I agree, the second set is much better. I was not at all into the weird green grotto light of the first set. Compositionally, with your light set up I only was drawn to the 3rd image of the first set. I think when you are doing that really stark lighting, you need to leave more of the dark empty space that they are fading into, so perhaps it would have worked better if his face was on the righthand side of the images and not the left.