RIPPER STREET: Season One, Less than Ripping

By Laura Akers

While American television, reality train wrecks (pardon me, reality television) aside, is experiencing something of a renaissance, some of the very best shows continue to come from the other side of the pond.

Doctor Who (2005) remains one of the best science fiction shows ever.

Downton Abbey is far more compelling than its classic predecessor Upstairs, Downstairs (1971).

Words seem somehow inadequate to express the gift that is Sherlock (2010). BBC America has even created a great American story and exported it back to us in the form of the dark and vital Copper.

Which is why, when I first hear about BBC America’s Ripper Street, my initial reaction was: “This is gonna be great!”


Set in late Victorian England, just six months after the infamous Ripper murders, the show follows the community the Ripper prowled and the cops who failed to catch him—as well as the horrible aftermath of those crimes. Detective Inspector Edmund Reid (Matthew Macfayden), a Freethinker, leads a small force of men--including Detective Sergeant Bennett Drake (Jerome Flynn) and US Army Surgeon and former Pinkerton detective Captain Homer Jackson (Adam Rothenberg)—in trying to police a terrified populace plagued by poverty, violence, and despair.

And based on the recent work of the BBC, I could already see the great costumes, realistic sets, strong acting, and stronger storytelling.

Read more »