Lucifer and Damien: Evil needs a hug

The Binge
Jessica Zafra

WE KNOW that evil is at large in the world — you only have to read the news to be reminded of this. This year, the spirit of evil, a.k.a. the devil is the headliner of two new television shows. How does he measure up? Can traditional biblical evil compete with the more recent representatives, such as Lorne Malvo in season 1 of Fargo, The Purple Man in Marvel’s Jessica Jones, or Cersei Lannister in Game of Thrones?

I must report that in its current TV incarnations, Fox’s Lucifer and A&E’s Damien, evil is a pathetic underachiever. This is good news if you expect the worst parts of Revelations to come to pass any minute, and bad news if you demand smart, well-made television. Lucifer and Damien are evidence that the devil does not exist, because if she did she would smite their producers, or at least send them a plague of boils. (No, wait, those are the good guys.)

True, believers could argue that these shows are part of the devil’s campaign to convince the world that she doesn’t exist. Or maybe their intention is to spread mediocrity and inept storytelling, low-grade forms of evil but evil nonetheless.

Of the two shows, Lucifer had more promise. Produced by a lot of people including Jerry Bruckheimer (familiarity with evil: produces Michael Bay movies), Len Wiseman (director of the Underworld flicks, which are about evil beings), and Tom Kapinos, the character Lucifer started out as a guest in Vertigo’s Sandman comics by Neil Gaiman. It stars Tom Ellis, who has plenty of that wicked charm. It has some interesting gimmicks: the way total strangers have the overwhelming urge to confess to Lucifer, and the way everything goes into slow motion when the dark-winged angel Amenadiel shows up. Amenadiel is played by D.B. Woodside, who played Principal Robin Wood in the later seasons of Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

And the premise is fascinating. Lucifer Morningstar (sounds like a Victorian porn name) is bored of reigning over the tormented souls in hell, so he quits and decides to live among humans. Naturally this causes problems. Not only is there a power vacuum, but no one is getting punished in the afterlife. So far, so bad.

But then Lucifer chooses to move to Los Angeles like some D-list celebrity, and of all the options open to him, what does he do? He opens a piano bar. Is it a special piano bar, like that karaoke joint in Joss Whedon’s Angel where the Lorne the green demon (Andy Hallett) could diagnose the state of your soul from your solo song number? Nope. His bartender is Mazikeen (Lesley-Ann Brandt), a demon descended from Lilith, and she worries about him. When will Lucifer get his act together? Amenadiel appears, and he and Lucifer snipe at each other like petulant Mean Girls, only much less scary.

Then Lucifer’s friend is murdered, and Lucifer joins forces with stunning LAPD detective Chloe Decker (Lauren German) to solve the crime. And this series about the Lord of Hell turns into a lame police procedural. Ellis strives to keep it light and cheeky. Lucifer starts seeing psychotherapist Dr. Linda Martin (Rachael Harris) to work out his father issues and figure out why he hates being in hell so much (Note: It’s hell). We’d follow a comedy series about the devil and his shrink. But the devil who consults his therapist and then goes out to solve crimes? No.

Lucifer is a badass next to Damien, the child in the blockbuster 1970s horror movie The Omen (We’ll pretend that the remake in the ’90s never happened). In the series produced by Glen Mazzara, Damien Thorne has just turned 30 and is now walking around in the fetching shape of Bradley James (who played Arthur in the series Merlin, and was the love interest in iZombie). He has no memory of the terrible events in The Omen, and after having been kicked out of many schools due to emotional problems, he has become a successful photojournalist. On assignment in Damascus, he encounters an old woman who unlocks his repressed memories, and soon creepy things start happening. A famous horror movie, a protagonist who’s supposed to bring on the apocalypse, how can you miss?

Easy: with bad writing, bad acting, and bad direction. Damien the series confuses “evil” with “bad.” It’s the kind of show where Damien runs into his ex-girlfriend while they’re under fire in Syria, and she wants to talk about why he left her. Someone yanks a handful of hair from Damien’s scalp, uncovering a 666 birthmark so big you wonder how anyone could have missed it. Someone is in danger of discovering what Damien is, so a sinkhole opens up at her feet, and the scene is shot so clumsily that it’s funny rather than horrifying. The fearsome black dogs that attack and kill those who would expose the devil’s plot look like they’re auditioning for a pet food commercial. The only part of Damien that could pass for evil is Barbara Hershey, who wipes the floor with the other actors just by puckering her collagen implants. The real horror is discovering that the pilot was directed by Shekhar Kapur, who made the film Elizabeth.

It takes more than a sonorous male chorus and howling wind effects to scare the bejeezus out of the audience. It takes competent storytelling, and Damien has none. If it’s traditional evil you seek, check out Penny Dreadful. Meanwhile the devil is having a serious identity crisis on TV. The Big Bad is now The Small Needy.

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