A review of Fox’s Lucifer first episode

A review of Fox’s Lucifer first episode

On January 25th Fox’s latest TV show will air. Lucifer stars Tom Ellis’s as you may guess, Lucifer… The Lord of Hell. The shows is loosely based on the comic-book character created by Neil Gaiman which was developed into its own spin-off book series Lucifer written by Mike Carey.

Lucifer is hard to categorize. In the pilot episode we see Tom Ellis’s title character attempt to solve the murder of his sweetheart Delilah. He is also confronted by other supernatural entities, presumably arch-angels sent by God to question why he is not performing his duty as Lord of Hell. The show does not dwell on this too much, just enough to set the stage for future confrontation. In his attempt to find out who killed Delilah Lucifer is forced to team up with LAPD detective Chloe Dancer (Lauren German).

To his astonishment Chloe manages to resist his foremost super power, making people confide in him their most secret desire. Chloe is despite this resistance a colorful character in her own right. Her difficult working relationship with her colleagues was caused by a previous botched investigation. Yet, despite her professionalism Chloe was once a teenage actress whose only significant moment of fame came when she stripped for the movie Hot Tub Hotties. Lucifer even reminds the people they are investigating that Chloe could have been the next Phoebe Kates.

The strength of the show certainly lies in the camaraderie between Lucifer and Chloe. Both the performance of Tom Ellis and Lauren German are praiseworthy. This strength is topped off with a decent amount of violence and horror as well as humor and sensuality. The latter is again epitomized by the fact that Lucifer can pretty much seduce any women, except Chloe. For all his confidence the murder of Delilah has shaken him. Teaming up with Chloe has allowed him to be introduced to Chloe’s daughter Trixie, her ex-husband and boss Dan and the oversexed therapist Linda (Rachael Harris).

Lucifer and Chloe manage to find Delilah’s murdered, but not before she is almost fatally injured. The pilot episode manages to wrap-up this brief mystery in a very neat way. Yet, one question remains. Just what is the show all about? It can’t be considered a serious crime drama, the horror aspects don’t dominate and neither does the humor or sexual explicitness. Lucifer seems to be all over the map. This can be great, but the fear is the show will become too lighthearted and repetitive.

Since the pilot episode leaked onto the internet Fox announced the show would undergo some changes. Expect some of the supporting cast to not return. This is not unusual for pilot episodes, they are after all a test. However, I hope Fox won’t prematurely kill the series by showing episode out of order as they did with Almost Human and Firefly. This was a review of Fox’s Lucifer first episode. Lets hope the show makes for a worthy addition to the new TV season.

Source; http://www.fox.com/lucifer/