Lucifer

Ellis is a good choice as the season’s biggest anti-hero, deftly playing sarcasm as well as the occasional pathos. As it gets rolling, Lucifer poses some theology-class-worthy questions about the nature of redemption, damnation and duty.

There are ample interesting ingredients here. But two subsequent episodes--Fox for some reason hasn’t provided the second one--are comparably hit and miss.

Lucifer is the most accessible [of the twoshows--the other being Syfy's "The Magicians"], mostly because it feels as if we've already seen it before. And we have, one way or another; "Lucifer" feels a bit as if Syfy's fallen-angel drama "Dominion" mated with ABC's "Castle."

Fox’s new comedy-drama Lucifer has a similar premise [as "Death Takes a Holiday and "Meet Joe Black"], but without the sap and more zip and lip. But (and you saw this coming), the devil is in the details.... Uneven but mostly fun.

It's a mildly entertaining hour as far as crime procedurals go.

A light dusting of Milton notwithstanding, its pitch is mainstream and middlebrow. A decently made series that is neither particularly original nor entirely predictable.

The show’s supporting players--in particular, D.B. Woodside’s Amenadiel, sent down from Heaven to insist Lucifer go back from where he came, Rachael Harris as Lucifer’s shrink, and Lesley-Ann Brandt as Maze, Lucifer’s ass-kicking assistant--hint at the possibility of a more interesting show (as does a closing twist in “Favorite Son”). Until or unless the show’s writing staff digs down and explore those darker instincts, however, Lucifer feels stuck in creative purgatory.

The conventional crime-time format incinerates everything strange and spirited about the concept, and Lucifer’s cop partner (Lauren German)--the female wet blanket to his male rogue--is a trope that needs to go to hell.

Lucifer isn’t quite there yet. But what it already is really has to be seen to be believed, if only as a one-off curiosity.

This narrative of bad people who want to feel human, whose flaws are both embedded into their DNA and yet crippling, has gone stale. In the context of a crime show, the gimmick ages rapidly.

Here's the uncomfortable truth about Lucifer the series: It's just too damnably familiar. [1-14 Feb 2016, p.19]

There’s nice but predictable chemistry between Ellis and German, and although Fox only made one episode available to critics, the show’s concept is so obvious, it’s easy to see exactly where this will go, unless it gets canceled first.

Ellis is charming, but this nothing more than another buddy cop procedural.

The show, which glides past its mythology Monday, eventually gets bogged down in it--particularly in a silly B-story built around the Angel Amenadiel’s (D.B. Woodside) attempts to use Lucifer’s bodyguard (Lesley-Ann Brandt) and therapist (Rachael Harris) to lure Lucifer back to hell. Lucifer begins to feel mortal, which is dull, and begins to cross that thin line between amusing and annoying, which is worse.

This louche Lucifer is mostly a cop procedural snooze.

Any evidence of the source material's wit or grit is MIA. We're left with a show that's as cheesy as it is ridiculously improbable.

Lucifer arrives with all of the superficial flash you'd expect from a Len Wiseman-directed pilot. But after falling into the Fox "quirky civilian contractor(s) aid law enforcement" rut, this new drama doesn't begin to show sparks of interest until at least the fifth episode.

Lucifer certainly has a sense of atmosphere, and has some fun with little touches like the character’s personalized license plate (FALLIN1, naturally) or inherent dislike of children. Rachael Harris is also a hoot, briefly, as a psychologist who is decidedly not resistant to Lucifer’s influence. Still, it’s hard to think of anything more mundane than having the Devil walking among us, only to turn that into a crime procedural--a slightly sulfurous version of “Bones” or (gasp) “Rosewood.” Subsequent episodes merely calcify that perception.

The show's creators have replaced the original Lucifer with neither a counterpoint nor an interesting abstraction. Instead, they've simply shaped yet another paean to the perfect dude, who can carry on a lewd, open affair with his psychiatrist, play matchmaker with Dancer and her ex, and solve every major crime that the LAPD is called in for.

In the end, Lucifer succumbs to so many clichés of the genre that it could easily be mistaken as a (very, very poor) spoof of cop shows than one itself.

The most obnoxious show of the new year thus far, Lucifer traduces the character created by Neil Gaiman and developed by writer Mike Carey in the Lucifer comic-book series.

Mr. Ellis was born in Wales, and the creators of this incoherent mess apparently hope that his accent will convey rakishness and arch sophistication. Instead you just want to wipe the perpetual smirk off his face.