Ripper Street - BBC "Historical" Crime Drama

[ctg]

My days, BBC has done it again. Just as their fantasy series Merlin dwindles down and disappears in back of our memories, BBC has started to showing almost steampunkish crime thriller. And by the looks of it the producers hasn't spared a penny as the whole series looks, feels and sounds like an instant classic so much so that I could put it in bar with the Sherlock.

Sherlock in its brilliance is one above many others, but this one, I get a feeling that it could as well turn out to be so much more. Not only its settings are actually really dark, but its depiction is factually very accurate. And that makes it very exciting.

I don't want to spoil the thrill of the first episode for those who're going to check it out, but I say this, the first episode closely follows the rituals of Jack the Ripper.

Check it out, you wont be disappointed. Promise.

 

[nerd literature]

I saw the trailer for this when watching Dr. Who and I literally sprang from my couch when I saw what it was about. I cannot wait to watch this. Glad to hear that it has historical accuracy and dark. Just what I expected from something like this.

 

[Connavar]

Ripper? Can brit tv,films ever get past the serial killer.....

I doubt this show can capture the brilliance of Sherlock, Sturgeon's Law making me doubt it.

I will wait for acclaim or lack of and if it survives first season. If it gets second season.

 

[ctg]

Thing is mate, you won't see Jack in any episode, but the thread of the Ripper is still hanging in the air after five months since the murders stopped. So you see it's not about some particular thing, but it's a theme the show can rely upon. Quite brilliantly if you ask me.

 

[ctg]

In the second episode the Ripper Street continues being wonderfully periodic. The beginning was wonderfully steampunkish, and it gave another flavour in form of a nod toward 1800 storytellers, Wilhelm and Jacob Grimm. And another nod towards Dickens - Oliver Twist.

While the story itself simplistic compared to last week, I'm still admiring the complexities of these amazingly three dimensional characters, that keep delivering stellar performances in these amazing settings the producers has managed to conjure around them.

So I don't care if the plot were more and less straight forward run from A to B as the minute I sat down to watch the show, I was transported through the nitty-gritty details in the world that is far from perfect. Not by a long stretch as the watcher can easily see the grime and filth running down the street, where East-Londoners don't care as they know nothing better.

It just the way it is. You won't see them in the settings of Poirot or at the heart of the capitol by Mister Holmes Baker Street. No, this is it and just the way I like it. And the characters fit there perfectly.

They don't use any modern languages, or the story doesn't try to use anything other then the sciences or appliances that they'd back in those days. Even if it means of the use cocaine for the hangover cure, or an axe handle to punish the wicked.

So without spoiling any more I recommend you to check it out.

 

[Susan Boulton]

its depiction is factually very accurate.

Nope, this week it had a child with a teddy bear. Also a lot of nylon lace on the ladies costumes.

The lace I can forgive due to budget constraints on a TV production. But having a child holding a teddy bear in 1888/9 when teddy bears weren't made until 1903 in the states and then took a couple of years to become popular in the UK is a bit bad. Also the doctor's approach to the autopsies owes more to CSI than the period. A good show, but catering to a modern audience's idea of the times, not the times itself.

 

[ctg]

Right. Apologies for being such ignoramus.

 

[allmywires]

Loved Joseph Gilgun as the baddie, he was incredible. Didn't find it as interesting as last week's and to be honest probably wouldn't have watched it to the finish if it weren't for Gilgun. I thought it was meant to be about Jack the Ripper but it seems to be just a run-of-the-mill cop show set in the 1800s - not enough to keep me watching, sorry BBC. Though I would like to know what happened to Edmund to give him those burns, and the implied fate of his daughter.

 

[PTeppic]

I'm actually pleased they're avoiding Jack himself. It saves covering old ground, even with new theories. Yet it ties the characters to a specific timeframe and gives them an emotional background.

 

[allmywires]

I guess, but it was probably more the fact that I -- getting the wrong end of the stick -- thought it would be a Jack the Ripper serial that was disappointing. I haven't actually seen any Jack TV shows, possibly a factor of my age though...

 

[Penkitty]

Haven't seen this yet but sounds right up my street, must try to get hold of it.

 

[rune]

I started watching this and was quite pleased. Its better than I expected

Yes, possibly not as realistic to the time period as it could be. But not so much that is spoils it -well not for me.

 

[ctg]

I really enjoyed last night episode and as SJAB so well put, the show turning to a historical CSI with a twist. It's not all about gathering the evidence, but using the evidence to bring in the real perpetrators. And even then the legacy Jack left behind doesn't leave the people alone. He is there, like a ghost, to haunt normal people and in twisted way to inspire those whose mind has gone wrong.

I was really surprised to see a mass murderer in this episode, and the fact he was using a poison to gull down the population, when in so many shows poisoning never happens. It is always a thread. And always the coppers catch the perpetrators before they manage to a lot of damage. But that doesn't happen in the Ripper Street. In there the real people dies, and that makes the show so different compared to the other ones.

 

[J-WO]

Is it me or does the American guy look like Howard Moon from Mighty Boosh?

 

[AnyaKimlin]

Stuffed bears probably existed from at least the early 1800s - although Teddy Bears did not exist until 1903. There are pictures of homemade stuffed bears from the 1890s so there is no reason why one should not be present in 1888/9. Nylon is just a material to make the dressmaking/costumes cheaper. Nobody does cheap scenery and special effects like the BBC - I mean who would have thought a pepper pot with a plunger attached would create so much terror for fifty years.

I watched the first one last night and really enjoyed it.

 

[Ursa major]

According to Wiki, commercially produced stuffed toys were produced from 1880 onwards (by Steiff), which

used new technology developed for upholstery to make their stuffed toys.

Then, in

1903 Richard Steiff designed a soft bear that differed from earlier traditional rag dolls because it was made of plush furlike fabric.

I suppose there may have been homemade bears earlier than this; it depends, really, when that plush fur-like fabric became available, and why it was produced at all (if not to make stuffed bears).

 

[AnyaKimlin]

They didn't necessarily use the plush, furlike fabric earlier than the Steiff bears. There are pictures of bears from before they became Teddy Bears though that would be about the time of the Ripper Street programme. Whilst unlikely, it is not impossible for a child to have one especially in London. I know my poorer ancestors in Liverpool had some really unusual, cutting edge things because of the docks.


I have seen some interesting, sorry looking patchwork arrangements from before the Teddy Ber and well they did have the option of animal hide. I have a couple of koala bears from Australia that are made from kangaroo fur.

 

[Ursa major]

Not having seen the programme, I can't comment on what the bear looked like. I'm assuming that, as the description used above for the toy was "teddy bear", it had the plush fur we're used to seeing now. But perhaps not.

 

[AnyaKimlin]

It probably was. Like the nylon for the dresses has been used. I am not saying they haven't used their cheapest alternative but there is no reason a child of era couldn't have a stuffed bear. I'll know tonight when I watch the episode I guess.

 

[paranoid marvin]

The series is interesting, but the stories a little silly. Brilliant premise, setting it in the post-Jack (not that they knew it!) era.

Probably not at all like Victorian times for the police, in the same way that Deadwood (to which it looks VERY similar) is probably nothing like the Wild West was, but still good fun - which is what tv should be first and foremost, right?