Ripper Street is a TV mini-series set in Whitechapel in London’s East End in 1889, six months after the infamous Jack the Ripper murders. The series stars Matthew Macfadyen, Jerome Flynn and Adam Rothenberg.
The first episode was broadcast on 30 December 2012.
On December 3, 2013 it was announced by Jerome Flynn that the BBC were canceling a proposed third series due to lower ratings. This was because the BBC had moved the programme from Sunday evenings to Saturday night prime-time when I’m a Celebrity Get Me Out of Here is on ITV.
However, on 26 Februray 2014, it was announced that online retailer Amazon has now commissioned a third season for its Prime Instant Video service. Amazon has also acquired the UK subscription streaming rights of the first two series of the show.
In April 1889, six months since the last Jack the Ripper killing, H Division is responsible for policing one and a quarter square miles of East London, a district with a population of 67,000 poor and dispossessed. The men of H Division had hunted Jack the Ripper and failed to find him. When more women are murdered on the streets of Whitechapel, the police begin to wonder if the killer has returned…
Among the factories, rookeries, chop shops, brothels and pubs, Detective Inspector Edmund Reid (Matthew Macfadyen) and Detective Sergeant Bennett Drake (Jerome Flynn) team with US Army surgeon and former Pinkerton detective Captain Homer Jackson (Adam Rothenberg) to investigate the killings. They cross paths with Tenter Street brothel madam Long Susan (MyAnna Buring), who came to London with Jackson, and who resides at the brothel. Their relationship has become strained due to Jackson’s attraction to one of her most profitable girls, Rose Erskine (Charlene McKenna).
Sensationalist newspaperman Fred Best (David Dawson) knows a dark secret about Reid’s daughter’s death. Emily Reid (Amanda Hale), despite still being troubled by her daughter’s death, determines to make a new life by helping the fallen women of Whitechapel despite her husband’s reservations…
Reviews:
“In summary, the premise is slightly dull and done-before, however, the individual elements, each of which is well handled, combine to raise it above what it should be. I’m not saying that it’s my favorite new show, by any means, but it’s certainly one worth tuning into on a regular basis.” Jerome Wetzel, Seat 42f
Buy: Amazon.co.uk
“Who decided to make the BBC’s Sunday night period drama an anti-women orgy of gore? … I don’t think I will be returning to a Ripper Street where crimes are depicted with such blood-splashed relish, and where the women are either silent (like the inspector’s troubled wife), viciously beaten, about to be viciously beaten, rancorous, murderesses, abused, mutilated or dead.” The Daily Mail
Buy: Amazon.com
Trailer:
