Luther

[Mo Gosfield]

Top notch for me....will be watching every week...Ruth Wilson...phworrrrrrrrrrrr....!!!!!

 

[Simster]

Luthor is quality tellybox.

 

[KNC]

don't quite agree but can you tell me this how did the killer get in the car without him knowing
getting rather dark nevertheless watchable

My post was from the last series, last year. It seems to have improved, judging from the posts. I'll give it another go.

 

[LamieRobertson]

Very enjoyable series ..but my recent fav has been ''The Shadow Line'' on bbc2..unfortunately it finished last night

 

[mistahclarke]

still can't believe this isn't more highly rated on here, it's quality TV

 

[Stumpy Tim]

Cracking episode last night it has to be said.

 

[Simster]

Was brilliant last night but why do people accept horrific violence just ten mins after the watershed while sex scenes in this country remain so tame?
The office hammer attack was grotesque. Still love the show though.

 

[Bry Nylon]

Was brilliant last night but why do people accept horrific violence just ten mins after the watershed while sex scenes in this country remain so tame?
The office hammer attack was grotesque. Still love the show though.

I walked in from the kitchen last night to be greeted by that gratuitous scene of a man smashing people's heads in with a hammer in a Bishopsgate office. I don't think the programme needed it and I'm surprised it was included, to be honest. Great show though.

 

[Brovion]

Was brilliant last night but why do people accept horrific violence just ten mins after the watershed while sex scenes in this country remain so tame?
The office hammer attack was grotesque. Still love the show though.

I was thinking that. You can show all sorts of violence with blood, guts, entry and exit wounds, bullets slamming into flesh and human beings inflicting pain and suffering on each other (often done 'artisticly' in slow-motion so you can really appreciate the agony in case it's over too quickly for you) - and that's all fine. That's 'entertainment'. But if you were to show two people attempting to create life in anything like the same detail (especially if you included the bodily fluid) you would be denounced as nothing more than a sordid pornographer.

Luther is indeed 'quality tellybox', but no one judges the quality of a show by its bodycount. It's only on the third episiode and it's already had two mass-murderers, where does it go next? It's a pity as the ultra-violence detracts from the developing relationships and the interplay between the characters which I think is its real attraction. My wife doesn't want us to watch it any more.

 

[Meade's Ball]

It's a psychological horror, isn't it, so you don't see the weapons of grim destruction striking anyone. The acid-gun only told it was acid at first from the screams and later with the peckled scarring. And the hammer work was behind the car or desks from a distance. Luther is called into action to understand the complex thoughts of the rottenly devious and inconvertably evil, so it would be a bit silly if he was just dealing with the poisoning of the vicar in Shepton Mallet.
It's a gruesome series, yes, but these tales will be not too dissimilar to what we read in newspapers quite often. And we're mostly bothered about Luther and his bending of the law for personal justice.
I only really wonder why he lives in such a shitty tower block.

 

[Icy Gull]

As an aside, Luther is nowhere near as angry this series is he?

 

[Brovion]

It's a psychological horror, isn't it, so you don't see the weapons of grim destruction striking anyone. The acid-gun only told it was acid at first from the screams and later with the peckled scarring. And the hammer work was behind the car or desks from a distance. Luther is called into action to understand the complex thoughts of the rottenly devious and inconvertably evil, so it would be a bit silly if he was just dealing with the poisoning of the vicar in Shepton Mallet.
It's a gruesome series, yes, but these tales will be not too dissimilar to what we read in newspapers quite often. And we're mostly bothered about Luther and his bending of the law for personal justice.
I only really wonder why he lives in such a shitty tower block.

I disagree. I've yet to read in the newspapers of a man who beat a bloke to death on a garage forecourt, blinded another with acid, stabbed three(?) people to death in a motorcycle courier's office and then bludgeoned four people to death and wounded dozens of others in a motiveless attack on an office building. Even in American gun massacres (probably the nearest real-life examples) there's usually a connection between the killer and victims. I dunno, maybe I'm reading the wrong papers ....

EDIT: And for me I think the series would work just as well if he WAS just investigating the poisoning of a vicar in Shepton Mallet. As I said for me the best bits are the relationships between the characters and the fact the Luther isn't a dirty cop only a 'man over a barrel' (quote). I think to an extent they're relying on lazy sensationalism in an attempt to make it 'gritty'.

 

[Icy Gull]

DIT: And for me I think the series would work just as well if he WAS just investigating the poisoning of a vicar in Shepton Mallet..

You'd be better off watching Midsomer Murders then!!

 

[Meade's Ball]

I disagree. I've yet to read in the newspapers of a man who beat a bloke to death on a garage forecourt, blinded another with acid, stabbed three(?) people to death in a motorcycle courier's office and then bludgeoned four people to death and wounded dozens of others in a motiveless attack on an office building. Even in American gun massacres (probably the nearest real-life examples) there's usually a connection between the killer and victims. I dunno, maybe I'm reading the wrong papers ....

Not too dissimilar doesn't mean identical to, but yes my wording there was perhaps not perfect. I often see reports, though, of the wrongly imprisoned in military institutions dotted around the world being drowned in order to be made to confess, alongside other grotesque torture-methods administered repeatedly over months and years.
What you've described there makes it sound quite comical, and it is because it works in the same fantasy level as Buffy the Vampire Slayer did, but with a tad deeper emotional weight. Grab a myth from the past, sew in a slightly modernised psychopathy, and turn it into a haunting tale of a possessed detective who just wants out. It's pretty much Hellblazer.
I don't think it's the greatest show ever, partly because his sidekicks are so hammy, but it's good enough fun.

 

[Not Andy Naylor]

I agree with everyone who says it's brilliant, but also those who say it's far-fetched tripe. The electricity whenever Ruth Wilson is on screen could power the Amex floodlights for an entire season, but the fact that she somehow got out last week, which was never explained, is typical of the plot leaps that make it ridiculous at times. The Loofah character states the bleedin' obvious and is regarded as some sort of psychic genius, etc etc - but somehow the whole thing is brilliantly watchable.

As for The Shadow Line, same applies. Alternately taut and tense and then ludicrous. And as for (spoiler alert) the whole thing being about police pensions, I didn't know whether to think that was the most brilliantly or stupidly mundane twist ever.

And while we're talking about dramas featuring the omnipresent Lesley Sharp, any opinions on Scott and Bailey?

 

[matt]

but the fact that she somehow got out last week...
And while we're talking about dramas featuring the omnipresent Lesley Sharp, any opinions on Scott and Bailey?

Luther put a keycard in an apple and threw it over the wall for her. Maybe he also stuffed a change of clothes and some sort of disguise into a water melon and heaved that over too?

Scott & Bailey - I think it is EXCELLENT. I can't remember the last time I watched any sort of drama on ITV, but I have found S&B very engrossing.

 

[Icy Gull]

And while we're talking about dramas featuring the omnipresent Lesley Sharp, any opinions on Scott and Bailey?

This too is very watchable

 

[osgood]

is the leading role having a voice-over from" DEV" from Coronation St ??,
sounds like the same bloke to me ....
plus my mate who likes "eastenders " thinks its great,
so i havnt bothered with it, and concluded that it must be a loada ol shite

 

[brightonian finest]

f***ing amazing tonight.
Will be a series 3 though?

 

[Stumpy Tim]

My f***ing digital packed up two minutes before it was on

It had better be on iPlayer