Whitechapel Seasons 3 and 4

Constant Changes Hurt the Goods in Whitechapel Seasons 3 and 4

by Kristin Battestella

After two three-part seasons, the spooky British procedural Whitechapel changes formats with its 2012 Third and subsequent Fourth Seasons – varying in success with six episodes of two-part cases each as obsessive compulsive Inspector Joe Chandler (Rupert Penry-Jones), crusty Detective Sergeant Ray Miles (Phil Davies), and their constables face copycat killers and bizarre suspects alongside possibly evil and ultimately supernatural crimes that test their stiff upper lip mettle.

Whitechapel waxes on its Jack the Ripper past, copycat deduction, and historical cases setting precedents for new crimes even as it restarts as an X-Files creepy investigations wannabe with spooky altars, talk of the devil come to town, and weird neighbors fearing the night. Humbled witnesses, unhappy customers, and dead tailors interrupt wedding parties and family bemusements while forensics, CCTV evidence, and police questioning piece together limps and murder weapon clues. Why was a historical clothier obsessed with modern security technology? Our constables doubt their methodology, drinking and confiding their fears as they grow superstitious thanks to canvasing oddities, a goofy suspect afraid of bright light, and a killer who seemingly disappears into thin air. Cops aren't supposed to believe in magic or monsters, but bloody footprints go nowhere amid prisoner escapes and more deaths. This killer wants to teach a lesson in humility to the snobby survivors and hysterical crowds, but quirky profiling leads to hidden horrors and scary revelations to top off the case. Of course, cranky constables don't really know what to do with a baby much less a mangy fox and bloody appendages. Separated torsos, dismembered bodies dumped in the Thames, no heads – the bodily clues are there, but there's no crime scene and only a wild animal witness. DNA suggests poison – historically a women's weapon – so do they suspect a couple? Stakeouts allow for both humor and time to get to know our characters, after all, how many cops does it take to catch a fox? Smelly abandoned houses begat maze-like booby traps, newspaper pyres, and petrified corpses, but the hoarding and homemade elixirs reveal rare aphrodisiacs, imitation Spanish Fly, beetles, and anthropology evidence. Calligraphy clues, fetishes, unrequited love, and killer personalities come down to bar fights, indecent assaults, and chases, for our undercover team doesn't blend in very well at the edgy night club. By Episode Five, it's a full moon, creepy masks, killer point of view, and an escapee from a mental hospital returning to his former Whitechapel haunts – complete with his doctor Alistair Petrie (The Night Manager) insisting he's the most terrifying patient ever just like Halloween. This bogeyman – pronounced in the British way of course – scares witnesses, poses corpses, and leaves the cell phone in the body's mouth. Parking garage attacks provide chilling violence as the woman plays dead and hopes the killer leaves. It's one thing if a little girl says it's the bogeyman, but what about when an adult victim describes the same? Flashlights, vintage cameras, film reels, and visits to the original murder house lead to haunted whispers, phantom sounds, and spooked constables researching fairy tales and unexplained phenomena. Our therapist victim asks questions, too, helping our detectives see a different angle while the doctors speculate on how a person can die of fright. Great character dynamics and personal moments accent the creepy – they see the victims at night, can't forget them, and learn to live with the gory details. Slits throats, obsessions with silence, and Lon Chaney's London After Midnight drive our killer to slice and dice before standoffs, mouths sewn shut, fatal pantomime, and bloody graffiti – literally.

While Season One of Whitechapel had a fun Jack the Ripper plot, the Kray Twins were less exciting in Year Two, so Whitechapel had to change its format by focusing on local spooky cases. However, it's too contrived that there is always a similar historical case when such tenuous ties aren't necessary to raise the stakes and the series needs to move beyond copycat connections. Rather than using the characterizations and quirky strengths, each of these stories has a bizarre red herring in the first half. Sure police have dead ends and wrong turns, but Whitechapel showcases something eerie in lieu of the real case found in the second part. When the camera lingers too long on a seemingly innocuous person, it's easy to peg him as the killer, yet it's inevitably frustrating when there's always an unfulfilling technicality to catching the bad guy. After all the historical deducting and spooky false starts, the twists to end a case are often rushed with little resolution on what happens next. Despite unique aspects, the crimes are often hollow and formulaic, and none of these stories needed to be two-part shows. Is Whitechapel about solving the creepy cases or the offbeat detectives overcoming their personal and professional demons? It can be both, but the bemusing also negates the attempted scary and every case reboots this mixed focus. The subtle sinister seeds were always there, but outright jokes about the gates of hell being beneath Whitechapel open Season Four as ominous old ladies, pet rats, and torture begat crushed to death murders. Abandoned houses and back alley attacks escalate to an exploding briefcase and possible espionage thanks to carved symbols, mysterious files, and a poison umbrella. These cobblestone streets aren't safe amid old agent vendettas and bums worried about pixies, talismans, and turning coats inside out to avoid a bewitching. Sassy ladies in red and red tape technicalities hamper police interrogations alongside ransacked offices, delicate diplomacy, and hotel surveillance. So called witches are strung up in the snow with bonfires, stonings, slides on persecution history, and charred remains. The police don't believe in witchcraft or whispers of evil among them causing their notorious cases, but the killer does and some of our boys are spooked by the black cats, bodies dropped on cars, and salt water in the lungs to make the drownings slower. Notes found in the stomach during an autopsy, rituals, and abductions acerbate the paranoia. Maybe there's supposed to be a bigger spy picture, but Whitechapel again plays like a different show with two cases at once – wry humor versus frazzled fears and witches jarring with the facts. Rational explanations against demon in the building possibilities are ramped up too quickly rather than letting the paranormal bizarre deduction happen organically – like in the stinky apartment with the long dead body under the electric blanket keeping warm. Ewwww!

Human skin is also left on display during a creepy art exhibit – a hasty flayed while alive chop job lacking in surgical finesse. Russian tattoos, birthmarks, and cadavers as art unnerve the team amid phantom footsteps at the station and medical examiners trying to put the face back on the skull. There's still some trying too much forced spooky adding hot air, for the butcher shops, cleavers, and a victim mistakenly getting in to bed while the killer is already under the sheets is chilling enough. Demented classical music ironically accents the scissors – not the best tool for cutting skin – as the detectives push their desks aside to map out attacks on the precinct floor. Plastic sheeting, chainsaws, killer slicing, and bodies without faces coming ashore are even more disturbing when our clean obsessed constable is unable to wash. Snakes shedding skin, leathery masks, and recoiling dental attacks return to previous crimes haunting the victims alongside great character moments and costly missteps that threaten one of our own. There's no need for superfluous effects when the scares and suspense cut close to home thanks to factory machinery, chases, vats, and a warped sense of poetic justice. Then again, Whitechapel's finest fail at a zombie survival team building competition, but they have no problem with a half eaten body in the sewer, dangling entrails, and precision removal of the liver and pancreas. Here in its final case, Whitechapel finally gets the funny and macabre balance right thanks to killer souvenirs, cryptozoologists, and brains in jars making everyone jumpy. Disused underground tunnel maps lead to a house of horrors as the weird suspects get out of the way early in favor of wounds that won't heal – mentally or physically. Chases caught on video escalate toward more chilling attacks, frightening bathrooms, evil gangs, and bigger missing organs while crimes on Sunday near churches provide religious connotations. Upstanding charitable citizens are being murdered, perhaps sacrificed, and the ominous goings on have the constables on edge – literally. Some of Whitechapel's finest moments come with scared people in bouts of self reflection amid the hooded, shadowed figures and deliciously twisted tasties in the oven. So the suspect has tasted human flesh once! Meat hooks, seasonings, and society clubs mix with cults, ritual banquets, and devilish influences as the psychic messages, sabotage, and reasons for the spooky come full circle. Have all these cases been connected? Why did Whitechapel waste so much time with a back and forth lack of focus when it could have been like this all along?

Inspector Joe Chandler cleans his detectives' desks at night and loathes dripping faucets, but Rupert Penry-Jones' obsessive compulsive constable doesn't have much time for women – especially when her messy, slovenly place is too much to handle. He's particular and it's easier to live alone despite therapy and snapping a rubber band worn on his wrist to control his urges. When a baby throw ups over his shoulder, his team know he would be appalled and agree not to tell him. Chandler screams when there's no water in the bathroom to wash off blood and gets a basin in his office, drinking and repeatedly putting on new shirts after every grubby crime scene. He's reluctant to use mediums or charms even as evil hints mount thanks to the tragic reasons behind his compulsion, but his outside the box attention to detail also aides his deduction. The cleanliness may be an excuse to to go shirtless and each case now provides a potential love interest, but Whitechapel also resets Chandler as some sort of angelic avenger late in Year Four when we barely got any of the good versus evil stakes. Detective Sergeant Ray Miles wonders if he's past it, but Phil Davis' copper is as crusty as ever with his gruff methods and tough love caring about his constables. Impromptu therapy sessions help him express his fears over losing his bite as the sarge insists he still has a place in the chain of command. Miles, however, learns to keep an open mind – trying to set up Chandler and telling a downtrodden witness not to hide her talent. When it comes to a case, he'll take any luck, even contacting a psychic despite Chandler's calling such charlatans affront to real detective work. He hates hospitals because of the smell – and thinks Chandler must love the disinfectant – but his street smart hunches help pull the team's different strengths together. Miles calms his Inspector by viewing his OCD not as a disability but a useful gift, and when supernatural oddities overwhelm the station, Miles returns to his religious roots to confront the evil cause. Steve Pemberton as former Ripperologist Edward Buchan, on the other hand, is relegated to the dusty archive in the police basement as their official researcher. Fortunately, it's a treasure trove of history – until there is mildew near the boxes and Buchan must find the damp source. He's reluctant to use a computer and tells Ed Gein stories, but Whitechapel doesn't always know what to do with his studying the historical files help. He's grateful to Chandler for taking him on, but when he fails to see the details right in front of him, Buchan fees guilty, not sleeping and seeking therapy. It's tough for him to accept that people die in this line of work and he goes out on a limb researching solo for critical information that puts him at risk. Buchan is more traumatized by the experience then he admits, retreating further into his killer case histories until Miles of all people, defends him from the incident room teasing.

Sam Stockman's Emerson Kent, however, is always so jealous! His hero worship devotion to Chandler makes him suspicious of all the women who cross their path, and Kent deliberately interferes when his twin sister dates Mansell. He thinks he deserves getting punched in the subsequent dust up, but Chandler insists he ice the swelling, cover it up, and look professional. Kent gets upset if he lets the Inspector down, so he provides interesting perspectives on a case, canvases when no one else will, and becomes a better detective if only to be like Chandler. By contrast, D.C. Mansell is married one minute, cheating, and on his second divorce the next, and Ben Bishop's toughie drinks at the station and fights in the incident room. He cleans up somewhat when dating Kent's twin sister, but Mansell laughs over office crushes – meddling and sending emails but calling it matchmaking when told what a jerk he's being. Eventually even Chandler calls him out for his messy desk, not being on top of paperwork, and putting victims at risk with his laziness. At times, Mansell is somewhat useless, cracking a code after the case has been solved or left behind at the station. Even when he behaves, doesn't lie or step out, he doesn't feel good enough, and Mansell flips out over a break up – going to the rooftop and contemplating his worth in one of Whitechapel's finest character moments. Hannah Walter's (This is England) Constable Megan Riley joins Whitechapel for Series Three and Four, a lady friendly with the other cops' wives who's not afraid to tell Mansell when he's talking out his ass. Riley won't get her hand checked when it's cut up on the case though – the boys can't get soft or sentimental and neither will she even if the late hours away from her family are upsetting. She does her diligence, canvasing and questions witnesses and getting in on the chases. Riley chats with the boys when she's worried about them, insisting they all support each other – no one bears the blame for their case victims – but Buchan mistakes her comforts for something more. She gently tells him her husband, however, might object if she thought of him that way. Although Riley admits at times she feels safer behind her desk then on the case, Claire Rushbrook as Doctor Llewellyn remains the sensible voice of reason with forensic facts, a morbid wit, and an assistant she calls Igor. She notices when the detectives are being curt and pissy, claiming to spare them the gory details but still providing plenty of gross analysis. Llewellyn is pregnant again in Year Four – walking the long way around to get into the sewer for a body when she can't fit into the manhole. It's fun when we get to see her and Riley together, too, for the medical examiner says she forgets that the living flinch.

Those twitchy, forever annoying, strobe scene transitions, however, serve no purpose and Whitechapel is noticeably better when the flashy interludes are reduced. Rather than paralleling the sensational crimes, the montage overlays stray into re-enactment parody with skulls and horrors that have nothing to do with the morose at hand. Mirrors and reverse angles add better suspense, and choice editing splices accent the obsessive compulsive detail, organized objects, and controlled symmetry. Although the flickering electric, absence of support personnel, and paranormal oozing at times lay on too much notice me ominous, the subtle shadow and lighting schemes suggest a sinister touch. Gory crime scenes and old school splatter contrast bright outdoor filming, police tents, and forensics gear. Photography flashes and zooms are not aesthetics for the audience but part of the investigation while file folders, whiteboards, and projectors invoke the procedural. Whitechapel's weird shaky cam credits change with every story, lacking cohesion and giving license to the show's constantly in flux format. If viewers can look past the uneven historical crime realism versus supernatural explanation mixed vision, Whitechapel provides fine characterizations, intriguing details, quirky humor, and spooky atmosphere for fans of the cast and audiences looking for a different kind of police drama.

Top Ten: British Television!

Welcome to our new Top Tens series in celebration of I Think, Therefore I Review's Tenth Anniversary! These monthly lists will highlight special themes and topics from our extensive archive of reviews. 

 

This time I Think, Therefore I Review presents in chronological order...

Our Top Ten British Television!

I, Claudius

Mr. Bean

Sharpe

MI-5

The Tudors

Merlin

Wallander

Whitechapel

Downton Abbey

Silk

Please see our British tag for yet more Anglo analysis or visit our Television page for more reviews!

I Think, Therefore I Review began as the blog home for previously published reviews and reprinted critiques by horror author Kristin Battestella. Naturally older articles linked here may be out of date and codes or formatting may be broken. Please excuse any errors and remember our Top Tens will generally only include films, shows, books, or music previously reviewed at I Think, Therefore I Review.

Whitechapel Season 2

Whitechapel Season 2 Slips Slightly

by Kristin Battestella

Rupert Penry-Jones returns as Detective Inspector Joe Chandler for the second, three part series of Whitechapel. This time, Chandler, Detective Sergeant Ray Miles (Phil Davis), and the East End team must unravel several violent crimes mirroring the actions of the infamous Kray Twins. Soon, the detectives find themselves targeted by a new pair of Kray descendants orchestrating a complex web of law-breaking and corruption.

Cold credits with period cityscapes, sixties gangsters, and mid century boxing establish this Part One won't be a Jack the Ripper copycat case continued. DI Chandler is bored with routine, simplistic cases, and the snickers from the rest of the establishment won't let him forget the letdown of the Ripper results. Fortunately, new blood and violence intercut with the banal of detective dinners jars the empty idle of the quiet squad room. They shouldn't be excited when the phone rings, but floaters and precious few clues break the tedium of nothing to do but clean and re-clear desks. Whitechapel balances both the research of the crime – right down to a handmade shoe – and the extremes of the job well. Is there an insider on the case? Who has the skill and authority to pursue policemen at home? Escaped prisoners are found dead while past shades of Kray connections and mysterious informants add more than a whiff of organized crime and higher corruption. Anonymous tips, gang related parallels, and heavy costs within the department send constables walking away from the case. Perhaps the Krays' infamy may not be as well known stateside – certainly their tale isn't as popular for Ripperologists. However, Whitechapel weaves a complex case of thugs, violence, and an up the ladder trail. At times, there are too many names, who is who, dismissed suspects, and scared witnesses, but by Part Two, arrests are made despite a not always helpful Organized Crime Division.

Escalating interconnected crimes erupt over street cred and criminal celebrity while mistaken identities, suspicious damages, and squad room construction directly interfere with the case. All are looking over their shoulders and ties at home assure no one ever truly gets out of East End. With such threats and abductions, this case isn't going to be solved by doing things proper and by the book. Paranoia is getting to the boys on Whitechapel, and the squad remains behind the ball thanks to tense consequences, old retributions, and a reluctance to talk from those in the know. An old fashioned bar room shootout sets up Part Three, leaving fatalities and disbelief in Whitechapel's wake. Everyone is on edge, suspecting resolutions in the wrong places and clouding the case with personal viewpoints. Whitechapel assures we are just as interested in our constables cracking as we are about the cracking of the case, and the learning to do their deductions the hard way makes for some superb trauma at times. Granted, the previous Jack the Ripper aspects can be oft done. However, this organized crime meets regular cop corruption same old can be found anywhere, and these unmemorable by comparison plots feel both stretched too thin and a little much for only a three part season. This should have been a taught, one off, ninety minute telemovie. Instead, Whitechapel sets its crime war stakes high – almost too high for our boys to win, rushing the changing of the tide with good cops versus bad gangsters symmetry turning into a slightly silly boxing ring ultimatum. Fortunately, despite a ridiculously simple and downright obvious answer, actual investigating pieces together the clues held all along, thus putting Whitechapel back on track for the finale.

Forget the jokes and Police Awards receptions, Detective Inspector Joe Chandler is more than happy to pick up the phone for a “We got one!” whodunit. Unfortunately, his eagerness to be on the street doesn't prepare him to be out of his element with rough crowds or tossed from private pubs. He marches about like he can handle himself, talking to whomever he wants as if his badge means something special. While he shouldn't be underestimated, he is off on the wrong foot with this case, playing into the criminals' hands, and getting caught – literally in the boot of the car as they say. He's warned to back off the case and should be looking over his shoulder more, but Chandler won't give up even after several mistakes. The suspects themselves tell him he is the wrong sort of policeman for this investigation, but Chandler attests that he doesn't care what people think of him whether he is in line or not. Of course, he's threatened to “take a holiday” and given one by force – not to mention his car is stolen and a donkey is left waiting in his parking space. He wanted a case to solve, however, the gangster games accentuate Chandler's OCD, and Joe's counting thumbtacks and sorting them by color to keep steady. Self-medicated drinking may curb these obsessive compulsions, but such interference doesn't help Chandler or the case. Our detective truly breaks once blood is on his hands – forcing him to realize he isn't the best cop and that's okay.

Crusty as ever but no less heartwarming in his own way, Phil Davis has no airs or graces as Detective Sergeant Ray Miles. He's right to call out the department politics and upward moving brown nosers for making Chandler the laugh of the force when Chandler's putting his team's safety before solving the case saved Miles' life. Unfortunately, Miles is having a tougher time getting back to the job than he likes to admit. Going his own way is one thing, but panic attacks and more pent up anger than usual mean Miles isn't always forthcoming with his previous ties and Kray family connections. Surprisingly, it's Steve Pemberton returning as Ripperologist Edward Buchan who helps Miles in a begrudging information exchange. Buchan knows a thing or two about the Krays and his amateur detective work comes in handy for the team. Again, I'd like to see more of Claire Rushbrook as forensic pathologist Caroline Llewellyn, but it is tough to have her involved beyond morgue moments. Although the ensemble is a bit too crowded this season, we like the detectives and root for them even when the writing is too thin or convenient on Whitechapel. At times the secondary police are too obvious, interchangeable, or unevenly used. Ben Bishop (Hunderby) as new transfer Finlay Mansell doesn't do much while Sam Stockman's young DC Emerson Kent idolizes Chandler – and pays for it dearly. George Rossi as family man and burly jokester John McCormack struggles greatly with the Kray situation, but Christopher Fulford as the demoted Constable Fitzgerald is still about the squad room, too. While Craig Parkinson (Misfits) is fun in his villainous dual role, Peter Serafinowicz (Shaun of the Dead) as looks are everything, highly decorated Detective Chief Inspector Cazenove is worried about department embarrassments when this broadly written character is embarrassingly obvious on Whitechapel. If it looks like a duck, sounds like a duck...

Now then, camera work should be used to accent the scene and build atmosphere, not call attention to itself with flash flash flashy as Whitechapel seems to think it must do to stand out compared to other police procedurals. Although not as bad as the debut season, this distorted photography or artsy scene changes aren't necessary when better straightforward filming is interspersed with brief narrations on the past crimes. Sepia slices via period crime photos and a montage mix would be okay – except slow motion is tossed on top for excessive hitting it over the head emphasis. It should be one or the other, and Whitechapel tries to look super sophisticated when the intrusive glossy dumbs down everything. Brief forensics scenes, surgical masks, and at the crime scene inspection do much better in adding that touch of macabre and violence. Shadows, alleyways, and darkness add a fitting sense of danger for our team while traditional editing builds the stalking scenes and ominous faces in the window. Now that these episodes are five years old, the use of technology is also minimal compared to the increasing instant crutch in more recent shows. Our detectives have cell phones – ahem mo-biles – and computers, but fortunately those devices are not an essential part of the crime solving.

After what feels like years of waiting, I was finally able to see this second series of Whitechapel on Hulu Plus. The DVDs never seem to be available here across the pond, so a few ninety second ads aren't a bother. The subtitles can be irksome at times, but it's easy to marathon these three episodes – which you almost have to do to keep all the details fresh. Yes, wise Whitechapel viewers will see the answer in the first ten minutes of the first episode. This isn't eerie anymore, and the tonal shift toward standard police drama is drastic enough to put off audiences who tuned in solely for the debut season's Ripper update. However despite the uneven writing flaws, viewers watching Whitechapel for the characters and the conspiracy possibilities can enjoy the yelling at the tele drama here.

Whitechapel Season 1

A Slightly Flawed, but Thought Provoking Whitechapel Debut

By Kristin Battestella

Detective Inspector Joe Chandler (Rupert Penry-Jones) is on the up and up and ready to make his name in his new assignment to the Whitechapel district – until a series of gruesome murders stump cranky sergeant Ray Miles (Phil Davis) and fellow detectives Fitzgerald (Christopher Fulford), Kent (Sam Stockman), Sanders (Johnny Harris), and McCormack (George Rossi). Chandler’s politicking superior Commander Anderson (Alex Jennings, The Queen) also doesn’t want to hear the facts on the crimes, for they seem all too reminiscent of Whitechapel’s most infamous, 120 year old unsolved case – that of the serial killer known as Jack the Ripper. Self proclaimed Ripperologist Edward Buchan (Steve Pemberton) aids Chandler and his team in matching the copycat trends, but can these 21^st century coppers be ahead of the next murder or will this new Jack for the new millennium outsmart the police once again?

Although this decade’s popular Victorian resurgence is nothing new to us 19^th century aficionados, the trend has brought numerous, semi-competing materials such as the recent Sherlock Holmes adaptations stateside and abroad in film and television and more period programs like Ripper Street and this modern set but past feeling Whitechapel. Thanks to such abundant fiction, media, and Jack the Ripper twists, this type of copycat plot – subtitled The Ripper Returns – may seem familiar, yet the perennial intrigue of the original unsolved crimes and the new investigative spins are stimulating enough to carry the three episode, two-hour plus suspense here. Whitechapel could have done without some of the more standard police procedural designs and the now expected spooky, ghostly, and dark, macabre hints – remember when creepy was rare and nonconformist instead of pop? However, our contemporary need to speculate is matched by the mysteries, conspiracies, divided loyalties, leaks, and press interference. Is the killer amongst our players or an unknown revelation? Are we putting on our CSI caps or thinking like a period criminal?  Morbidity aside, it’s pleasing to revisit the so-called canonical murders and fringe theories in such detail, even if the seeing double Jack the Ripper fresh insights and current investigation trappings are too on the nose at times. Would the vintage case be different if the police had cameras? What if the Ripper had a getaway car? Imagine the social media! The 45-minute episodes have stand-alone content and step up the primary storyline with each leg in proper miniseries fashion: Part 1 establishes the Ripper connections, reluctance, and disbelief while Episode 2 sees a suspect in custody and press intrusions before the Conclusion adds the infamous letter writing campaign and…I’m not telling you anymore!

Rupert Penry-Jones’ DI Chandler is initially excited about the eponymous crimes, wet behind the ears new to the street, and looking suave in a tux as he plays upward seeking politics. Viewers have seen this kind of awkward rookie in charge angle before – complete with hiding the chalk from the chalkboard pranks– but we’ve also seen Penry-Jones on other capers such as MI-5 long enough to like and trust Chandler amid his own compulsive rehearsings before the mirror and doubts. These initial characterizations are typical, but Chandler can’t be too perfect when he’s willing to believe the fantastic copycat possibilities or be angry his team isn’t up to snuff. Interesting humor also litters Whitechapel thanks to Chandler’s mockability – after demanding his men wear ties and eat healthy, they adorn joke threads and speculate on their boss’ gaydar. Some of these quirky attempts are a bit out of place; built-in irony already exists in Chandler’s chastising the locals for not knowing their homegrown Ripper facts. Though it’s probably meant to show how the bureaucrats don’t have his back or just how in over his head Chandler really is, he’s unevenly cool with the society types yet nervous with lower coppers. These written clichés hamper Penry-Jones and come too easy, yes, but rather than staying established or stagnant, Chandler loosens up, goes unshaven, and deduces as he should for a thrilling finish.

 

Whitechapel continues this somewhat confusing, formulaic character development with its ensemble, for detectives Christopher Fulford (The Brief), Sam Stockman (Family Affairs), Johnny Harris (RocknRolla), and George Rossi (The Bill) are both stereotypical fillers and well developed series regulars. Is the show about these eccentricities of the district or the outlandish crimes and Ripper flair? It’s too apparent that the seasonal thread is Jack the Ripper while the character establishment is in hopes for a sequel. Understandably, we don’t see any of our players at home, yet each adds a critical piece to the investigation. Though there should have been more of Claire Rushbrook (Mutual Friends) as pregnant pathologist Caroline Llewellyn – her banter and gruesome, biological moments suffice on the creepy and service the plot – the pairing and chemistry among the team works. Grumpy, secretive sergeant Phil Davis (North Square) starts cliché, but he has the pulse on the street and refreshingly looks like a real detective compared to Penry-Jones’ tall, blonde pretty. Steve Pemberton (Benidorm) as Ripperologist Ed Buchan also adds the right humor, charm, and reasonable Ripper exposition. Despite obvious writing and red herrings, he fits the expected expertise and adds a personal quaint. This cast shows up to play even if the page lets them down, and their clashes, conspiracy theories, and outlandish suggestions add moments of closeness and conflict as the case twists and turns. I thought I had it figured out, then I didn’t, then I did… aha!

Of course, the London locations are sweet, from the dark, cobblestone alleyways to the high society clubs and suits. The look creates an almost Victorian high and low parallel, but the well done, dimly lit, old-fashioned filming design feels at odds with the trying to be modern askew angles, herky jerky flashes, and strobe camera work. It’s not as gruesome as today’s CSI audiences are accustomed to seeing, but intercut macabre photos, rapid autopsies blinks, brief corpse nudity, and jumbled, gaudy scene transitions in any combination there of are unnecessary, too obviously wannabe stylish, and we can’t see a dang thing anyway. Somehow, slow motion is randomly thrown in for good measure, too. One probably has to like British crime dramas to enjoy Whitechapel, but these visual attempts at setting it apart from being like other procedurals don’t quite work. Series 1 director S.J. Clarkson (Life on Mars) doesn’t go off the helter skelter deep end with the edgy look, but I’d rather have no design flair distracting from the story. Stick with the solid investigation instead – the characters, crimes, and disturbed suggestions come thru just fine, and the past meets present set dressings do wonders! The physicality of old chalkboards, a small, dated office, and carefully placed red accents set the scene against smartly used split screen footage, CCTV technology, and now admittedly 2009 blackberries and desktops. Longtime cop show viewers, however, will cringe at the conveniently dropped police protocols, things like, oh, I don’t know, calling for back up or wearing gloves when touching a crime scene! This is the biggest East End case in 120 years and yet five haphazard constables with no support are going it alone?  

Have I used words like ‘cliché’, ‘stereotypical’, and ‘again’ a lot in describing Whitechapel? Writers Ben Court and Caroline Ip (Mayday) do at times play it safe with a case that could have been done on any other Scotland Yard show but also occasionally try too hard in this old meets new Ripper twist. Ixnay this flashy on the nose and fortunately, the meaty, well-acted drama is there above and beyond these goofy, Unsolved Mysteries-esque mock docudramas we get stateside these days. This swift First Season is easily available on one disc with some interesting behind the scenes interviews, and a straight run thru is the best way to see Whitechapel’s case unfold. Jack the Ripper enthusiasts, viewers newly tuned in to investigation shows or those who like a sophisticated thinking person’s thriller can see past the cliché starts and police procedural trappings for an intense, down to the wire, provocative Whitechapel debut dénouement.