|
Post by dem bones on Jan 29, 2013 9:09:43 GMT
Yeah - some of the Colonel's monologues were a bit over the top, but all in all an enjoyable episode. I was surprised to see a pump-action shotgun getting an outing, but it turns out they've been around since the 1890s. To my way of thinking, even more reason to love it .... "After two unspeakably gory episodes, what I am thinking is more along the lines of this: how did such a godforsaken, blood-spattered, flamboyantly violent, women-hating television series ever get made in the first place?
How did Ripper Street — which airs at 9pm — get past the censors, the powers that be, the arbiters of good taste, or indeed anyone at the BBC with a modicum of sense or sensibility? - Jan Moir, "Who decided to make the BBC's Sunday night period drama an anti-women orgy of gore?", from - where else - Daily Rabid Middle England Hysterics online, January 7th /8th, 2013. The snuff movie shoot: the swivel-eyed scouse thug and his gang of Artful Dodgers: the vomit olympics: the thwarted lobotomy: Jackson's amphetamine freakout - it's to cast and crews great credit that so much of it sticks. Most days, can't even remember what, if anything, I watched the night before. Whenever we cut to the best little whorehouse in Shadwell, I'm still half expecting entire cast to reprise Adam & the Ants' Prince Charming routine. And, of course, am now so appallingly obsessed with Lady Fishnet, I don't care what the scriptwriters have up their sleeves, just so long as they don't kill her off.
|
|
|
Post by Dr Strange on Jan 29, 2013 11:57:11 GMT
Brilliant... the BBC couldn't buy that sort of advertising. Even calling it a "period drama" seems ridiculous - are they actually suggesting that fans of Downton Abbey had somehow been taken advantage of, and tricked into watching Ripper Street?
|
|
|
Post by Michael Connolly on Jan 29, 2013 13:47:18 GMT
It's hard to watch the awful poverty and squalor in London years ago. The women are always screaming. Hold on - that's Call the Midwife.
|
|
|
Post by Dr Strange on Jan 31, 2013 11:43:00 GMT
|
|
|
Post by dem bones on Feb 1, 2013 7:55:53 GMT
Jason Hughes' Midsomer Murders swansong was a bit of a swiz. Wednesday night's Schooled In Murder was a decent episode with a higher than average body count, but no hint that Jonesy is nabbing his final collar. Was the scriptwriter not made sufficiently aware of the magnitude of the occasion?
Midsomer Pastures, a typical close knit Middle England community where everybody loathes everyone else and sleeps with anyone but their lawfully wedded. It's two notable institutions, the exclusive Midsomer Pastures Prep School, and the dairy, the areas single biggest employer, home of the "world-famous" Midsomer Blue. Back in the mists of time, the Dairy owner founded the school with the non-negotiable proviso that the fees of all daughters of dairy employees be waved in perpetuity.
The current headmistress, Sylvia Mountford (Maggie Steed) , has presided over an alarming number of expulsions in recent years, and all of them from the dairy contingent. Mountford actively encourages the bullying of these free-loaders by the posh fee paying pupils . Holly, daughter of Debbie Moffett, (played by Martine McCutcheon, her that used to be in East Enders, went to Hollywood and came back again), is the latest to have her scholarship cancelled, and her glamorous mum is furious. Mountford cites Debbies affair with Midsomer Pastures' rummest of a rum bunch, sleazy cabinet minister Oliver Ordish, as justification for Holly's expulsion. Debbie retaliates by threatening to expose a school-related scandal. Shortly afterward, she's battered to death with a lump of cheese, the first of five murders (plus several attempted) in a very busy episode. The community are fulsome in their heartfelt obituaries. They all hated her guts.
Prime suspect Oliver Ordish is exonerated when he's garrotted with cheese-wire while returning home pissed from the pub after an argument with long-suffering wife, Beatrix. The killer stuffs his mouth full of maggots. Suspicion shifts to Gregory Brantner, ex-England rugby international, whose wife Hayley, an author, has recently inherited the struggling dairy. Brantner has taken over management of the plant and is planning to modernise, sell out to a Supermarket and lay-off his employees. Branter is, far as I can remember, Midsomer's first ever black murder suspect - until he's skewered with a cheese needle.
Other shifty characters - virtually the entire cast - include Jake the Vegan, a mysterious young hoodie vagrant: Helen Caxton, struggling to maintain her farm in the wake of her husband's suicide, and her brother-in-law Jim, completely unfazed by the reign of terror - "I just want to make cheese," he implores Barnaby when the diary is cordoned off as a crime scene. Jake is - very predictably - one of the good guys, while secret lovers Helen and Jim are locked in a paddock and trampled underfoot by panicked cows.
Who is behind it all, and for what reason? And why is Barnaby pretending Sykes -his scene-stealing Jack Russell - has been bitten in a dog fight?
|
|
|
Post by Jojo Lapin X on Feb 15, 2013 16:52:36 GMT
Why does everyone on RIPPER STREET sound as if they are reciting blank verse?
|
|
|
Post by Dr Strange on Feb 15, 2013 17:39:11 GMT
Why does everyone on RIPPER STREET sound as if they are reciting blank verse? Charles Dickens.
|
|
|
Post by Jojo Lapin X on Feb 15, 2013 17:56:24 GMT
Why does everyone on RIPPER STREET sound as if they are reciting blank verse? Charles Dickens. You may be on to something.
|
|
|
Post by dem bones on Feb 17, 2013 19:55:37 GMT
Blank verse or otherwise, either i'm getting used to it or the dialogue seemed less obtrusive in the action-packed episode 5, Tournament Of Shadows, wherein Reid uncovers a conspiracy hatched by Special Branch and Russian Secret Police to bomb the capital. Their aim is to discredit striking dockers - a symptom of "the Leftist cancer" - and if they can stir up hatred against the Jews while they're about it, then all to the good. To complicate matters, a bunch of anarchist bruisers are out to subvert the strike for their own ends. When Jewish anarcho-hippie Joshua Bloom is murdered, the powers that be frame him as the victim of his own bomb, but Miss Goren from the Orphanage, knows this isn't the case and introduces Reid to Joshua's misery guts of a brother, Isaaac, who alerts him to the conspiracy. When the Working Men's Club on Berner Street is blown to pieces you worry that H Division are well out of their depth, specially with ruthless Special Branch nutter Constantine's capacity for fitting up any who stand in his way. This time it's Captain Jackson who plays a blinder, saving Drake from decapitation at the hands of a mob and demonstrating a previously unsuspected expertise in bomb disposal.
We also learned that the perennially gloomy Reid lost his daughter, Matilda, in The Princess Alice disaster, and the strain is telling on his marriage. It's been a year now, wife Emily needs to move on, but he clings desperately to the belief that somehow the little girl survived. He finally unloads on Mrs Goren at the Jewish Orphanage, almost literally. Drake walks in on them mid-snog, so clearly more to come from that episode.
Anyway, it's back on again tonight. Looks like Lady Fishnet will be heavily involved after taking a back seat last time out. I hope Reid pops into The Brown Bear again. It's lovely to see the old place looking so salubrious.
|
|
|
Post by Jojo Lapin X on Feb 17, 2013 20:10:15 GMT
episode 5, Tournament Of ShadowsAccording to my computations, that was actually Episode 6. Oh, how time flies! Have you noticed how anyone who is even remotely acquainted with the Inspector is allowed to get away with anything, including murder?
|
|
|
Post by dem bones on Feb 17, 2013 20:31:19 GMT
Snuff movie - Fagin - mad poisoner - asylum - London underground - dock strike. Yep, six.
|
|
|
Post by David A. Riley on Feb 18, 2013 9:11:14 GMT
Blank verse or otherwise, either i'm getting used to it or the dialogue seemed less obtrusive in the action-packed episode 5, Tournament Of Shadows, wherein Reid uncovers a conspiracy hatched by Special Branch and Russian Secret Police to bomb the capital. Their aim is to discredit striking dockers - a symptom of "the Leftist cancer" - and if they can stir up hatred against the Jews while they're about it, then all to the good. To complicate matters, a bunch of anarchist bruisers are out to subvert the strike for their own ends. When Jewish anarcho-hippie Joshua Bloom is murdered, the powers that be frame him as the victim of his own bomb, but Miss Goren from the Orphanage, knows this isn't the case and introduces Reid to Joshua's misery guts of a brother, Isaaac, who alerts him to the conspiracy. When the Working Men's Club on Berner Street is blown to pieces you worry that H Division are well out of their depth, specially with ruthless Special Branch nutter Constantine's capacity for fitting up any who stand in his way. This time it's Captain Jackson who plays a blinder, saving Drake from decapitation at the hands of a mob and demonstrating a previously unsuspected expertise in bomb disposal. We also learned that the perennially gloomy Reid lost his daughter, Matilda, in The Princess Alice disaster, and the strain is telling on his marriage. It's been a year now, wife Emily needs to move on, but he clings desperately to the belief that somehow the little girl survived. He finally unloads on Mrs Goren at the Jewish Orphanage, almost literally. Drake walks in on them mid-snog, so clearly more to come from that episode. Anyway, it's back on again tonight. Looks like Lady Fishnet will be heavily involved after taking a back seat last time out. I hope Reid pops into The Brown Bear again. It's lovely to see the old place looking so salubrious. One of the best episodes last night, leaving me shocked at a certain regular's death. The brothel looked more realistic for once after being trashed. The Pinkerton villain was also one of the best they have had so far. Genuinely someone you could hate with ease. I think I must be getting used to the blank verse dialogue as it didn't irk me so much last night.
|
|
|
Post by franklinmarsh on Feb 18, 2013 12:13:42 GMT
leaving me shocked at a certain regular's death. Crikey, me too. 'The Bear' got a mention Dem, but we didn't see it this time around. David's previous comment about Inspector Bung (a very fitting name) has me chuckling every time. It's a fabulous series. Last Utopia tomorrow too. Curses.
|
|
|
Post by dem bones on Feb 18, 2013 21:06:39 GMT
Yeah, that must be in with a shout for best episode yet. Really NASTY, just when the series needed it most. Must admit, when the Pinkerton mob first show up I was 'here we go, more Carry On Cowboy ultra bollocks', but once Frank Goodnight got busy with his knife it was good, wholesome violence nearly all the way (the showdown outside the nick struck me as a bit silly). I'm sure our Daily Mail critic will have especially enjoyed the attack on the Bordello. For me, the coda, when we learn just why Goodnight performed a pseudo-Ripper murder, topped even the senseless slaying of a likeable series regular as episode highlight.
|
|
|
Post by David A. Riley on Feb 19, 2013 9:54:59 GMT
Yeah, that must be in with a shout for best episode yet. Really NASTY, just when the series needed it most. Must admit, when the Pinkerton mob first show up I was 'here we go, more Carry On Cowboy ultra bollocks', but once Frank Goodnight got busy with his knife it was good, wholesome violence nearly all the way (the showdown outside the nick struck me as a bit silly). I'm sure our Daily Mail critic will have especially enjoyed the attack on the Bordello. For me, the coda, when we learn just why Goodnight performed a pseudo-Ripper murder, topped even the senseless slaying of a likeable series regular as episode highlight. I agree with you completely, especially the showdown. I was sadistically looking forward to Goodnight being pushed into a cell ahead of half a dozen local coppers out for revenge, which would have made more sense than everyone standing by like a load of ninnies while he fought a duel! Even for the 1890s that was a bit far fetched. Other than that an outstanding episode.
|
|