Lucifer - TV series

[ants]

I can't find any thread on this, which given this board's fantasy and comic book alignment is slightly surprising.

I've been watching the series so far, and with only a few episodes to go it has been thoroughly entertaining. Tom Ellis totally commands the screen as the fallen son of god, with a good group of support roles. Billed as a police procedural with a fantasy twist, the reality is that the weekly murders are very much back drop for what is happening with Lucifer in his life. A number of sub-plots and mysteries add to the intrigue, and you're never quite sure which way the show is going to jump.

I have not read the comic so I do not know how closely - or far - they are from the source material. But so far it has been a very fun ride. They have green lit a second series, so the fun should continue for a little while yet.

[Mladen]

As good as Ellis is, he simply can't make up for rather uninspired plot and questionable supporting cast. I am not sure that the show is really that mysterious, but at least, lead is fun to watch and have interesting quips. 

[Red Tiger]

You cant find a thread on this because the show is far worse than the comic on which it is based. They took a chronicle of a fallen angel travelling through all manners of time and space and made it police procedural number 10000000. It´s nothing like the comic book.

[Mladen]

45 minutes ago, Red Tiger said:

You cant find a thread on this because the show is far worse than the comic on which it is based. They took a chronicle of a fallen angel travelling through all manners of time and space and made it police procedural number 10000000. It´s nothing like the comic book.

I think this is what bothers me the most - the show being police procedural. The premise, fallen angel in LA is great, they obviously found amazing actor to be Lucifer and yet what should keep things together - story, falls like a house of cards. Just like Sleepy Hollow with interestingly dashing Icabod Crane, or Castle with witty author, Bones with "I don't know what that means" Temperance Brennan, the charm of the lead actor/actress can get the show only to a certain point.

[Channel4s-JonSnow]

49 minutes ago, Red Tiger said:

You cant find a thread on this because the show is far worse than the comic on which it is based. They took a chronicle of a fallen angel travelling through all manners of time and space and made it police procedural number 10000000. It´s nothing like the comic book.

I heard really good things about the comic, so I was pretty shocked at just how bad the tv show was, I had to switch it off after half an hour, it was just dire.

[ants]

Hmm, I seem to be a bit alone in my views here.

I'm not sure why the supporting cast are meant to be so dire, they seem pretty solid to me. Some are a bit vanilla, but then that lets Lucifer call them Detective Douche.  Obviously as I haven't seen the comics, I can't comment on the comparison. But it seems to me using a technique like the police procedural to get people into the show is a good one. It will be interesting to see if they move away from it at all in season 2. Certainly you need to approach it that a big goal is the fun of Lucifer interacting with humanity. There is so much he doesn't understand.

But then, I have watched a number of police procedurals over the years so I don't mind them.

[baxus]

I have seen a few episodes and quite liked them.

They were reasonably entertaining and the premise is very interesting. Writers could have done more with such a premise, that's true and the comic book version sounds much better. Since I haven't read the comics I can't compare the two but if comic books were the starting point, then I realise why comic book fans dislike this show.

[Mladen]

1 hour ago, baxus said:

Since I haven't read the comics I can't compare the two but if comic books were the starting point, then I realise why comic book fans dislike this show.

I haven't read the comics and didn't even know it was based on comics until someone told me. But the problem is that, as the piece of TV, it's not working because it has strong premise and abysmal execution of the said premise.

This could have been epic... Instead, it's just OK-ish.

1 hour ago, ants said:

But it seems to me using a technique like the police procedural to get people into the show is a good one.

Not, if the cases are that boring and predictable. Even by the standards of police procedural, this one is lacking some interesting cases. All the cases so far have been so boring.

[baxus]

45 minutes ago, Risto said:

This could have been epic... Instead, it's just OK-ish.

And there's nothing wrong with OK-ish.

We don't need every single TV show to be epic, or a masterpiece. Sometimes we just need some entertainment (for me it's Supernatural, but Lucifer fits the bill too).

[Channel4s-JonSnow]

28 minutes ago, baxus said:

And there's nothing wrong with OK-ish.

We don't need every single TV show to be epic, or a masterpiece. Sometimes we just need some entertainment (for me it's Supernatural, but Lucifer fits the bill too).

I dunno, in a world where there is simply too much choice when it comes to tv show.. OKish doesn't cut the mustard any more. Why waste my time on OK when I could be watching AMAZING.

[red snow]

I'm a bit in JonSnow's camp but I also see the need for enjoyable tv too. Something you can eat a meal to or watch when you get home drunk.

This one is on my watch list on amazon, I may give it a go especially since it managed to get a second season. I could probably replace a comic tv show with it as I'm done with Arrow.

[Channel4s-JonSnow]

18 minutes ago, red snow said:

I'm a bit in JonSnow's camp but I also see the need for enjoyable tv too. Something you can eat a meal to or watch when you get home drunk.

This one is on my watch list on amazon, I may give it a go especially since it managed to get a second season. I could probably replace a comic tv show with it as I'm done with Arrow.

I have a category of tv I can put on in the background, where I don't have to actually pay attention, but it has to be a lot of fun. Agents of SHIELD filled that space for a bit, but I'd rather light sitcom or comedy instead of something with an actual plot.

If I'm going to sit and watch something, then it'd better be good!

[baxus]

2 hours ago, Channel4s-JonSnow said:

I dunno, in a world where there is simply too much choice when it comes to tv show.. OKish doesn't cut the mustard any more. Why waste my time on OK when I could be watching AMAZING.

I may have missed some shows, but I'm not so sure there is too much choice when it comes to TV shows.

Which of the currently aired shows are actually THAT great? Not trolling, I'm actually looking for recommendations.

[Channel4s-JonSnow]

1 minute ago, baxus said:

I may have missed some shows, but I'm not so sure there is too much choice when it comes to TV shows.

Which of the currently aired shows are actually THAT great? Not trolling, I'm actually looking for recommendations.

I think there are genuinely loads.

Game of thrones
Leftovers
Fargo
Americans
Better Call Saul
Mr Robot
Transparent
Master of None
Daredevil
Veep 
Silicone Valley
Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt

I mean thats just a quick selection and all a matter of taste, but that you could triple that with 'very good' shows, especially from the last couple of years means you'd find it very hard to fit shows in. And those are just the american shows, there are MANY european shows you could be watching, like 'Les Revenant' or 'The Killing', which I'd probably take over something like Lucifer.

[red snow]

It's all down to how much time someone has and how many shows there are. For me I can manage 1-2 shows a day (and I like to watch the news and documentatries as part of that) and there's more than enough great shows on to fill that amount. I spend a good chunk of the summer catching up on the things I missed during the winter too. eg Fargo, Penny Dreadful, Leftovers. Honestly there could be a 6 month strike and I'd still have trouble catching up.

But people like what they like. I'm pretty confident the Flash, Arrow and Walking dead easily have another ten shows that are their better but sometimes I just want to watch something mildly entertaining and allows me to chat on the forums.

Still the fact the pilot got strong reviews and there isn't much action on the forum makes me dubious to the show's quality unless it's something people are embarassed to talk about. I know I silently watched the Following for a year and quite enjoyed "elementary's" first season. I think there used to be a "guilty pleasures" thread?

[Dr. Pepper]

If it weren't for iZombie, I wouldn't have even given this show a chance.  I can't stand police procedurals, but iZombie is so enjoyable despite the wretched police procedural format that it encouraged me to give Lucifer a try.  

There is a lot of charm to this show.  Tom Ellis is an inspired casting choice.  He's adorable, charismatic, makes the best devilish facial expressions.  He's utterly believable in this role. His own personal journey even made the police procedural aspect mostly bearable, at least at the start.

The problem with the show is a lot of the other stuff, at least those not directly and obviously part of the supernatural world.  Maze and Amenadiel are awesome, Dr. Linda is a joy, Trixie is adorbs.  But it's really not enough.  Chloe, the catalyst for Lucifer's change, is horrible.  She's given poor direction and she's not a strong actress.  Worse, her arc sucks.  There's no way to like or respect Chloe when she's presented as so stupid and uncaring.  Here she has an absolute insane and violent man by her side, at least from her perspective, and she does nothing about it.  This is a cop who was so willing to give up respect among her peers in order to adequately investigate potential police crime, and yet she's not willing to point out that this partner of hers is suffering from severe delusions and is literally harming others.  That may have worked the first few episodes, but it now only serves to make all of Chloe's supposed specialness seem mind-numbingly stupid.  Plus, they insist on styling her as though her job is managing a night-club rather than being a cop. I can't take this character seriously.

The only good thing to say about Kevin Alejandro's Detective Douche is that he's somehow not died yet.  Maybe Alejandro will make it through a show alive.  Most recently, he's seen evidence that Lucifer has been shot, but three weeks later he's still done nothing about it.  Worst cops ever.

Which circles back to the police procedural aspect.  I can understand the allure of using this format.  It's easy and accessible, but it's also very lazy.  It's so rare that it works out, unless it's specifically a cop show with no pretense of being anything different or better.  There have been some enjoyable moments, like the case with the preacher, but the good parts of these cases usually have little to do with the cases themselves.  With just one episode left in the season, I'm going to finished it out, but the finale would have to be perfectly amazing and the police procedural aspect would need to be dropped for me to want to continue next season.  More than likely, I'm just going to either go read summaries of the comics or check out the comics themselves.  I like this world, just not how the story is being told on screen.  

[Richard Writhen]

I don't see how this could work as a show, but I was a huge Sandman fan back in the day.

[Mladen]

9 hours ago, baxus said:

And there's nothing wrong with OK-ish.

We don't need every single TV show to be epic, or a masterpiece. Sometimes we just need some entertainment (for me it's Supernatural, but Lucifer fits the bill too).

Yeah, but if it can be great, why not making it great. This really could have been something amazing.

6 hours ago, baxus said:

I may have missed some shows, but I'm not so sure there is too much choice when it comes to TV shows.

Which of the currently aired shows are actually THAT great? Not trolling, I'm actually looking for recommendations.

The Americans, The Expanse, Daredevil, Master of None, Sense8, Agent Carter, The Last Kingdom. I also warmly recommend BBC's adaptations - And then there were none, War and Peace, The Night Manager.

For purely entertainment purposes, I recommend Limitless, who even though is a cop procedural, is truly amazing. Also Orphan Black, House of Cards and Marco Polo who hadn't the best last year, but can be considered entertaining.

[The Mother of The Others]

wHAT ABOUT new girl?

 

 Lucifer seemed like a good idea after the pilot but has since revealed itself to be Austin Powers without the fake British teeth Mike wore to such good effect, and the jokes aren't as good as Myers' material

[baxus]

5 hours ago, The Mother of The Others said:

wHAT ABOUT new girl?

I must admit I never understood the hype over New Girl.

It may be because I find Zooey Deschanel (spelling?) extremely annoying in pretty much every single role I saw her perform.

I'll have to take a look into some of the shows mentioned here. A big thanks to everyone who came up with suggestions.