Well, not exactly because it’s been renewed, but we’ll have to wait a year for it. Damn you, BBC, and your “Eight episodes is an especially long series,” attitudes!
What’s all this, then?
The show continues to sully the good names of Detective Inspector Edmund Reid and Chief Inspector Frederick Abberline, but they are long dead and unlikely to care, especially after what Johnny Depp did to Abberline. (Looking at the list at IMDB, Michael Caine and Hugo Weaving I could see, but Wayne Rogers?)
Bella’s right that Detective Sergeant Drake would be better off with her or any of the girls than with Rose, who doesn’t see what a good husband he’d make. Ooh! Bella has a Facebook page and I can start stalking her now.
If one looks at her dispassionately, Rose’s face looks like it was assembled with mismatched spares from the parts bin, but they were assembled artistically and with care. YOWZA! You could cut glass with those dimples!
Long Susan looks artificially perfect, with so much makeup that it looks like a mask. In real life, without the makeup, she is merely unnaturally perfect. But she’s a blonde so it won’t keep.
So she’s supposed to be a Yank? Look, I’m from St Paul and had relatives who back then probably sounded a bit like her (but less Swedish and more Norwegian), but they weren’t long off the boat from the Old Country and they weren’t daughters of shipping magnates from back east. It did make it a surprise twist. :rolleyes:
Well, young Hobbs is freed up to play Edwardian Juveniles for a few years, as Nature intended. Maybe Bertie Wooster for a younger generation.
Given the small size of the British acting community there were few refugees from Doctor Who, but the Eighth Doctor as a cad and bounder was a treat.
In retrospect, that was all very shallow and sexist, and I apologize. I’ll try to do better in the next section.
Predicting Series 2:
Mr and Mrs Reid seem to be set to reproduce again, but since he has slept with that evil Jewess (it’s Victorian London; they’re all supposed to be evil, right?) he’ll probably give her syphillis and she and the baby will die, just like happened with Mrs Beeton. No loss because the missus is boring. And her face is all planes. And it would open Reid up to getting back with that hot Jewish lady. (It’s, oh, anytime. They’re all supposed to be hot, right?)
I predict that Det Sgt Drake will get beat up some more. Eight times, minimum. More if some episodes have him beaten more than once.
Now that their secrets have been mostly revealed, something will be done to make Long Susan and Capt Jackson still relevant to the show.
Nobody will ask Artherton to sing again.
But I don’t think we’ve seen the last of Mrs Hobbs. At least, I hope not, and not just because she’s pretty. She could be Reid’s conscience, reminding him his underlings are people. Don’t know why this Reid is so posh. The real one set a record by parachuting from a balloon at 1000 feet and retired to be a pub landlord. And he’s tall; the real one was 5-foot-6 when he joined the force.
I enjoyed it. It had some eye-rolling bits (Reid letting Col. Jackson fight a duel with his nemesis right in front of the police station :rolleyes:) and some boring bits (anything to do with Reid’s wife, its pretty obvious that the producers felt they needed to have a female in the cast that wasn’t a prostitute, and so the writers are left trying to find new ways to shoehorn her into every episode.)
But the trio of Reid, Jackson and Drake are fun, the setting is cool and well realized and the plots have ranged from mediocre to good. I’ll look forward to next season.
I truly love the coarse weave of some of their clothes, especially the patterned trousers. And the clothes are so LOUD. And I never thought I’d say this, but bustles can work.
Just watched the last episode last night. What a great series.
The overall story arc worked well, I thought. It seemed to me that it had all been planned out in advance, as opposed to the writers just making stuff up as they went along (e.g. “Lost”).
And the pacing was quite good as well. A lot of stuff happens in those eight episodes (as opposed to “The Walking Dead”).
Like Simplicio notes, there are lots of eye-rolly bits, but if you leave your disbelief and desire for historical accuracy at the door, it was quite a fun series.
Are you in the UK or the US? Because yesterday, BBC America showed the seventh of the eight episodes in the first series. The last episode will be aired on Saturday evening.
None of that especially spoiled anything for me. (Although it does raise again the perpetual question: Why the fuck can’t the BBC just show things on the same day on both sides of the pond? They’ve gotten better w/ Doctor Who, at least.) However, I had no idea Reid was a historical figure.
And a Druid! The reporter, Fred Best, was also real and much later claimed to have written some of the letters “from” the murderer, including the “Dear Boss” letter that gave Jack the Ripper his name, so his being portrayed as a scumbag trying to drum up circulation for his paper is accurate.
In retrospect, I suppose I didn’t give away anything that hadn’t been said or implied in the first seven episodes. The Beeb’s delays, well, I can’t say they encourage program acquisition by alternative means, but they provide conscience-salving for US subscribers in a hurry. As for [del]us[/del] those who are not subscribers, [del]we[/del] they have no consciences. shrug
Reid liked an anonymous drunk, Abberline liked Klosowski/Chapman, Littlechild and I like Tumblety, though I admit my fondness is parochial. If the best London had (plus I) couldn’t agree, then that case was cold already by 1889, but because there has never been firm agreement on the start or end of Jack’s spree there will be more dead ends next series.
Satisfying conclusion to a good series; I’m looking forward to the next season/series. Rather surprised that they wrapped up all of Capt. Henderson / Long Susan’s backstory, but I suppose they didn’t know if they’d get a second season and didn’ t want to leave threads hanging. I suppose that man’s got more skeletons waiting in his closet–as, perhaps, has Drake. Drake and Henderson are my favorite characters on the show–Drake’s got that lovely rough edge of the streets, and Henderson is just a delightful devil of debauchery (and handsome to boot). Reid’s a touch dull. We need to see his druidry and parachuting side, I say.
I like Reid because of his rich deep soft voice, registering more than a touch of Shakespearean rhythm. But damn, he’s hard to hear because of its soft blurriness. I have to turn the sound way up and often replay scenes. Drake is easier to hear, but his accent’s a bit tough even for me, and I’ve been watching English dramas for decades.
I liked this last episode very much. I knew that goon Victor was of course too good to be true, as did all watchers I’m sure. Way to fake out his sister, Drake and Reid!
Skipped to the end without reading because its on my DVR and I have to catch up. Damn you for the title. I opened up the thread to see if the show had been canceled.
Something that’s been bugging me a little (not enough to interfere w/ my enjoyment of the show): Is it historically accurate for Reid to be so cozy with a <gasp!> Jewess? I mean, aside from having carnal relations with her, he brings her a perfectly decent (if almost certainly somewhat damaged) Christian child to her Jewish orphanage! C’mon, that’s a Christkiller you’re talking about there! And while I understand that this is not Russia, I still thought there was a fair amount of prejudice even in Western Europe/the UK.
Like I said: Doesn’t detract from my enjoyment, and is hardly the only historical inaccuracy. Just something in the back of my head, bugging me.
I remember how idiotic it seemed in the opening episode when Reid makes time in the middle of the dramatic rescue to remark how neat the movie camera is. But I liked the show overall, and will look for it when it returns.
