Lauren Cisek

As I continue on with my review of some of my favorite television shows, let me jump back in time a little bit. Growing up, I was raised in the Christian faith- taught to believe in God, the devil, angels, and demons. It was structured into Sunday school, Wednesday night church services, and throughout my young life. As I grew older, these characters have played more of a “fantasy” role than the real-life creatures my church would have me believe.

I have always been a “doubting Thomas”- that is, I find anything hard to believe until I have had my own personal experience with it. For example, chemistry was always one of my favorite classes, because I could see the reality of the science playing out in front of me. Things that didn’t make sense always intrigued me: space travel, technology as a whole, different inventions… the list could go on. “How It’s Made” was one of my most-watched shows as a kid for that same reason. However, the concept of religion was always expected to be taken as fact. I grew up being taught how to be a decent human being, but also being told that I needed to believe in some higher power.

In some ways, I still believe that there is something greater than the human race out there (stay tuned for my Doctor Who blog), but believing in an all-powerful God seems like a bit of a stretch to me these days. And with the show we’ll be exploring today, you’ll see how these ideas go hand in hand with some of the characters’ ideologies as well.

Everything’s Coming Up Lucifer

Lucifer is a fantasy-based television show starring Tom Ellis as Lucifer. The character was created by Neil Gaiman- one of my favorite screenplay writers. Gaiman is a well-established author, as well as a writer for the BBC for shows such as Doctor Who. Whenever his name pops up before an episode of Doctor Who, I know it’ll be a great one.

Back to Lucifer, sorry. Tom Ellis’ Lucifer is exactly what you are thinking: King of Hell, Prince of Darkness, the whole nine yards. And in the show, he does not hide that from anyone. In fact, he so blatantly tells the truth about who he is that people (including his therapist) believe that he is talking in some sort of elaborate metaphor.

The plot of the first season really focuses on Lucifer’s time on Earth and his connection with an LAPD detective named Chloe Decker. As always, Lucifer is blatant about who he is, but Chloe refuses to believe him. Lucifer’s normal supernatural “powers” (pulling out peoples’ desires) have quite the effect on other humans, and he is perplexed when they do not work on Chloe. While he strives to understand his connection to the Detective, the two of them slowly begin to solve crimes together.

This show is a great mix of your classic crime fighting and supernatural/fantasy shows put together. You get the normal banter between the two protagonists, and every episode opens up a new can of worms to be examined throughout the season.

I think that this show was so interesting to me because of my Christian upbringing. Now that I’ve been in college for a few years, I’ve definitely fallen from my faith in a sort of similar sense to Lucifer in this show. There are several times throughout the multiple seasons where Lucifer is angry at God, and I definitely relate. Despite my drastic differences from the main character, I think that Lucifer is relatable on a whole different level. Perhaps that is what the writers of the show were trying to draw on, I’m not sure. All I know is that I find myself drawn to the characters, the story arc, and ultimately the writing itself.

Stay tuned for another show!