British TV unfortunately has lost or is losing a wave of quality long standing police/crime shows with Ashes To Ashes, The Bill & Touch Of Frost all being put out to pastor. Step forward the first of a new generation, Luther which is, based on it's lead actor & writers an extremely promising new cop show.
The opening episode of the series aired last night & I enjoyed it. It was very slick & the script was very well paced. Certain parts had a gritty realistic feel to them, the dead dog for example. I felt though, it was a bit too predictable. It was obvious the girl would survive at the start & I also pretty quickly got a suspicious vibe from the daughter of the murdered folk. This pretty much made Luther's cat & mouse interview with her slightly pointless & tedious. It should have been the moment we got an indication regarding the level of Luther's detective skill but the fact I worked it out very early sort of ruined the scene.
Luther is a loose canon, that's fairly obvious. it's nice to have a British cop with a real dangerous edge. His edge was well played but I felt the opening scene aside he didn't seem dangerous enough. I will use Jack Bauer as an example. Jack will break suspects fingers one by one to get what he wants, Luther smashed a door & a stole a dogs urn.
