Fox’s new comedy-drama Lucifer has a similar premise [as "Death Takes a Holiday and "Meet Joe Black"], but without the sap and more zip and lip. But (and you saw this coming), the devil is in the details.... Uneven but mostly fun.
The conventional crime-time format incinerates everything strange and spirited about the concept, and Lucifer’s cop partner (Lauren German)--the female wet blanket to his male rogue--is a trope that needs to go to hell.
There’s nice but predictable chemistry between Ellis and German, and although Fox only made one episode available to critics, the show’s concept is so obvious, it’s easy to see exactly where this will go, unless it gets canceled first.
The show's creators have replaced the original Lucifer with neither a counterpoint nor an interesting abstraction. Instead, they've simply shaped yet another paean to the perfect dude, who can carry on a lewd, open affair with his psychiatrist, play matchmaker with Dancer and her ex, and solve every major crime that the LAPD is called in for.
Turning Lucifer into "The Mentalist" with slightly more CGI seems a waste of the character Gaiman and Carey made so vivid, but it still could have led to a decent show. This is just awful.