American Ripper

Well I learned two irrevocable things about this series: #1. I wasted 8 hours of life watching it. #2. We still don't know who The Ripper was. This series lost me on series 7 when Jeff Muddget convinces himself, after every other expert debunks all his theories, that H.H. Holmes escaped his own hanging death and exacted revenge on all the people that assisted in his capture or criminal trial. What's worse is although quite sexy in her own way, the CIA operative Amaryllis Fox actually entertained this theory. The first few episodes I found somewhat entertaining as it did shed facts of the crimes, and hopes that there was some plausibility to the claim Holmes was linked. All in all, I guess The History Channel succeeded in what they set out to do and that was to get people to watch. I confess I watched all 8 episodes but I figured, "what the hell," I've already wasted 6 hours of this debacle.

Remember Geraldo Rivera and Al Capone's vault? This is the same thing. All sorts of hype and absolutely nothing to show for it. If Amaryllis Fox had any credibility before this show, she has surely lost it now. I suspect the people who put up the money for this and saw it go swirling down the drain, decided that a second season of nothing but circumstantial evidence wasn't worth it.

OK the main flaw that I feel throws this conspiracy theory out the window is this: We have an American in Chicago, living in a town that was familiar to him with a simple "grid" system infrastructure which would have been easy for him to navigate. However,he jumps on a ship and travels to London to commit several murders that he does under the cover of darkness in an unfamiliar city that is basically a "labyrinth" of confusing streets and gets away every time? I think not! Jack the Ripper was a local to the area and that is how he managed to elude capture - I know its not as exciting but do we want reality or entertainment.

Jeff Mudgett comes across as someone who only cares about proving he's right. The way it's edited, the leads seem shocked by some of the stuff they learn from 'experts' that's common knowledge of H.H. Holmes & as his grandson who has spent 20 trying to prove H.H. Holmes & Jack The Ripper are the same person he would have know these facts. The leads also take a rumour and state it as facts.

The amount of recap in this series is astounding. Instead of 8 episodes, they could've made it into 5. I bet they said the same phrases a hundred times: what they're investigating, what they hope to find, what their expectations were, etc. It actually got mildly infuriating because it was constant recapping. The actual content was good and interesting, though. You can probably just watch the last 3 episodes to get all the info you need, and avoid literal hours of filler shots and repetition.

Don't forget the fact that this series only has one season, so it left off without answers to several questions they'd already posed. Frustrating.