As in the original BBC America production "Copper," which is set in New York in the 1860s, early forensic science plays a key role in helping Reid and his team solve crimes. In "Copper," Kevin Corcoran (Tom Weston-Jones) enlists the help of a free slave who is also a doctor, Matthew Freeman (Ato Asandoh), to solve crimes, just as Reid dragoons Jackson here to work on murder cases with him.
The similarities between the two shows don't end there. Corcoran is haunted by the murder of his young daughter, while Reid and his wife, Emily (Amanda Hale), have lost their young daughter as well. Each show also features a cooperative brothel owner, grittily detailed production values and florid, penny-dreadful dialogue.
By the second episode, show creator Richard Warlow ("Mistresses") is borrowing a bit of Charles Dickens in the story of a street urchin convicted of murdering an elderly toy maker and sentenced to die on the gallows in three days. The boy is one of a group of street kids in the employ of a Fagin-like character, who's really much more of a Bill Sikes and out to spring the boy so he can shut him up before he tells the authorities too much. Meanwhile, Reid and his team have to keep the rabid citizen Whitechapel Vigilance Committee from shortstopping the kid's trip to the gallows themselves.
Although each episode focuses on a particular crime, we're hooked as much by the characters and what we still don't know about them. Edmund and Emily have a strained marriage, although they both seem to love each other. He buries the grief over the loss of his daughter in his work, while she spends every waking hour in church. Homer and Long Susan have both turned up in London after escaping some yet-to-be-defined incident back in the United States, which may have involved a name and identity change for Jackson. He can be an invaluable asset to Reid on a murder case, but he's not to be trusted.
"Ripper Street" boasts superb performances, cast and production values, and, beyond the copycat elements, thoughtfully written scripts loaded with surprises and a compellingly complicated moral base: Virtually all the characters are a credible mix of strengths and flaws.
READ MORE: http://www.sfgate.com/tv/article/Ripper-Street-review-Complex-characters-4199509.php#photo-4036998
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