatly divided into good people and evil ones, but portrays that fault line as running through every human heart and mind, and something that can be swayed in either direction by difficult choices, which is certainly my own experience of how the world actually works. And the show continuously "subverts expectations," plays with tropes, and makes clear that "no one is safe" far more effectively than Game Of Thrones, which tried to brand itself as a master of these arts, but increasingly fell into doing almost anything to achieve whatever cheap shock value it could still wring out of the audience. If you want to see how these things are really done in an intelligent way, I highly recommend Luther as an alternative. It's only other weakness is that it lacks the extremely relevant and urgent social and political themes of The Wire or even Mr. Robot, but that's never what it was about. I would, however, compare it favorably to Breaking Bad, with which it has a bit more in common, and would still consider it one of the best shows of any genre that I've ever seen on TV.

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Rhonda Cawthorn

A series that raises the bar for intelligence in a dramatic series. Period. I wish it would come back.

Reviewed in the United States on May 14, 2016

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Man-- talk about a series that sets the bar high. The intelligence of this show and honest of it makes it worth the watch. No NCIS here-- not sentimentality--no b.b. or predictable soda pop swilling characters in braids (sorry but that show never changes-- a guy or woman in the army gets killed and this cadre of personalities that also never change or evolve or grow go get em') a five year old could write copy like this. Good grief.

But these script writers know their stuff, they have to to write such stellar, intelligent conversations as the ones between Luther and Alice (stars in another winning drama now, the Affair-- you know, the sexy redhead). This show is always surprising and I already miss it, even though I just binge watched it with my crime series loving and hilarious mother, Barb.

rhondathewriter12

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