"Catch me when you Can Mishter Lusk."*

So I have been playing catch up with my DVR and just finished watching the first series of "Whitechapel", starring Rupert Penry-Jones, Phillip "Shake me up, Judy" Davis, Steve Pemberton, and Alex Jennings. Really enjoyed this first series and am about to start watching the second one, although the reviews I have read on line say that the second one isn't as good as the first.

I have always been drawn to the mystery of Jack the Ripper, although at the same time it scares me to death. There is something about the combination of the seedy underbelly of Victorian London and unsolved serial killings that just is so tantalizingly awful. What's not to love about a century year old conspiracy theory, especially one involving the Masons and the Royal Family, including Queen Victoria herself!?!

I have watching a number of Jack the Ripper films and read several books on the subject, although I had to stop reading Patricia Cornwall's Portrait of a Killer: Jack the Ripper—Case Closed and actually physically remove the book from my house because it was creeping me out. Shiver. I really liked both the graphic novel From Hell and its film adaptation, but I can totally understand why author Alan Moore was upset by the film and chose to distance himself from it. (They are two very different things.) I really liked the original take on the Ripper "murders" that they took in "Whitechapel" and am looking forward to watching the second series.



*from the infamous Jack the Ripper "From Hell" letter