Luther

It gets darker, scarier and more captivating with each episode as Luther matches wits with killers and cops alike.

Series creator/writer Neil Cross continues to spin dark strands that stray unexpectedly into unsettling territory.

The presentation may be Hitchcockian at times, but there is nothing fun or arch or cartoonish or even particularly original in the violence that permeates Luther. It is, quite simply, terrifying, and we are meant to take it as seriously as Luther himself does.

There's also a procedural element in the middle hours, with Luther focusing on individual cases in each installment, that doesn't hold up quite as well. Even those installments, however, have their chilling moments, before the final two episodes take off and regain the premiere's momentum.

As was the case with the second season, Season 3 of Luther is only four hours long, and the drama would probably be more satisfying if it didn't try to cover so many bases in that limited running time.

It allows the mind to roam across many questions while the story unspools efficiently before you, asking little in the way of mental or emotional investment and giving much in the way of solidly old-fashioned whodunnitry. Pairs well with apple crumble and custard or large slabs of Dairy Milk.

The show’s concept has long revolved around how everything Luther has been through has left him haunted, but now, in the fifth season, it does little more for viewers than leave them numb.

Episode 1. Season 1. A brilliant crazy person kills her parents. Luther has to figure how to proof it, lacking any clear evidence. There is a lot of x waving(yes, even for a woman) as the two openly bicker. Luther stating he is on to her and she stating he has nothing on her. So it is Sherlock against Moriarty.. oh wait, that is another series where a brilliant crazy person takes on a equally brilliant detective over crimes that are unusual. In the mean time Luther struggles with something that happened in his past(he caused an accident to a perpetrator, who is now in a coma and can return at any time)/ And his relation with his wife is going down hill fast as she is fed up with him spending more time with his cases then with her. Sounds good, right? Not for me really. That tensions exist between spouses would not surprise me, but there is nothing subtle about it in this series. This is in your face drama and considering this is the first episode it will be a persistent part of that series. Half the time will be filled with this stuff. Drama and policing come together when the crazy person decides she is going to pester Luther by terrorizing his wife. She just does some google searches to figure out everything about Luther and his wife and then hangs out the building where Luther's wife is working so she can then grab her from behind when she comes out to have a smoke. Let me think about this for a moment. She has been hanging out in the corner of a building for how long so just in the hope that Luther's wife will go out for a smoke alone so she can then ambush her? Nobody found it strange that this person was standing there for like how many hours? How convenient. There is like a zillion things wrong with all of this. It is the way Luther is made out to be brilliant in almost the same way as Sherlock Holmes. She didn't yawn, so she has no empathy, hence she is a narcissist. Oh and your wife breaking up with you comes totally out of the blue. That is just not how relations work. And of course, a brilliant detective must have a brilliant opponent. Oh wait, scratch brilliant. It is just people who the plot favors with getting wild guesses right and giving people superpowers so that the story doesn't bog down in it's own contrivances. I stopped watching.