To think Luther is torture porn?

[GroundAlmonds]

I know I’m late to the party here, but I’d never seen it until this week. I thought it was quite widely praised but it’s horrendous. Torture porn. I am really a bit sick.

They might as well have titled it “Never open your front door”. Everyone who does gets viciously murdered. I’ve just come downstairs again to see a courier swathing his way through an office attacking workers with a claw hammer and an acid spray. It is like a really bad video game. Everyone going down like nine pins.

DH has to watch it for a thing he’s doing but he’s either going to have to find something else that fits the criteria or go and watch it in the spare room.

I realise the first series was ten years ago but the BBC have carried in making it for a decade.

Plot holes too? Maybe that’s the same problem with the violence @Goosefoot. The implausibility. I didn’t watch a whole episode so I can’t comment on the narrative over all. It was just that every time I came into the room, yet another criminal was doing something completely psychotic for no apparent reason. I’m going to have to put a podcast on to get to sleep, I think.

You know, I think that the violence both in Luther and Peaky Blinders became problematic for the show in terms of the overall quality. They both started out with a certain amount of style and the violence was part of that, but very quickly it really became a matter of style over substance. They couldn't maintain the momentum and keep the story-writing on track as well, and that level of senseless violence meant they also struggled to keep that characters both sympathetic and emotionally believable. The same thing happened with Killing Eve.

I can see what you mean but I thought she acted like this because of the character’s past history. It sounded like her Dad passed away when she was young which traumatised her and that she had experienced abuse in relationships before. I thought she was protecting herself and that’s why she seemed so cold and detached most of the times. Plus the kind of work she was doing dealing with such a psychopath was pretty awful. (Sorry to derail the thread!)

I thought they made kind of an reversal there very purposefully - she was in many ways less emotionally sensitive, and less morally sensitive, than the killer she was trying to catch. She was supposed to be unlikable, and it was supposed to make the viewer uncomfortable that minus the murders, they might have liked him more. It's not an uncommon theme in a lot of criminal type shows now, I'm not sure what we are supposed to take from it or if it's just an exercise in making people feel random stuff.

Yeah Luther was too much for me and I like a lot of police/crime shows.

Luther is great. Alice is amazing and Idris is serious eye candy!

Frost, Lewis, Foyle, Midsomer Murders and Agatha Christie

If they're your usual cup of tea, no wonder Luther was a shock to the system.

Surprised Mrs Marple isn't on your list.

Sorry to be knob. But surely If you’re remotely rational you’ll agree with me that you’re not forced to watch it.

Are people not allowed to have a vent about things? OP knows she doesn’t have to watch it. That’s not the point. But she’s allowed to have a muse about it and wonder why it exists on the BBC.

OP there is far too much gore on TV in general. I don’t see the appeal.

That people see the cosy mysteries as “twee” but the gory ones as gritty and ridicule the former speaks volumes. Basically people who like Agatha Christie etc just like the whodunnit aspect. There is absolutely nothing wrong with that.

@LockdownLump

You surely know that Agatha Christie includes Miss Marple? If you're mocking it, at least show some knowledge of what you're mocking.

Yes, Agatha Christie is admittedly a bit twee (yes I still like them), but Frost and Law & Order UK, which I also cited, certainly are not. So I do like variety.

I suffer from PTSD, which is one reason why I avoid watching things that are too violent, so obviously Luther was too much.

I sometimes think it’s about your frame of mind at the time when you watched something.

I like both programmes but I found Whitechapel much more gruesome and violent than Luther, personally.

You didn't watch the whole thing? Luther is very dark and scary but this isn't the whole character of the programme. There are complex relationships, humour, friendship, love etc

Sounds like you happened to see the most violent bits and made a judgement from there.

It's not for everyone but calling it torture porn because it's not Inspector Morse is funny.

I don't mind the violence in Luther (am obviously horribly desensitised) but the plots and the scripts are rubbish.
I've stuck with it so far (on iplayer) because it got such great reviews (so I'm hoping it'll improve) and most of the acting is very good (thankfully the female Dick van Dyke he used to work for has been replaced; really like the character of Schenk).
However, if it doesn't stop relying on Luther's magical insights, based on hardly anything, soon, I'm going to gave to switch my allegiance to something else.

I've also been watching Line of Duty for the first time (up to series 4). That's violent but is immeasurably better than Luther.

Yes, OP, you’re so right. I’d watch most detective series but not Luther. There was one episode years ago that I still very occasionally think about and it was grim. You actually didn’t see anything happening, just the aftermath and that was beyond awful.

It is like a really bad video game. Everyone going down like nine pins

Being like a game was kind of the point in that series

@NastyBlouse

I sometimes think it’s about your frame of mind at the time when you watched something.

I like both programmes but I found Whitechapel much more gruesome and violent than Luther, personally.

Maybe

With Whitechapel, there was a good set up of characters initially. But I did wonder if it got cancelled because the last series pushed it.

With Luther, my friends also said if I found the first episode too much, don’t watch it.

It’s the staging I think as well.....like Luther was going to be proud of being gory.

I’m interested in the stories behind Peaky Blinders and Gangs of London, but that violence sounds full on.

PS I’d love a Whitechapel appreciation/discussion thread, but there’s probably only two of us.

I haven't seen it but now I've looked it up I will! It looks interesting. I love crime shows.

They make something for everybody, this just isn't your thing.

@AcornAutumn

PS I’d love a Whitechapel appreciation/discussion thread, but there’s probably only two of us.

I was there for Penry-Jones in those suits, I won't lie to you

I think Whitechapel fell over because it diluted its 'gimmick'. The first couple of series were clear callbacks to notorious London murders/crimes Jack the Ripper, the Krays. The subsequent series esp the fourth -- felt less focused.

seayork Wow! First i had heard of this. Will try to see if i can find it - appreciate the post.

It’s brilliant but the violence was too much.

I'm sure I'm not imagining this but I saw an episode of what I am certain was Midsummer Murders where some poor woman got chopped to bits and hidden in a trunk - it made my stomach turn so much I never watched another episode. And yet I watched the whole of Luther without any bother.

You know what else I found too gory - Hot Fuzz! Really horrible splattery murder scenes. Again, found it worse than Luther.

@Magicpaintbrush

Yes, Midsomer Murders can be gruesome, it defined isn't twee at all, so I was surprised at that other poster mocking it as being that. But I don't find it scary personally, because it's so ridiculously far-fetched and OTT.

I liked it originally because I like John Nettles (I used to fancy him as Bergerac). I wasn't so keen on his successor at first but he's grown on me.

Maybe, as with your experience with Midsomer, I just saw one particularly gruesome episode (which it was, with a particularly nasty murderer).

I had no idea Midsomer Murders was gruesome!

Was it a one off? There was something that happened once in Foyle's War that I found very shocking but that might be because it was a long time ago.

I don't think I could watch Game of Thrones either.

There was something that happened once in Foyle's War that I found very shocking but that might be because it was a long time ago.

Foyle's War is dark in places, but that's more often because of the bombing raids than because of the actual plot.

Midsomer doesn't usually include actual gratuitous violence, you just see the results of it. There's also often a very high number of murders, as many as four or five.

Mittens - it wasn't about bombing raids.

Probably just a case of what I was used to when I saw it...!

Slightly of topic, but I used to have a personal rule that if a TV series/netflix film starts with a terrified woman running through the woods before being brutally murdered I won't watch it. Not because I'm oversensitive but because its lazy lazy lazy. But seriously - Id say its more than 50 % of gritty dramas start that way.

(Luther is actually better in this regards since it begins with a man running through an abandoned building before dying horribly. Which is a twist on the normal formula. But he has been brutally killing little girls so they still manage to get that in there)