Luther is back, in Luther, and so is Donny Osmond, of Donny & Marie fame. Could there be two more differing cultural symbols of manhood? My feeling is no.
Luther (Tuesdays, BBC1) fills our screens with sick foreboding. We are as victims pinned to the sofa, eyeballing the characters’ every action with terror as they move about menacingly in our living-rooms. It’s a cop show where the cops are not so much bent as twisted, their souls writhing to unarticulated inner torments, chief among them that of its anti-hero DCI John Luther (Idris Elba). In this third season, the detective with the resonant name — ‘I can’t claim credit for it’ — steps further over to the dark side, though with the criminals heading in that direction as well, Luther still seems to be a relatively good guy. He also gets a new love interest, a blonde with the smouldering iciness of Cate Blanchett and cheekbones like freshly whetted knives.
To divulge more about the first episode would be to take away from the dark pleasure of viewing it.
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