Lucifer and 5 other bizarre crime drama premises

New police-procedural drama Lucifer is released on Amazon Instant Video tomorrow and it’s already causing a lot of discussion – mainly because of its completely wild premise.

Based on the DC Comics story, Lucifer tells the tale of that one time the Lord of Hell got bored of reigning over the universe’s undesirables and decided to walk upon Earth as a detective. No, really. After ruling over Hell for 10,000,000,000 years, Lucifer Morningstar – also known as Satan or the Devil – gets tired of it all and decides to help out the Los Angeles police. He also runs a nightclub in his spare time.

We’ll leave the choice of whether you buy into that premise long enough to give the show a go up to you, but in the spirit of Lucifer, here are five other completely bizarre premises for a police procedural drama.

1. iZombie

iZombie is a surprisingly good US drama about a young woman who becomes a zombie while at a boat party (as you do) and then uses her new-found abilities to solve crimes. The premise works like this: Liv is a medical examiner and – oh yes – a zombie who must eat brains in order to survive. Luckily, there’s a convenient job at the morgue open that combines her skills with her insatiable need for human brains. However, Liv quickly realises that she can experience flashbacks from the final moments of the person whose brains she is devouring, leaving her with the ability to solve crimes.

2. Person of Interest

Person of Interest also features an interesting crime-solving partner – a computer software with sentient artificial intelligence that can predict perpetrators of crime before they commit crimes. This makes crime-fighting a great deal easier for burnt-out former CIA agent John Reese and the billionaire software creator, Harold Finch. In the hit drama, the software spits out the social security number of someone who is about to commit a crime, leaving Reese and Finch the unenviable task of trying to work out what the crime will be and how to stop it from occurring.

3. River

In a recent police drama on the BBC last year, Detective Inspector John River was aided in his crime-solving skills by visions of his recently murdered colleague, Detective Stevie Stevenson, who basically told him what to do next. In an interview with the Daily Express, River actor Stellan Skarsgård said: “There’s not much research you can do because his condition doesn’t really exist.” You don’t say.

4. Forever

In 2014, Ioan Gruffudd starred as an NYC medical examiner who studies the dead in order to solve both crime and the mystery of his own immortality. That’s right, Gruffudd’s character Henry Morgan had the brain of a 200-year-old but the appearance of a 30-something. Every time he should have died, Morgan simply disappeared and awoke naked in a nearby body of water, because why not? His long life gave him a well-rounded medical knowledge, so he was an excellent person to have around for a police procedural. The series was cancelled after one season.

5. Awake

Another one season wonder starring a Brit, Awake aired in 2012 and starred Jason Isaacs as LAPD detective Michael Britten. Kind of like in Sliding Doors, Michael lived in two different realities and could switch between the two. In one reality Michael’s wife Hannah survives a devastating car crash, while in the other she does not. Michael wears different colour wristbands to differentiate between the two realities, because even he was probably confused. The good thing about all this was that living in both realities meant Michael could solve crimes in one reality by relying on information gleaned in another. Sublime.

Lucifer will be available on Amazon Prime Video from January 26.