"Luther," Starring Idris Elba, Is Back for Season 3 Robert Viglasky/BBC Idris Elba is constantly on the move as the larger-than-life yet isolated title character in "Luther," a detective who battles criminals and colleagues alike. The last time we saw Detective Chief Inspector John Luther, a young woman he had just rescued from the pornography business offered him an endorsement that pretty much summed up the thinking behind the BBC crime drama "Luther." "You're totally epic," she said, and though he was taken aback for a moment, he couldn't disagree. Then he bought her a 99 Flake - because epic coppers love their ice cream - and she asked, "So what's next?" The answer comes Tuesday night on BBC America with the premiere of the show's four-episode third season, and, unsurprisingly, it's "more of the same." As paramilitary officers scramble, and a helicopter hovers overhead, Luther appears in the rain and the cold blue light with a tight grip on the perp's shoulder. Who needs a SWAT team, or even a police force, when you have John Luther? That opening scene, gratuitously sensational and extraneous to the story, harks back to the series's first episode (when Luther dropped a pedophile from a great height) and affirms the show's twin themes: Luther is larger than life, practically superheroic, and Luther is alone, not by choice but because he burns so hot that ordinary mortals have to keep their distance. That the show doesn't play out like an overheated comic book is partly due to the talent of its creator and writer, Neil Cross, for hard-boiled dialogue and creepy, clever scenes of psychotic mayhem, and partly to the artful depiction of a harsh, dystopian modern London achieved by a number of directors and cinematographers under the production design of Paul Cross. But more than just about any drama on television, "Luther" would be nothing without its star, Idris Elba, who strides through the show - he's constantly on the move - with such authority that the exaggerations and the risible plot twists don't intrude on your enjoyment, for the most part. Mr. Elba, who established his reputation in America as the tragically aspirational drug dealer Stringer Bell in "The Wire," is a perfect match for the troubled-genius cop who towers over everyone, physically, intellectually and morally. He uses his 6-foot-3-inch frame both as a weapon, intimidating suspects and shrugging off attackers, and as a symbol of Luther's isolation and otherness, scrunching down to comfort victims and seeming perpetually ready to burst out of his tweed overcoat and conservative ties. Season 3 finds Luther as embattled as ever, the subject of an internal-affairs investigation, spurred by his old nemesis Erin Gray (Nikki Amuka-Bird), that threatens to bring a definitive end to his uneasy partnership with the young detective Justin Ripley (Warren Brown). Luther and Ripley are assigned a pair of cases, the larger involving a woman murdered in a way that evokes an earlier series of killings and the lesser concerning the death of an Internet troll. The first two episodes are relatively restrained by "Luther" standards, with an emphasis on plodding police work, while the case against Luther percolates in the background. Neil Cross still delivers the dread, though, as killers pop out of attics, closets and even closer places. The action picks up in the season's second half, as Luther becomes a suspect himself and a fan-favorite character from earlier seasons - O.K., it's the sexy serial killer Alice (Ruth Wilson) - reappears in a particularly dramatic fashion. At that point, the show, perhaps exhibiting its true colors, pretty much gives up on its tenuous connection to reality, and some viewers may lose their patience. You couldn't blame them, but bailing out at that point would mean missing the over-the-top moments Neil Cross has cooked up for this season's breathless conclusion. They may not equal the Season 2 denouement when Luther, hidden in the back of a truck, told the listening police marksmen which letter on the truck's logo to shoot through to kill the bomb-toting crazy who was holding him captive. But they, and Mr. Elba, are still pretty epic.