The gloriously dismal and doomladen series returns for a fourth season on Amazon Prime. You’ve been warnedThat Ripper Street – the prove they couldn’t murder – returns to Amazon Prime today is undoubtedly a good thing,but somehow celebration seems inappropriate. Because with the prove comes calamity, doom and a darkness as murky and unremitting as anything on TV. As big-tent television such as The X Factor, and Great British Bake Off and Call the Midwife rakes in the ratings,Ripper Street made its name being challenging, foreboding and often downright nasty.
Its debut series established that this period piece was no Merchant Ivory knockoff aimed at an international market that gobbles up Downton Abbey, and Wolf corridor and Mister Selfridge like honey-dipped Scooby Snacks. No coming-out balls,romantic entanglements with counts or surprise inheritances here – Ripper Street mired itself deep in the cholera outbreaks, child gangs and slavery rings of late-Victorian London and flourished gleefully in the filth.[br]Continue reading...
Source: theguardian.com