WHITECHAPEL, 4.3 – episode three

Whitechapel isn't a show I'm reviewing weekly, but I thought I'd share my thoughts about this week's third episode. The interesting thing is how this hour was written by Steve Pemberton, who plays local crime historian Edward Buchan on the show, but is still best-known for co-writing/starring in horror comedies The League of Gentlemen and Psychoville. I was interested to see how Pemberton would tackle a relatively straight crime drama like Whitechapel, as someone whose horror expertise is beyond reproach, but usually has to ensure there's something funny happening between the lines.

WHITECHAPEL, 4.1 - episode one

"There are some who believe that the Gates to Hell can be found in the shadow of Christ Church; that this is the reason why Whitechapel is plagued with terrors. So beware: for when the Gates open, who knows what will crawl out, and who will become the next chapter in my History of Murder in Whitechapel" – Buchan

Fourth series of ITV's horror crime drama Whitechapel, with DI Chandler (Rupert Penry-Jones) and DS Miles (Phil Davis) attempting to solve more grisly crimes with unexpected links to the past.

It began as a lurid miniseries about a modern-day Jack the Ripper copycat, but telling a finite story didn't mean the end of ITV's popular Whitechapel. Even the absurd follow-up about clones of the Kray twins didn't cause the axe to fall, resulting in the show being overhauled and its targets broadened. Now it's one of TV's oddest dramas; a grisly murder-mystery where every bogeyman's an echo of something from London's blood-curdling history. It's a fun cocktail, but Whitechapel tends to overcook matters and gets progressive stupider as the minutes pass.

Trailer: WHITECHAPEL - series 4

ITV have largely shoddy promos for their home-grown dramas (maybe because few UK shows come with enough 'trailer-bait' moments?), but they appear to have put effort into this tease of WHITECHAPEL IV. It's much less generic than we've come to expect from ITV, at any rate. There's a bit of thought and creativity evident here, even if the pay-off to Steve Pemberton's speech isn't all that strong.

As for Whitechapel itself: I still find it odd a miniseries about a modern-day Jack the Ripper copycat was tweaked to become a horror-themed crime thriller, but series 3 was much better than that horrendous 'Kray Twin clones' idea behind series 2... so I'm interested in another trip to Whitechapel with odd couple detectives Chandler (Rupert Penry-Jones) and Miles (Phil Davis). Are you?

Review: WHITECHAPEL, 3.1 - episode one

Whitechapel started as a silly but entertaining miniseries about a serial-killer copying the crimes of notorious Jack the Ripper in the same titular London district. Creatively, it should have ended there and then, but ratings were so strong (at a time when ITV was desperate for drama success) that it was recommissioned for a second series about the secret twin offspring of the notorious Krays. That bizarre follow-up has its supporters, but I found it to be so ludicrous and dumb that my interest nosedived quickly.

Upon hearing that Whitechapel was to then be remolded into a six-part series (telling three two-part stories), by losing its "copycat" basis and connecting to historical cases in a looser way, it felt like a logical step to take. (They've already exhausted famous Whitechapel cases, besides.) But it's also a change that erodes the show's USP, and essentially turns it into just another mismatched detective drama; albeit one where pathologists keep mentioning historical precedents and sepia slides of 19th-century newspapers are shown on overhead projectors.

The premiere two-part story of series 3 concerns the vicious and puzzling murder of four tailors working late inside their secure workshop. DI Chandler (Rupert Penry-Jones) and DS Miles (Phil Davis) are assigned to solve the "locked room" mystery, hours after Chandler's suggested they should use history as a "kind of map to guide us through present crimes". What better way to crack modern cases than by remembering valuable lessons from history, right? That's the kind of thinking behind the revamped Whitechapel (history repeats), but it doesn't wash with me. It makes sense when you're chasing someone who's purposefully basing their activities on historical crimes (i.e. reading the same library books as you), but you can feel the story straining to link this crime to the Ratcliffe Highway murders of 1811 because of some superficial similarities.

It also doesn't help that, for me at least, the relationship between upper-class OCD sufferer Chandler and working class grouch Miles has run its course. Their differences made for a compelling first series, where they grew to respect each other, and mileage was squeezed out of the chalk-and-cheese dynamic in the second, but they're now best-friends who engage in light banter about each other's quirks and backgrounds. It just doesn't feel as enjoyable as it once did.

Plus the return of crime expert Buchan (Steve Pemberton) strains credibility. He started as an oddball Ripperologist tour guide, was revealed to also be an erstwhile expert on The Krays, and is now Chandler's official historical guide? Given a HQ in the basement of the police station, to browse archival files and find connections between the past and present, Buchan only serves to remind you how silly this show's become, and his insights don't feel like they should be taken seriously in a non-copycat context.

Whitechapel is what happens when a decent miniseries is forced into an ill-fitting shape because of unexpected popularity. It's still one of ITV's better crime dramas, but it's leagues away from equalling the BBC's atmospheric Luther or mesmerising Sherlock. The performances are adequate at best, the direction's rudimentary with cheap visual flourishes, and Ben Court and Caroline Ip's scripts are largely hogwash (especially now they can't lean on the enduring appeal of The Ripper.)

And yet, I wouldn't blame you for watching more. It's undemanding fun at times, and at least this series will give us quicker resolutions and a few different stories. But the lack of a truly compelling hook (like the previous "modern-day Jack The Ripper copycat" or "secret progeny of the Krays rebuild their East End crime empire"), means I just can't get excited about a bunch of dead tailors.

written by Ben Court & Caroline Ip / directed by John Strickland / 30 January 2012 / ITV1

ITV plotting 'Whitechapel III'

ITV have recommissioned detective drama Whitechapel, after two successful series about famous copycat killers. Series 3 will be extended to six episodes (telling three two-part stories) and will evolve to encompass crimes beyond the Whitechapel district.

It's good to see that ITV realize the problem with Whitechapel is the limiting nature of its concept and are making steps to shift the direction slightly. The show was clearly a self-contained three-part special about a modern-day Jack The Ripper, but in the wake of its hit status with 8.13m viewers (at a time when ITV had few drama hits), it was brought back for a ridiculous follow-up about modern-day Kray Twins (that averaged 6m viewers.) I know series 2 has its fans, but I thought it was lame.

Sally Woodward Gentle, Executive Producer:

"I am delighted we are getting the chance to tell brand new Whitechapel stories but this time as a series. The East End of London is steeped in history, secrets and gore and we now have the opportunity to take Chandler (Rupert Penry-Jones), Miles (Phil Davis) and Buchan (Steve Pemberton) to places darker still. If you thought the Ripper and Krays were scary, just wait."

Laura Mackie, Director of ITV Drama:

"Whitechapel is a striking and distinctive crime drama that has struck a real chord with the ITV1 audience. The longer run will allow us to tell an even richer range of stories from the Whitechapel area."

Whitechapel III will involve body-snatching and poisoning, with contemporary crimes in London's East End echoing tales from as far back as 300 years. The six-part series is scheduled to air in spring 2012.

'WHITECHAPEL' 2.3

Based on the amount of comments my reviews of Whitechapel has inspired, there seems to have been practically zero interest in this three-part ITV drama (despite how popular series 1 was), and that's understandable. I won't waste my breath dissecting Monday night's concluding part. Suffice to say, I was glad the sorry nonsense came to an end, and the storyline at least moved with more purpose. The whole thing was hobbled from the get-go because the premise was so laughable, and the writers didn't find a way to convince us of anything going on. It started silly and it got sillier, but not in an enjoyable way. It was actually a depressing waste of time and talent.

The sudden appearance of two Kray twins (sons of an original, bred from a sperm bank sample)? Ludicrous. What, did they materialize in the East End overnight? And three episodes weren't enough to make their Federation of Crime agenda feel plausible. The Krays seemed able to corrupt people simply by looking at them, too. Peter Serafinowicz was totally wasted, but at least his character had the decency to blow his brains out. Rupert Penry-Jones and Phil Davies must have known the scripts were terrible, as you could sense their disdain throughout. Supposedly, weighty things were happening, but none of it rang true, so it was hard to care.

The only real positive was seeing the story renege on the idea Jimmy and Johnny were genuine Krays. Instead, they were imposters told of their celebrity heritage by a mother who wanted to give them "the world". And with their status revoked, their empire crumbled to dust almost as quickly as it appeared.

Overall, hopefully Whitechapel will be a warning to other self-contained dramas that ITV insist continue past the point of plausibility. The climax of part 3 leaves the door open for the return of Miles and Chandler, tackling strange cases in a different locale, and I suppose that's a wiser way for ITV to get a third series out of this. But with a name change and, perhaps, a move away from copycats as a USP, you have to ask yourself a question: was it ever the characters and interplay of Miles and Chandler that caught audience's imaginations back in 2009? I have strong doubts. Jack The Ripper was the real star.

Oh well. I await the inevitable announcement of a Dick Turpin copycat that Miles and Chandler get assigned to...

WRITERS: Ben Court & Caroline Ip
DIRECTOR: David Evans
GUEST CAST: Sam Stockman, Ben Bishop, George Rossi, Craig Parkinson, Peter Serafinowicz, Steve Nicolson, Claire Rushbrook, Christopher Fulford, Daniel Percival, Chrissie Cotterill, Robert Putt, Nicholas Blane, Richard Clifford, David Mumeni, Martin Turner, Lacey Bond, Charlie Covell, Luing Andrews & Colin Campbell
TRANSMISSION: 25 October 2010 – ITV1/HD, 9PM

'WHITECHAPEL' 2.2

Episode 2 puts the series on a different footing within minutes, announcing the presence of Jimmy and Johnny Kray (Craig Parkinson) -- identical twin brothers conceived using a sperm bank from an original Kray's seed, who are both intent on continuing their father's work. Are you laughing yet?

Crucially, for every moment of Whitechapel that hits (OCD-afflicted Chandler flicking his office light switch on-and-off due to extreme stress), the fact the villains aren't lurking in the shadows, and the idea of police corruption hampering the investigation, I just can't get past the silliness at the heart of series 2. The idea that these modern-day Krays are so starved of originality that they just reenact their ancestor's crimes from the '60s is ludicrous. Craig Parkinson has a good look at the Kray twins (he plays both thanks to visual trickery of debatable quality), but his vibe is all clichéd East End gangster (kissing his poor ol' mum goodbye, eating boiled egg while threatening a copper, etc.)

For me, the concept behind Whitechapel II is so laughable I can't get past it, because the show seems to believe this is a brilliant update of the Krays and a fascinating case to solve. But it's really not. Chandler (Rupert Penry-Jones) and Miles (Phil Davis) come across like blithering idiots half the time, the involvement of armchair sleuth Buchan (Steve Pemberton) is tenuous this time, and my fear that Whitechapel was a decent miniseries unwisely brought back feels proven correct. A three-part modern-day Jack The Ripper crime drama with a sense of grisly fun about itself became one of ITV's most enjoyable dramas of recent times... but this attempt to catch lightning twice has missed the bottle. It's too silly to take seriously, but not silly enough to be confident the writers intended it to be that way, which means it comes across as misjudged and dumb.

I'll watch next week's finale and blog about it, but only because the series at least has the sense not to drag on for 6 weeks or more.

Asides

• What happened to Casenove (Peter Serafinowicz) this week? He only got a few scenes, despite being introduced as a major player in the story. Also, why didn't he reveal the existence of Jimmy/Johnny Kray last week? That might have really helped!
• I think another reason this series isn't working for me that, simply put, I have less knowledge and interest in the Krays than Jack The Ripper, and I daresay I'm not alone. There was fun to be had in watching series 1's copycat duplicate The Ripper's crimes, but because I know so little about the Krays, the crimes in series 2 carry no deeper meaning or significance for me. I feel like Chandler, Miles and Buchan are getting very anxious and astonished by similarities that just don't speak to me in the same way.

WRITERS: Ben Court & Caroline Ip
DIRECTOR: David Evans
GUEST CAST: Sam Stockman, Ben Bishop, George Rossi, Craig Parkinson, Peter Serafinowicz, Steve Nicolson, Claire Rushbrook, Christopher Fulford, Daniel Percival, Chrissie Cotterill, Robert Putt, Nicholas Blane, Richard Clifford, David Mumeni, Martin Turner, Lacey Bond, Charlie Covell, Luing Andrews & Colin Campbell
TRANSMISSION: 18 October 2010 – ITV1/HD, 9PM

TV Ratings: 'Whitechapel', ITV1

Crime drama Whitechapel returned last Monday night, attracting 5.6 million viewers (including 202,000 on ITV1 HD). It narrowly beat BBC1's Spooks in the same 9pm timeslot (which mustered 5.2m), but fell far short of the 8.1m who tuned into series 1's premiere back in February 2009. Still, all things considered, this was a decent start for series 2, but will the ratings hold steady for the remaining two weeks?

'WHITECHAPEL' 2.1

Whitechapel had a compelling if unoriginal premise that captured the imagination of ITV audiences in 2009; a modern-day Jack The Ripper copycat stalking the same London streets, killing women in the same manner as his 19th-century hero. A mismatched detective duo were tasked with capturing the felon: fastidious, upper-class DI Chandler (Rupert Penry-Jones) and shambolic, working class DS Miles (Phil Davis), who clashed over how the investigation was done, but came to admire and respect each other. Whitechapel was very predictable fare, but the concept was so juicy and fun that you could overlook its many faults. A sequel didn't feel likely, necessary, or even possible... but here it is, and it left me unimpressed.

Chandler's now part of the Whitechapel constabulary, but his team are lower down the pecking order because they didn't actually catch The Ripper. The new golden boy is DCI Casenove (Peter Serafinowicz), whose Organized Crime Division (OCD!) have reduced street crime to an insignificant level, which in turn means there are less "whodunit?" murders for Chandler's team to investigate. That is until a dead body is found floating in the Thames with injuries that remind Miles of The Krays; twin brothers from the 1960s who became notorious as Britain's first gangsters, unafraid to get their hands dirty to spread fear and intimidation amongst communities that made it difficult for the police to build a case against them. Is someone copying The Kray's style to build a modern equivalent of their crime empire?

My problem with Whitechapel's second series premiere is simple: it feels ridiculous to me that anybody would copycat The Krays. You can understand why a psycho would want to mimic Jack The Ripper, who's become a legendary boogieman, but why would anyone want to copy The Krays? Two criminal twins who want to achieve the same level of success as The Krays might find inspiration in their forbearers, sure, but to outright copy them shows a lack of originality and puts them firmly in the shadow of their antiheroes. How can you command respect by slavishly copying the kills of gangsters who worked the same territory 40 years ago? You just don't copycat mobsters like The Krays, unless you're writing the sequel to a TV miniseries where the USP was its copycat angle and the Whitechapel district only has two world-famous criminals for baddies to imitate.

Even if you're forgiving of the stupid concept, there was a worrying feeling that Whitechapel has nothing new to offer us in terms of the main character's relationship and arcs. Ripperologist Andrew Buchan (Steve Pemberton) is suddenly an expert on The Krays, but his excellent theories are rudely dismissed by Miles -- again. Having proved himself in The Ripper case, why is this so? No explanation is given, beyond the feeling Miles just dislikes Buchan's "armchair detective". Chandler is still a neat freak (he'd fit in at Casenove's OCD, right?) and his relationship with Miles is better, but sometimes fraught for no discernible reason. There's a feeling that everything's been reset and the script is going through the motions, with The Krays replacing The Ripper in the story. The only real difference is that, assumedly, this won't be a "whodunnit?" for very long, because these copycats have no reason to keep their identities a secret if they want to truly emulate The Krays, and because The Krays are villains from living memory it means Miles can have a family connection to them. That should make things slightly juicier, with Miles facing a demon from his past, rather than a semi-mythic figure like The Ripper.

The casting of comedian Peter Serafinowicz might prove itself a worthwhile idea, because he has a wolfish look and will undoubtedly be revealed as a pawn of "The Kraypcats" scheme, but you also can't help feeling like Serafinowicz is seconds away from delivering a sardonic punchline to a cop show sketch. He's like Whitechapel's version of the famous faces Ashes To Ashes used to throw into its series (Roger Allam, Daniel Mays), but we'll see how Casenove develops. A sequence where he brutally smashed a picture frame over a colleague, before punching him continuously in the ribs, was certainly memorable and proved Serafinowicz has a degree of menace about him.

Overall, I just don't think Whitechapel needed a sequel, or one that stuck to the copycat angle of its initial three-part series. I don't particularly like Penry-Jones's drippy character, I'm close to actually hating the smirking Davis in this, the script alternates between being ham-fisted and outright ridiculous, and David Evans's direction relied heavily on time-ramping, blurriness and double-vision to give everything a veneer of "style". Pemberton's the only one giving this material the tongue-in-cheek treatment it deserves.

Maybe it'll improve next week, but I can't help thinking it's a sequel built on very shaky foundations.

Aside

• One thing undermining a lot of this episode is that publicity material has revealed what the "Krays" look like, and it looks to me like one of them is working in Whitechapel fixing the office ceiling that fell down.

WRITERS: Ben Court & Caroline Ip
DIRECTOR: David Evans
CAST: Rupert Penry-Jones, Phil Davis, Steve Pemberton, Sam Stockman, Ben Bishop, George Rossi, Alex Jennings, Peter Serafinowicz, Steve Nicolson, Claire Rushbrook, Christopher Fulford, Daniel Percival, Trevor Martin, Andrew Tiernan, Jason Maza, Irene Bradshaw, Tommy Carey, Nila Aalia, Dimitri Andreas, Mark Flitton, Andy Beckwith & Craig Parkinson
TRANSMISSION: 11 October 2010 - ITV1/HD, 9PM

Coming Soon: 'Whitechapel' series 2

There's no reason for crime thriller Whitechapel to get a sequel, beyond the fact it was ITV's best-performing drama of 2009 and one that received good reviews and strong ratings. Considering it was about a serial-killer copying the exploits of Jack The Ripper in the titular London district, there didn't seem to be much chance of a second run. This was a one-off drama special, right..?

Well, no. ITV weren't prepared to let Whitechapel's success go unexploited, so it's back soon with another three-part story, this time focused on copycat murders based on the infamous Kray Twins, who operated around Whitechapel in the '60s.

Rupert Penry-Jones and Phil Davis are back as mismatched detectives Chandler and Miles, again joined by Steve Pemberton's Edward Buchan -- a Ripperlogist who assumedly knows a little something about the Krays, too. New characters include DCI Cazenove (comedian Peter Serafinowicz) and Craig Parkinson as both Jimmy and Johnny Kray. The series is once again written by Ben Court and Caroline Ip, directed by David Evans (Unforgiven, Survivors).

Coming Soon: Whitechapel II

I'm quite pleased to hear that ITV have commissioned a second series of Whitechapel, but not convinced it really justifies a sequel. The three-part thriller, starring Rupert Penry-Jones and Phil Davis as mis-matched detectives investigating a Jack The Ripper copycat, snagged 7 million viewers when it aired earlier this year... but how do you sequel-ize it?

Apparently, the answer is to put the detectives on the trail of another copycat -- this one basing his crimes on the '50s/'60s antics of East End organized crime family The Krays.

Laura Mackie, ITV's Director of Drama Commissioning:

"Whitechapel II will be as audacious and as compelling as the first series, strengthened by further character development and very real personal jeopardy. We are delighted to be commissioning more episodes following the success of [the first series of] Whitechapel."

The new three-part story starts pre-production very soon, for transmission next year. Anyone excited? I'm not convinced Whitechapel warrants a sequel, considering how it was written as a self-contained story, but I guess ITV can't argue with those kind of ratings and need a reliable performer on the schedules. I can understand their thinking from a business point of view. But The Krays? I'd have preferred something a bit more imaginative, like Dick Turpin, or a criminal most people aren't too familiar with from history.

Any thoughts?

WHITECHAPEL: Part 3 of 3

Major spoilers. Again, I'd just be regurgitating my first review to go into the concluding part 3 with that much depth. Suffice to say, I thought this wrapped things up well enough, but it was still a mildly disappointing end. The identity of the Ripper wasn't totally obvious -- although I did guess it when the killer appeared early on, as he was one of the few recurring characters, and it was unlikely nu-Jack would be a stranger...

A few things just irritated me about part 3, really -- like seeing the cops, two days away from the final murder of a Ripper copycat, take time-off to celebrate Miles' (Phil Davies) birthday and play a board game together! I know you need time off from work to maintain perspective sometimes, but is that really likely? Or how about Chandler searching a block of flats by himself, with no back-up or help? Only to find The Ripper and get pushed down some stairs!

And, as with the previous two episodes, I just didn't feel that London was in the panicked grip of terror over these murders -- no matter how many BBC newsreaders the production paid to read their script with the necessary gravitas. There would actually be worldwide interest in a Jack The Ripper copycat killer, but the only sign of that we got was a larger, blood-thirstier Ripper tour turnout.

Nor did I buy how quickly the cops managed to find an address for the final victim. They ultimately succeeded in preventing the final murder by the skin of their teeth, with more luck than judgement. And even then, the killer escaped and evaded justice by drowning himself in the Thames. Part of me had hoped for a tense interview room sequence between Ripper and police, but that was denied because Whitechapel was focused on replicating the 1888 case in modern times as closely as possible. And they never did find Jack, did they.

But I really liked the scenes inside nu-Jack's lair (forgiving the "newspaper clippings as wallpaper" cliché), and a scene when nu-Jack peeled off a fake beard and eyebrows in his victim's bathroom, before snapping on some latex gloves, was suitably chilling.

Ultimately, Whitechapel has been a notable success for ITV -- and not only in terms of ratings, where it retained 7 million viewers over three weeks. It may have slowly wilted after a spirited start, but it held my interest over three hours -- and that's no mean feat for a new British drama these days. It wasn't anywhere near as gruesome, gripping, complex and insightful as a Ripper copycat story should have been -- but it was still good fun, as the TV equivalent of an airport novel.

Will we see the mismatched Chandler and Miles in another adventure soon? Perhaps with Buchan back as their gifted armchair sleuth? This three-parter painted him as a Ripper enthusiast only, but I'm sure the character could be evolved to make him an expert in various fictional cases. Surely he wrote other books? Or, he will now that his Ripper thirst has been quenched. Maybe Chandler and Miles could find themselves tracking another copycat killer who bases his crimes on another famous case, or the killer in a novel? Chances are ITV will want to jump on this unexpected hit and spawn another mini-series, too. Would you be up for that?


16 February 2009
ITV1, 9pm

Writers: Ben Court & Caroline Ip
Director: S.J Clarkson

Cast: Rupert Penry-Jones (DI Joseph Chandler), Phil Davis (DS Ray Miles), Steve Pemberton (Edward Buchan), Johnny Harris (DC Sanders), Sam Stockman (DC Kent), George Rossi (DC McCormack), Paul Hickey (Dr Cohen), Alex Jennings (Cdr Anderson), Constantine Gregory (Mr Maduro), Sally Leonard (Frances Cole), Simon Tcherniak (Dr Phillips), Branko Tomovic (Antoni Pricha), Tameka Empson (Mrs Buki), Carrie Grace (Newsreader), Nick Fletcher (Heckler) & Daniel Caren (Journalist)

WHITECHAPEL: Part 2 of 3

I haven't had time to properly review part 2 of ITV1's copycat Jack The Ripper thriller, but broadly speaking... I thought it was fine. It certainly wasn't as good as part 1, but it was a solid enough bridge to a hopefully stunning final part. My main concerns right now are:

• the background cops are paper-thin, bigoted clichés.
  

• it's not gruesome enough, considering the grizzly subject-matter.
  

• we don't see enough from the killer's perspective, to really make us fear for The Ripper and everyone in Whitechapel.
  

• there's no tension over any suspects being interviewed or followed, as it's clear we should only care about the Ripperlogist's theories, not DS Miles' (Phil Daniels) snout.
  

• my fear that the Ripper's identity will be a disappointment because it will be someone we won't meet until part 3, or one of the cops for the sake of an unconvincing shock. Still, at least they explored the obvious twist of making the Ripperologist the new-Ripper -- unless that's all a double-bluff?
  

• the directing has been good from S.J Clarkson, but it fell apart in that slo-mo sequence with Buchan unwittingly providing the Ripper with a diversion at Mitre Square.

Still, I loved Chandler's (Rupert Penry-Jones) dinner scene with his peers (who don't really care about catching The Ripper, just how it affects their careers), and Steve Pemberton is great fun to watch. But I can't help thinking that a story about a modern-day Jack The Ripper should be far, far more exciting and... well, hardcore. This still has some hallmarks of an ITV detective drama; admittedly their best in a long time, but still tethered to a safety-line.


9 February 2009
ITV1, 9pm

Writers: Ben Court & Caroline Ip
Director: S.J Clarkson

Cast: Rupert Penry-Jones (DI Joseph Chandler), Phil Davis (DS Ray Miles), Steve Pemberton (Edward Buchan), Alex Jennings (Cdr Anderson), Christopher Fulford (DC Fitzgerald), Johnny Harris (DC Sanders), George Rossi (DC McCormack), Sam Stockman (DC Kent), Claire Rushbrook (Dr Llewellyn), Jane Riley (Sarah Smith), Ben Loyd-Holmes (Pte Leary), Paul Hickey (Dr Cohen), Sophie Stanton (Mary Bousfield), Patricia Kensley (Mrs Buchan), Constantine Gregory (Mr Maduro), Mason Beaumont (Liam Miles), Matthew Payne (James Miles), Janice Acquah (Leary's Counsel) & Daniel Caren (Leary's Journalist)

WHITECHAPEL: Part 1 of 3

Fascination with Jack The Ripper thrives 120 years after the infamous spate of murders in London's East End, credited with birthing the modern serial-killer. Whitechapel is a three-part drama about a copycat killer targeting the same eponymous district as ol' Jack, with two mismatched detectives hot on the case, aided by an eccentric Ripperologist.

D.I Joseph Chandler (Spooks' Rupert Penry-Jones) is an upper-class desk-jockey detective with obsessive-compulsive disorder, called in to assist Whitechapel's police force with the gruesome murder of a woman found with a slashed throat in a school's playground. Chandler's subordinate is D.S Miles (Phil Davis), a working-class detective near to retirement who takes umbrage with "plastic" Chandler being called in to lead the murder enquiry. It's the classic incompatible cop gambit, done rather broadly, although Penry-Jones plays fastidious very convincingly, while ratty Davis clearly enjoys being a sneery, disparaging hindrance.

The investigation doesn't go very well to begin with, although Miles is quick to point the finger at a local butcher whose knives might match cuts on the victim, but Chandler is unconvinced. Enter eccentric Edward Buchan (Steve Pemberton), a "Ripperologist" who wrote a book about Jack The Ripper and now runs nightly tours of the alleyways and backstreets Jack stalked in 1888. Buchan has noted similarities between the recent murder and the first canonical murder of The Ripper (same day of death, same injuries, similar location, identical body posture), and implores Chandler to consider a terrifying possibility: that a modern-day Jack The Ripper copycat is at large.

Chandler is persuaded to consider Buchan's theory and eventually comes to embrace it, but Miles and his jocular colleagues don't take Buchan's controversial supposition seriously -- drawing attention to the fact both cases have a number of key differences (the modern victim wasn't a prostitute, for instance.) Can Chandler convince his rebellious new colleagues of his crackpot idea before the Ripper strikes again?

Written by Ben Court and Caroline Ip (The Hole, Primeval), Whitechapel is certainly entertaining, but its own unique elements are unfortunately rather clichéd. Everything memorable or good about this first part had its origin in history, or came from a particular performance. Steve Pemberton is especially good fun as the debonair Ripperologist, playing a character who could easily be twisted into another of his League Of Gentlemen grotesques. The mismatched detectives backdrop had its moments (like when the grubby cops wear garish neck-ties after prissy Chandler berates them for a lack thereof), but the prejudiced cops are quite an infuriating and caricatured bunch -- and there was scant reason for their immediate resentment of Chandler. The dialogue could also be quite daft: do pathologist's really say "welcome to hell, gentlemen" when presented with a mutilated body?

For the most part though, Whitechapel's first part got by on its unoriginal but compelling concept, some gruesome make-up, a scene-stealing Pemberton, and slick direction from S.J Clarkson (Life On Mars) -- slightly too flashy at times, but it generally held your interest well. It was also a nice touch to have everything tinted sepia to evoke Victoriana, with camera lenses almost smeared with treacle at times.

Overall, Whitechapel could definitely develop into something very good in the remaining two parts, but it's a shame all the elements that don't lean on Ripper lore are so clichéd and derivative of nearly every police procedural made in the past thirty years. The whole concoction had the smell of a formulaic mystery, coasting by on its link to one of history's greatest unsolved mysteries and villains, but I remain hopeful the skrews will tighten and the writing will become a tad more innovative.


2 February 2009
ITV1, 9pm

Writers: Ben Court & Caroline Ip
Director: S.J Clarkson

Cast: Rupert Penry-Jones (D.I Chandler), Phil Davis (D.S Miles), Steve Pemberton (Edward Buchan), Johnny Harris (D.C Sanders), Sam Stockman (D.C Kent), George Rossi (D.C McCormack), Christopher Fulford (D.C Fitzgerald), Alex Jennings (Commander Anderson), Claire Rushbrook (Dr. Llewellyn), Paul Hickey (Dr. Cohen), Sally Leonard (Frances Coles), Branko Tomovic (Antoni Pricha), Sophie Stanton (Mary Bousfield), Jane Riley (Sarah Smith) & Ben Loyd-Holmes (Pvt. John Leary)