A British psychological crime drama television series starring Idris Elba as Detective Chief Inspector John Luther and Ruth Wilson as antagonist Alice Morgan. Created by author Neil Cross.

(2010 -2013) 3 Seasons. 14 Episodes

Available on Netflix, Netflix Streaming, Amazon Prime, BBC

Inquirer Columnist Jonathan Storm’s 1st season review:

The show stars Idris Elba, who seemed like such an authentic Baltimore gangster when he played Stringer Bell in The Wire. But he’s a native Londoner, and at the television critics’ summer gathering in Los Angeles, he demonstrated that John Luther’s accent and speech patterns are also different from his own.

Elba is flat-out scary as a detective who’s too smart to fit in and too angry in the face of continual crime and depravity to care. And Ruth Wilson, who played the title character in PBS’s most recent Jane Eyre, is also flat-out scary as Alice Morgan, an astrophysicist who got her Ph.D. at 18 and comes into Luther’s life as a witness in a grim murder case.

He’s large and black, with a stubbly beard. She’s small, with alabaster skin, blue eyes, red hair, and a charming overbite. Their relationship, which lasts over the entire six-episode first season of Luther (a typical series order in Britain), is unlike any that has come before on TV. MORE…