The Eighth Doctor, aka Paul McGann, tips up on Ripper Street this week. Here's Jamie-Lee's review...
This review contains spoilers.
1.4 The Good Of This City
Our bloody and brutal Ripper Street has made its way across the pond to BBC America, where it's been the subject of much hype and media attention. Matthew Macfadyen, who plays the lead role of Detective Inspector Reid, has been cited in the papers defending the gore and smut, while Jerome Flynn who plays his right-hand man, Detective Sergeant Drake, has come out with some prime material guaranteed to give the readers of middle-England a touch of the vapours: what was he up to for those lost eight years of his career between Badger and Tommy Cooper and before Game of Thrones and Ripper Street? Well, he was in a sort of religious cult, run by the son of the actor who plays Ken Barlow in Coronation Street. Obviously.
And yes, there's also been the predictable backlash to the BBC's new series. Is it too violent to be shown at 9pm? Is the gore unnecessary? Is it sexist? Quite frankly I bite my thumb at these articles. Ripper Street is offering something new and exciting to our Sunday night rituals of cosy period drama TV viewings. Is it disrupting it? Oh yes. Happily so. And each episode so far has been unique, pushing boundaries with very different storylines and enticing us with enriched understanding of the interesting lead characters and dazzling us with shiny cameos.
The Good of This City is no different. This week’s episode focuses on various scientific and social developments that were extremely experimental at the time; psychiatry and electricity on the underground. Of course, these are merely backdrops for some gothic and grisly murders and a young girl named Lucy perturbed by her ‘darkness’.
Episode four opens with Long Susan (MyAnna Buring) welcoming a new ‘tart’ to her remarkably salubrious whorehouse, making it sound as though she’s about to enter the Shangri-La. We’ve seen a tough side to Susan’s character through her brief appearances, but are waiting to scratch beneath the surface. Then in walks Lucy, once renowned for being the prettiest prostitute in Tenter Street, who goes to the pint-sized Madame seeking a job. For reasons unknown, she is refused and proclaims that she knows not what will become of her. It’s a fairly bleak and hypocritical moment, with Susan reminding them both (and the audience) that men have created a world in which women are designed for their pleasure from which they can profit. All the while, Susan is there running a brothel at a sixty percent cut. However, in this episode we see how far she really will go to protect her girls.
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