Since Constantine went off air I’ve been desperately waiting for Lucifer to premiere. Not because I’m some diehard of the original comic (though I have started reading the new series), but rather because the trailer for the series sold me on it. We meet Lucifer and we’re introduced to his “power” in the cold opening. It’s a scene just to establish that he’s “bad” and has an effect on people. It’s not the best cold opening, but it’s a safe opening. After he makes it to his nightclub LUX, we learn through exposition and a visit from an angel that Lucifer has left Hell in favor of owning a club off of the Hollywood strip. A famous singer that he helped guide stops by the club to ask if she in fact sold her soul to the devil to which he tells her no. He seems to really care about her as he asks her to just get her life in order and nothing more.
Then she’s gunned down… along with Lucifer.
He actually gets back up and questions the shooter who was hit by a bus. From there he decides that he’s going to basically solve the case. He meets a detective that no one on the force wants to work with and his charms don’t work on her. Their paths cross again as Lucifer seeks answers for the woman’s death and we successfully see his powers in action.
The first episode does a fine job of introducing Chloe our soon to be co-main character. For Lucifer its easy, read the bible or just the quotes that it leads off with. The point of Lucifer’s story is to present another side of the story that’s written in the bible so we don’t need backstory on him. We do need it on Chloe and we learn everything. She was an actress at one point and took her top off on camera. Then she became a cop and stood against other cops which is why she’s a pariah in the department. Her ex-husband is one of the villains from Arrow season 2 and he’s there just to look like a dick.
Lucifer, played by Tom Ellis, is the best part of the show. His voice is what does it. He has this distinguished voice. It doesn’t quite sound British, but it kind of does. I don’t know, it’s just fantastic and he really makes the entire show worth watching. I laughed hard when he said “Trixie is a hooker’s name” to a small child. A) Because it is and B) his delivery was great. Chloe, played by Lauren German was okay. She was a bit too polar for me at times. She was extreme either in her dislike or like of Lucifer and it got in the way of the believability of their budding relationship.
Interestingly enough I watched the leak pilot from a while back and noticed a startling difference… they re-cast the ex-husband. I wish they had stuck with the original guy, but Kevin Alejandro (Arrow’s Sebastian Blood) is the perfect guy to hate. Rachel Harris who plays Dr. Linda, is actually not annoying in her role as well. Which is good because according to IMDB, she’s in the next twelve episodes.
For a pilot it’s quite good. There’s some hokiness to the story in the fact that an officer would never bring along a civilian to question or arrest a suspect, but that’s TV for you. Happens every week on several different shows and we keep watching. Otherwise, if I score this just against the typical pilot, it scores high.
My only concern for the show is that it’s going to be procedural as fuck and that will kill it, just like Constantine. For this show to be successful you can’t honestly have Lucifer be a crime fighting consulting detective every week. There must be something else for him to do, but I have a feeling that it will be exactly that. Hopefully Fox’s audience will like that and support it because I really want to see more from Ellis.
Score: 4/5
Lucifer 1.1 “Pilot” Writer: Tom Kapinos Director: Len Wiseman Airs: Mondays on Fox