Ripper Street: British Import with Sex and Sleuths (NY Times)

Here are some of the comments made by the NY Times on Ripper Street:

“Ripper Street” is, however, reasonably clever and sometimes even witty in its depictions of forward-thinking detectives pioneering the forensic methods and investigative procedures that will eventually become the grist for a thousand television shows. And in Jerome Flynn, Adam Rothenberg and particularly Matthew Macfadyen, it has a sharp and appealing group of actors to play its central cop triangle.

The undisputed star of the show is Mr. Macfadyen as Edmund Reid, a detective inspector with crusading instincts who wants both to modernize and to humanize the police force.

The fun of the show comes partly from the interplay among these actors, and partly from the way it juxtaposes the muck and murderousness of the East End shortly after the days of Jack the Ripper (hence the title) with the onset of the modern world.