Ripper Street · Season 1 · BBC One / Amazon Prime Video
Ripper Street Season 1
Ripper Street Season 1 is a MUST-WATCH, BollyMeter 8.3/10. 8 episodes on BBC One / Amazon Prime Video from 30 December 2012.
Updated
What BollyAI Thinks
Ripper Street launched on BBC One on 30 December 2012 to strong ratings and critical approval that crystallised around a single virtue: it refused to be about Jack the Ripper. The killer exists only as shadow and civic trauma; the actual work of H Division is what drives the plot, case by case, through a Whitechapel rendered in grime and gas-lit detail by Tiger Aspect's production team. Matthew Macfadyen's Reid is a deeply decent man corroded by what the job requires of him - a more nuanced anchor than the Victorian police procedural had previously managed. Jerome Flynn as the volatile Drake and Adam Rothenberg's American surgeon-turned-fixer give the trio a volatile chemistry. The season was voted best British TV show of 2013 in a public poll, and the 90% RT score reflected a consensus that the period setting was earned rather than decorative.
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The Room
“Gritty, sinister, and visually striking - a gripping thriller with well-crafted characters and compellingly lurid plotlines.”
Rotten Tomatoes Critics Consensus“Ripper Street is riveting from the first cry of murder.”
RedEye
Standout Episodes
The hours worth arguing about - premieres, finales, and the turning points. BollyAI reads the room episode by episode.
- E1I Need Light8.2
The series opener establishes its moral grammar in under an hour: a murder investigation that forces Reid's team to excavate the new technology - early photography, an American's forensic instincts - and the old brutalities of the East End. It declares its intentions without the Ripper-franchise noise.
The moment: Reid's first scene with Jackson establishes the show's central tension - the future arriving in Victorian London whether its inhabitants want it or not.