Luther

Idris Elba is the magnetic star of the thrilling BBC police series Luthe r, a gritty, captivating drama that will impress fans of British TV, pol ice procedurals, and knotty character studies. Elba (The Wire, The Big C , The Office, 28 Days Later) is a nuanced, tortured presence as DCI John Luther, a detective focused on understanding the most horrifying crimin al mind. Luther also has sacrificed a normal personal life for his work, and Luther focuses on his back-story as much as on the plot at hand. The supporting cast is as brilliant as Elba, especially Indira Varma as his estranged wife, Zoe, and Ruth Wilson as the fragile-seeming but only m arginally sane Alice, with whom Luther has been having a secret affair. The episodes are fairly straightforward police procedurals, including se rial killers and other creepy bad guys. But what keeps Luther extra enga ging is the superior writing, direction, and production design--making w atching Luther an immersive experience for the viewer. And it's not alwa ys a comfortable one--this is not the cleaned-up New York of Law & Order , where most bad things happen off screen. Luther's bad guys (and gals) commit their evil deeds on camera and sometimes in slow motion--which on ly heightens the suspense and deep feeling of immersion. Luther and its focus on its leading character's personal life owes a lot to Helen Mirre n's Prime Suspect, but Elba and the supporting cast of Luther do even mo re to make the viewer feel a part of the imperfect British law-enforceme nt system. The boxed set includes an excellent documentary with intervie ws with series creator Neil Cross and the directors and cast members dis cussing how they deliberately designed the series to be more "impression istic" than "realistic" in terms of plot. (The interviews would have mor e impact if they weren't streamed onto a computer screen, but that's a s mall quibble.) Catch Luther while he tries to catch the bad blokes, and enjoy every twisted step of the journey.