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Positive:
49
Mixed:
10
Negative:
1
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Critic Reviews
Aug 20, 2013
Season 3 Review:
Elba has been fantastic at every step, taking Cross' wonderful writing it and giving it even more dimensions. Pretty much every character that walks into this miniseries has given a virtuoso performance.... Season three never disappoints even when you kind of recoil, as a viewer, at the evil that has landed in Luther’s already complicated life.
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The TimesJan 7, 2020
Jun 3, 2019
Jun 3, 2019
Season 5 Review:
This season, the fifth, is a typically tidy four episodes — short arcs being advisable when you routinely suspend all the laws of logic, psychology and police procedure. Neil Cross, who created the show and still writes it, has a gift for packaging the lurid and the preposterous into hypnotizing psychodrama that moves fast enough to keep you from thinking too hard.
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TV Guide MagazineDec 10, 2015
Season 4 Review:
[The] one-night movie comeback is as psychologically intense and disturbingly nerve-racking as fans could hope for (or dread).... taut urban thriller. [7-20 Dec 2015, p.17]
Sep 4, 2013
Sep 3, 2013TV Guide MagazineSep 3, 2013
Season 3 Review:
The suspense is considerable, with Luther once again desperately trying in vain to keep those he loves (including new girlfriend Sienna Guillory) out of the grisly crossfire, but the violent twists can verge on the eye-rollingly preposterous by the story's over-the-top climax, which (in happier news) reintroduces one of his most memorably seductive adversaries.
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Aug 26, 2013
Season 3 Review:
Although the series hardly breaks any new ground, Elba’s commanding presence--and Luther’s willingness to walk a tightrope in terms of police protocol--manage to elevate the material above standard procedural fare, as do the clever callbacks to earlier episodes and characters.
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Sep 27, 2011
Season 2 Review:
While the idea of crimefighter-dogged-by-personal demons hardly smacks of freshness, the former "The Wire" star so owns the character as to give it his own spin. Barring that, though, writer Neil Cross' approach to the crime yarns is so visceral and grim it's easy to be drawn in strictly on that level.
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Season 1 Review:
There's also a procedural element in the middle hours, with Luther focusing on individual cases in each installment, that doesn't hold up quite as well. Even those installments, however, have their chilling moments, before the final two episodes take off and regain the premiere's momentum.
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Season 1 Review:
We are led to believe there is something faintly honorable about these characters, and that their extreme intelligence justifies their slaughter of those who are "beneath" them. There's something distasteful about this archetype, but Wilson, a canny actress, rises above the material. Together they make Luther the most absurd and enjoyable police show to come along in a while.
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Sep 3, 2013
Season 3 Review:
This season is very good, but it’s only four episodes, and they’ve been tragically whittled down by BBC America to make room for commercials. The result is choppy, with a few critical connections missing in the investigation of Luther and in the progress of Luther’s relationship with Mary.
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Sep 3, 2013
Season 3 Review:
There seems to have been a conscious decision to add a dose of not just violence but horrific suspense and shocking violence. The first hour in particular feels like a disappointing departure. The character remains the same, even if he encounters accentuated gore and mental illness in the criminals. He even grows a bit.
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Sep 3, 2013
Season 3 Review:
The first two episodes are relatively restrained by Luther standards, with an emphasis on plodding police work, while the case against Luther percolates in the background. Neil Cross still delivers the dread, though, as killers pop out of attics, closets and even closer places. The action picks up in the season’s second half.
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Jun 3, 2019
Season 5 Review:
The new season, written by series creator Neil Cross, has multiple callbacks to season one (the denouement brings things full circle) and fills in the blanks on where Alice has been and on her relationship with Luther, perhaps with too much information at times (allusion and mystery works better for their relationship than flat-out explanation).
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Dec 17, 2015
Season 4 Review:
Luther: Outlaw clearly wants to be a hard reset for the direction of the show, but it can’t seem to shake the clichés of its main story, which follows a serial killer whose tics are lifted directly from various incarnations of Hannibal Lecter, with a bit of Kevin Spacey’s Se7en killer for additional seasoning.
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The GuardianDec 4, 2019
Season 5 Review:
It allows the mind to roam across many questions while the story unspools efficiently before you, asking little in the way of mental or emotional investment and giving much in the way of solidly old-fashioned whodunnitry. Pairs well with apple crumble and custard or large slabs of Dairy Milk.
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TV Guide MagazineMay 23, 2019
Season 5 Review:
Alice's vendetta against an equally lethal gangster keeps distracting poor Luther from a lurid case involving a fetishistic serial killer. It's all a bit much, but if it weren't, it wouldn't be Luther. [27 May - 9 Jun 2019, p.12]
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