Lucifer and Writing the Inhuman

My TV viewing criteria is some combination of:

Historical, But Not With Actual People as Main Characters, Because Their Lives Tend to be Tragic and Squalid

Crime But Like Serial Killers, Financial Stuff is Boring

Comedy: Witty, Not Cringe, Nothing With Adam Sandler Ever, No Idiotic Gender Stereotypes

Hot Men With Accents

Magic And Stuff, Or Ghosts, Ghosts Are Fine Too

So I’ve really enjoyed the first five or so episodes of Lucifer, the show very loosely based on the Gaiman comics interpretation: dude abandons Hell and comes to LA* to run a nightclub, bringing with him bodyguard slash FWB Mazikeen and a whole lot of Daddy Issues. First, the general points:

1. The above? Yeah, that’s all it has in common with the comics run so far. Having never given a damn about fidelity (ask anyone I knew in college–I’ll be here all night, tip your waitress) I continue to give an unsurprising lack of damn, but maybe don’t go in expecting that.

2. This show got *all* the music rights, apparently. And given the number of songs that mention the Devil, Hell, or general wickedness, the soundtrack’s going to be great for approximately ever.

3. So Lucifer fights crime with a no-nonsense LA detective, because of course he does. For my money, said detective is a little too no-nonsense–I realize she has to be for Odd Couple style dynamics to work, but I personally would give significant body parts to see Lucifer paired up with the female version of Lenny Briscoe–but given the provocation, I can understand it.

4.  Lucifer in Therapy: kind of the best.

With that last point, I kind of work around to the best part of the show for me, as someone who both reads and writes nonhuman characters: Lucifer’s interactions with the human world. He’s seen pretty much everything, literally, but he still enjoys himself; he enjoys himself *more* when he thinks he might be mortal; and the things he takes seriously are not the things we do, and vice-versa.

Like there was a moment in tonight’s episode–the one with the shipping container, for those who are watching–where Lucifer was being snarky about a dead body, Chloe called him on it, and he responded that he didn’t get why rotting meat was a big deal. That’s absolutely the reaction you’d get from a guy who knows for sure that the actual person’s somewhere else, and who’s spent the entirety of existence, literally, seeing it happen.

My attachment to the particular religious tropes is not vast, but the show is so far doing a great job of showing someone powerful and alien enough to be scary, while still enthusiastic and well-spoken enough to be charming. It also doesn’t hurt that he’s played by Tom Ellis.

And is shirtless a lot.

Yes, I’d probably be watching anyhow, just for that. But the rest is a nice bonus.

Coming Soon: Dragon Age and Non-Party Romance, The Good Life and “Soul Mates,” plus whatever else comes to mind.

I would make a joke here, but I feel like I and the writing staff of Angel used them all up back in ’00.