7.2 | / 10 |
Users | 0.0 | |
Reviewer | 4.0 | |
Overall | 4.0 |
In 1890, the memory of Jack the Ripper fades, but the challenges facing H Division, the Whitechapel police precinct in the East End of London, are just as deadly.
Starring: Matthew Macfadyen, Adam Rothenberg, Jerome Flynn, MyAnna Buring, David Wilmot (I)Crime | Insignificant |
Drama | Insignificant |
Mystery | Insignificant |
Video codec: MPEG-4 AVC
Video resolution: 1080p
Aspect ratio: 1.78:1
Original aspect ratio: 1.78:1
English: DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 (48kHz, 16-bit)
English SDH
50GB Blu-ray Disc
Two-disc set (2 BDs)
Slipcover in original pressing
Region A, B (C untested)
Movie | 4.5 | |
Video | 4.5 | |
Audio | 4.0 | |
Extras | 0.5 | |
Overall | 4.0 |
Warning: The following review assumes that the reader is familiar with Season One of Ripper Street. If you have not seen the first season, please consult the Season One Blu-ray review for an introduction to the series. If you proceed past this point, you will encounter spoilers for Season One. The sophomore season of creator Richard Warlow's series about the police officers of H Division in the aftermath of Jack the Ripper had to confront a specific challenge. Eventually, fear of the Ripper would loosen its grip on the populace of London's Whitechapel district, as it became clear that his reign of terror was over (though no suspect was ever caught). Since the initial premise of Ripper Street was the challenge of moving on when the Ripper suddenly vanished, what would be the show's organizing principle once the public had indeed moved on? Warlow responded, first, by focusing on the main characters that had come so vividly to life in the first season, and, second, by deepening the series' explorations into the kind of crimes that foreshadow 20th Century concerns and reveal modernity knocking at the door of Victorian England (if not battering it down). Season One had already opened this frontier with its stories of labor troubles, forced clearings of tenements by developers and mass murder through poisoning of the food supply. In Season Two, the crimes that H Division investigates in Whitechapel's impoverished streets have a similarly contemporary feel. The Ripper is now a memory, seen only in entertainments such as puppet shows, where he is already treated as a figure of legend and even comedy. Thus does the popular imagination defang what frightens it. Season Two of Ripper Street began airing in the U.K. on October 28, 2013, but broadcast on BBC America was delayed until February 22, 2014, probably because the BBC ratings were a disappointment, even though the show was voted best of 2013 in a poll by Radio Times TV guide and magazine. The BBC canceled Ripper Street after Season Two, but in a surprise move, Amazon Prime, which wants to compete with Netflix in the creation of original programming, has announced that it will continue the show.
As far as I have been able to determine, Ripper Street continues to be shot digitally (by several cinematographers) with the Arri Alexa. The image for Season Two on BBC Home Video's two 1080p, AVC-encoded Blu-ray discs is comparable to that of Season One, in that it is clean, detailed and noiseless. However, the color palette is somewhat warmer and more saturated than in Season One. Whether this was intended to suggest a greater distance from the Ripper's reign of terror or simply to provide visual interest is unclear, but it accords with various settings where the production design emphasizes brighter colors, including, for example, a music hall where one of Long Susan's girls attempts to start a singing career and the headquarters (in an abandoned building) of the doomsday cult that attempts to start a religious war. The streets of Whitechapel and the headquarters of H Division remains as grimy as ever, but they are perhaps somewhat more brightly lit. As with Season One, filtering, banding and compression artifacts were not an issue.
Where the first season of Ripper Street offered a stereo track, Season Two provides a full 5.1 mix, presented in lossless DTS-HD MA. The discrete surround encoding brings greater clarity and definition to a sound mix that, as was evident in Season One, was clearly designed for surround decoding. In street scenes, for example, the buzz of Whitechapel is everywhere, while the main conversations remain in the front soundstage. A no-holds-barred boxing match plays out on the screen surrounded by the roar of the bloodthirsty crowd on all sides. A story involving both dynamite and electrical experiments features both loud explosions and impressive flashes, sparks and "arcing". A brief scene set in South Africa (which I won't describe further to avoid spoilers) impressively recreates the sonics of a particular type of work site. As in Season One, dialogue is clearly articulated, and there are subtitles for anyone whose ear is unaccustomed to the various accents. Period slang continues to be used, but once again no glossary has been provided. The distinctively Irish soundtrack continues to be composed by Dominik Scherrer, and it sounds even better in 5.1.
Ripper Street continues to be well-written, compellingly performed and impeccably produced, but in its second season it has become a Victorian police procedural. There's nothing wrong with that, but the challenge for creator Warlow as the series progresses under its new umbrella will be to find a new focus, now that Jack the Ripper is only a memory. A possibility flickered near the end of Season Two, when Inspector Reid asked his boss what he would do if he could lay his hand on the shoulder of a man and know for certain that this was the Ripper. Reid's battle with the renegade Inspector Shine has brought him to that fine line between law enforcement and vigilantism, between law and justice, to which police drama returns again and again. Perhaps Warlow will bring us his own version. As for Season Two of Ripper Street, despite a disappointing shortage of extras, the Blu-ray set is recommended.
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