First one was pretty good, once I got past a too-young and cleanshaven Local Inspector Reid and a too-old 1st Class Inspector Abberline. And the shockingly-anachronistic motion picture system (off by several years and Reynaud didn’t even invent the film movie camera and the film in 1889 was too slow for him to use so his Théâtre Optique used drawn images and the camera, film, and projector were oriented horizontally and his frame rate was about one per second so the snuff film would not be nearly that smooth). And the photographer who carried enough fragile, sensitized glass plates to take all the pictures Reid wanted. And how much Matthew Macfadyen looks like he and John Hamm were separated at birth, which has bothered me since Little Dorritt. “Oooh, I’m too pretty to wear the correct whiskers!”–BAH!
And don’t get me started about From Hell. Nightmarish from start to finish, what with Depp’s libelous portrayal of Abberline. Absolutely disgusting. But Heather Graham looked great as Mary Kelly, who supposedly looked pretty good herself. I’ve only seen the crime scene photos and, frankly, nobody would look good in that state of [del]disassembly[/del], er, [del]re-kitting[/del], um, well let’s leave it at “in that state.” :eek:
I liked it well enough, but it was hard to understand at times. They talked much faster than I would have thought, and then mumbled some on top of it. Overall though, I liked it. I’ll keep up with another couple of episodes to see if I’m going to stick with the entire series. But it sure is pretty to look at.
Hijack: Do you have your TV hooked up to the cable box using an HDMI cable? If so, I believe that’s the problem. As I understand it, the closed captioning signal can’t be sent over HDMI. Instead you need to enable it on the cable box itself.
Count me as another one who was amazed by the similarity to Copper. Don’t forget the back-knuckled boxing in both as well.
My wife and I finally gave up on Copper because it never seemed to go anywhere and the characters weren’t interesting enough to make the journey worthwhile. There’s not much to the characters here either and the anachronistic forensics are silly rather than compelling. Might give it another couple of episodes to see if it develops, but it’ll have to get better fast.
I didn’t think the forensics so anachronistic here as in Copper. Ripper is set in 1889, which is after England required coroner examinations in all wrongful deaths. Its also after the first Sherlock stories, which while obviously fictional, were based on real developments at the time and whose main character was based in part on a real medical examiner.
And the forensics of Ripper seem a more limited tool compared to Copper, where they had things like reconstructing the exact shape of a cane based on the shape of the indentation it made in a skull :rolleyes:
Which isn’t to say Ripper doesn’t require some suspension of disbelief, but it doesn’t seem so jarringly out of place as the forensics in 1860’s New York did.
I really enjoyed it - about ten times better than Copper (which I wanted badly to like!), IMHO. I am not sure how they will keep the premise of the first episode going - I hope it’s not a new “Ripper” every week but other than that, I’m happy to give it a chance.
As already pointed out, the way film is used - the basic plot point - is ludicrous. No coroner appears anywhere in the story; they go out of their way to exempt any. There had been exactly one Holmes story, A Study in Scarlet, by 1889. In it are no forensics, although it contains the type of deduction that the doctor parodies. You can’t reference Holmes without also noting that the story makes a million disparaging remarks about the utter lack of forensics or any other type of intelligence in Scotland Yard. Holmes is generally fantasy, but that’s a more believable version of the 1889 police than this.
Different people have different tolerances for anachronisms, so I’m talking of a personal reaction, not necessarily one that will bother others. But if the next few episodes have plots that couldn’t exist at the time, I’ll be gone.
There’s one briefly in the first episode. They push him out so the American doctor can do his thing and he’s never seen again. But that’s not really my point, my point is that by 1889 the general idea of systematically examining corpses had been established. This wasn’t true (so far as I know) in the 1860’s, so it really stood out in Copper as an anachronism in a way that it doesn’t in Ripper.
Not sure that has to do with what I said. Holmes was based on a medical examiner, hence, medical examiners were a thing prior to 1889. (plus, your wrong. Study in Scarlet does have forensics, Watson first finds Holmes beating a corpse with a stick to study how bruises develop, and I think later he discusses running tests on blood to solve another crime).
Again, that’s my point. Doyle’s audience was familiar enough with the general idea of forensics that they understood what Holmes’s complaints were about. I’m sure actual forensics of the period was pretty uneven and miserable, but then, the detectives in Ripper aren’t supposed to be demonstrative of the average London police.
No doubt. I’m sure forensics as depicted on the show are far from accurate depictions of the methods of the time, and if that bothers you, fair enough (though I’d be interested in what specifically you found inaccurate just for my own edification). They don’t bother me, even though I was bothered by the same thing in Copper, because I know that at least the general ideas were around, even if there is some time-shifting of the specific methods.
Some of us in England also found the dialogue inaudible to the point where one had to access the sub-titles.
It’s filmed in the Irish Republic. Leman Street, where the police station supposedly is, is today a wide, fast road connecting Whitechapel High Street and Royal Mint Street.
Saw the ep last night. Gotta second that I couldn’t understand a lot of the dialogue.
What is the point of the other inspector doing bare-knuckle boxing? Is that just a hobby of his? It is kind of weird to see him get beat up and then appear in the next scene with no black eyes or bruising.
And I sort of giggled when the inspector was talking about how awesome porn movies would be, as opposed to stills. He predicted the Internet - amazing!
I think I need to watch another episode before I decide whether or not to like the show. I need to see what they do with the characters and the premise.
Interesting concept, though, with a lot of possibilities.
I have to watch the episode again, but I have a question about the cameraman at the end, who deliberately held the flaming camera so he’d die. Was he meant to be the first one to make a moving picture (i.e., film), within the show universe of course? Kind of amazing and sort of pathetic that he’d be using it for that purpose. And I gathered from his expression during that scene that he was not at all enthusiastic about filming that.
I thought the French guy had already filmed animal movement. I vaguely remember reading about that, but I have no idea when it was.
I presume he whacked himself so he wouldn’t be hanged.
Overall though, I liked it. I’ll keep up with another couple of episodes to see if I’m going to stick with the entire series. But it sure is pretty to look at.
