Luther, the crime-drama spectacle starring Idris Elba in the title role, premiered Sunday on BBC America. American Audiences might know Elba by his past roles in The Wire and in a brief stint on The Office as Michael Scott’s boss Charles Miner. But don’t mistake Elba for anything other than British.

The six episode series concentrates on DCI agent John Luther, recently reinstated to his post as leader of a murder investigation police unit in London after a controversial ending to one of his cases, which opens the first episode.

Luther is tough both in his work ethic in tracking down murderers, but also to those around him. The show concentrates on these relationships, both distracting Luther and the audience at times from the urgent cases Luther must confront.

In only six episodes, Luther achieves an impressive amount of character development. Combining cop-show clichés of the past, sometimes the show asks too much of audiences to suspend their disbelief.

Although it is hard to create a convincing crime drama today, Luther manages to be intelligently intriguing but also entertaining. The writing is sharp, although uninspiring at times, but overall Luther is a compact quality product.

If you have the opportunity to see “Luther”, do