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What's remarkable about "Luther" is how series creator Neil Cross takes a rag-tag bag of clichés--brilliant but damaged rogue cop, long-suffering boss, genius killer, etc.--and makes it all seem so fresh. Of course, having the fantastic Idris Elba helps immeasurably. He doesn't just act the part of Luther; he is Luther, fully inhabiting the role and moving like a force of nature through every scene. This is one of those rare times where you see an actor's innate intelligence and physicality used perfectly. (Watching Luther decompensate, as he does at various times over the story arc, is really something to see.) Elba is matched every step of the way by Ruth Wilson, playing a sort of female Hannibal Lector--brilliant, amoral, remorseless, scary, and, I daresay, sexy. She and Elba make quite a pair, and their interplay is priceless.

Finally, it's worth noting that this series, while ostensibly a cop show, has its own look and feel. It plays more like a beautifully filmed, weird morality play. (Cross makes the point that Luther believes in only two things, life and love, though the viewer will quickly see that, despite his damaged psyche and emotional baggage, he also ultimately believes in himself.) Some may think that it's just insane, far-fetched, and way over the top. (which it sometimes is if you look closely and cynically). But I think that it exudes a unique vibe. Take a look at the impressionistic opening credits with Massive Attack on the soundtrack, and you'll know right up front that this is something special.

There are few perfect things in life, but this is one of them--a busted Showtime Network TV pilot so misguided, stupid, and terrible, that it is perfect, perfectly wrong in every way. TV director Paris Barclay ("The West Wing") and James DeMonaco (scripter of the boring remake of the classic "Assault on Precinct 13") take you inside (you can almost imagine that typed in upper case in the script) the Hate Crimes Unit of the NYPD, one of those TV police departments that employs every stereotype you can imagine--the newbie gay guy, the bigoted cracker, the angry Latina, the sad-sack Asian-American, the elegant African-American... Oh yes, as the Chief, Oscar winner Marcia Gay Harden shows up looking like she's impatiently waiting for the results of some medical test--or for her paycheck to clear. And back home, she has the stereotypical high-school-age son hooked on drugs.

The pilot is perfectly structured with an idiot main plot on top of an idiot B plot. In the main plot, the Unit investigates the slaying of gays who have had their spinal cords scooped out with a broken whiskey bottle or something. Yep, that's right. Spines ripped out. Zejelko Ivanek, recognizable from "Homicide: Life on the Street" and countless other shows, even shows up as a pathologist to prattle on about how much force it takes to pull out a spine. Yep, that's right. It's a lot of force. In the B plot, two detectives investigate dog-feces swastikas on the sidewalk in front of a synagogue. Yep, that right. Dog-feces swastikas.

Every character here takes it in turn to stand around, grinding the meager action to a halt, with either silly voiceovers of his or her thoughts ("thoughtovers"?) or long-winded, badly written polemics on prejudice,intolerance, or how bad cheese curls are for you. Yep, that's right. Evil cheese curls.

Eventually this travesty, filmed in a murky and blurry pseudo-"CSI" style with Toronto masquerading once again as New York, comes to an end. And the viewer is left to ponder just how this thing looked good enough on paper to get the green light for a filmed pilot, but more importantly, how one hour of TV can perfectly manage to offend every race, creed, ethnicity, and orientation that it depicts, without exception, without failure. You'll hate "Hate" as a pilot but love it as entertainment. Some things are so perfectly awful, that they are just that.

Luc Besson, who must be the busiest man in the industry, seems to have singlehandedly put France on the map as purveyor of well-made action films. And that's not surprising since his team understands that a gazillion bucks, CGI, and wire work aren't always needed to make an entertaining film. This one is no exception: straightforward and to the point, with an economy of direction and truly excellent, old school stuntwork. I think that it's superior to the bigger budget stuff coming out of the Besson factory. In the end, it's a fast and furious entertainment with charismatic leads and is sure to tickle the hearts--and action bones--of jaded action film fans.