ITV plotting 'Whitechapel III'

ITV have recommissioned detective drama Whitechapel, after two successful series about famous copycat killers. Series 3 will be extended to six episodes (telling three two-part stories) and will evolve to encompass crimes beyond the Whitechapel district.

It's good to see that ITV realize the problem with Whitechapel is the limiting nature of its concept and are making steps to shift the direction slightly. The show was clearly a self-contained three-part special about a modern-day Jack The Ripper, but in the wake of its hit status with 8.13m viewers (at a time when ITV had few drama hits), it was brought back for a ridiculous follow-up about modern-day Kray Twins (that averaged 6m viewers.) I know series 2 has its fans, but I thought it was lame.

Sally Woodward Gentle, Executive Producer:

"I am delighted we are getting the chance to tell brand new Whitechapel stories but this time as a series. The East End of London is steeped in history, secrets and gore and we now have the opportunity to take Chandler (Rupert Penry-Jones), Miles (Phil Davis) and Buchan (Steve Pemberton) to places darker still. If you thought the Ripper and Krays were scary, just wait."

Laura Mackie, Director of ITV Drama:

"Whitechapel is a striking and distinctive crime drama that has struck a real chord with the ITV1 audience. The longer run will allow us to tell an even richer range of stories from the Whitechapel area."

Whitechapel III will involve body-snatching and poisoning, with contemporary crimes in London's East End echoing tales from as far back as 300 years. The six-part series is scheduled to air in spring 2012.

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'WHITECHAPEL' 2.3

Based on the amount of comments my reviews of Whitechapel has inspired, there seems to have been practically zero interest in this three-part ITV drama (despite how popular series 1 was), and that's understandable. I won't waste my breath dissecting Monday night's concluding part. Suffice to say, I was glad the sorry nonsense came to an end, and the storyline at least moved with more purpose. The whole thing was hobbled from the get-go because the premise was so laughable, and the writers didn't find a way to convince us of anything going on. It started silly and it got sillier, but not in an enjoyable way. It was actually a depressing waste of time and talent.

The sudden appearance of two Kray twins (sons of an original, bred from a sperm bank sample)? Ludicrous. What, did they materialize in the East End overnight? And three episodes weren't enough to make their Federation of Crime agenda feel plausible. The Krays seemed able to corrupt people simply by looking at them, too. Peter Serafinowicz was totally wasted, but at least his character had the decency to blow his brains out. Rupert Penry-Jones and Phil Davies must have known the scripts were terrible, as you could sense their disdain throughout. Supposedly, weighty things were happening, but none of it rang true, so it was hard to care.

The only real positive was seeing the story renege on the idea Jimmy and Johnny were genuine Krays. Instead, they were imposters told of their celebrity heritage by a mother who wanted to give them "the world". And with their status revoked, their empire crumbled to dust almost as quickly as it appeared.

Overall, hopefully Whitechapel will be a warning to other self-contained dramas that ITV insist continue past the point of plausibility. The climax of part 3 leaves the door open for the return of Miles and Chandler, tackling strange cases in a different locale, and I suppose that's a wiser way for ITV to get a third series out of this. But with a name change and, perhaps, a move away from copycats as a USP, you have to ask yourself a question: was it ever the characters and interplay of Miles and Chandler that caught audience's imaginations back in 2009? I have strong doubts. Jack The Ripper was the real star.

Oh well. I await the inevitable announcement of a Dick Turpin copycat that Miles and Chandler get assigned to...

WRITERS: Ben Court & Caroline Ip
DIRECTOR: David Evans
GUEST CAST: Sam Stockman, Ben Bishop, George Rossi, Craig Parkinson, Peter Serafinowicz, Steve Nicolson, Claire Rushbrook, Christopher Fulford, Daniel Percival, Chrissie Cotterill, Robert Putt, Nicholas Blane, Richard Clifford, David Mumeni, Martin Turner, Lacey Bond, Charlie Covell, Luing Andrews & Colin Campbell
TRANSMISSION: 25 October 2010 – ITV1/HD, 9PM

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'WHITECHAPEL' 2.2

Episode 2 puts the series on a different footing within minutes, announcing the presence of Jimmy and Johnny Kray (Craig Parkinson) -- identical twin brothers conceived using a sperm bank from an original Kray's seed, who are both intent on continuing their father's work. Are you laughing yet?

Crucially, for every moment of Whitechapel that hits (OCD-afflicted Chandler flicking his office light switch on-and-off due to extreme stress), the fact the villains aren't lurking in the shadows, and the idea of police corruption hampering the investigation, I just can't get past the silliness at the heart of series 2. The idea that these modern-day Krays are so starved of originality that they just reenact their ancestor's crimes from the '60s is ludicrous. Craig Parkinson has a good look at the Kray twins (he plays both thanks to visual trickery of debatable quality), but his vibe is all clichéd East End gangster (kissing his poor ol' mum goodbye, eating boiled egg while threatening a copper, etc.)

For me, the concept behind Whitechapel II is so laughable I can't get past it, because the show seems to believe this is a brilliant update of the Krays and a fascinating case to solve. But it's really not. Chandler (Rupert Penry-Jones) and Miles (Phil Davis) come across like blithering idiots half the time, the involvement of armchair sleuth Buchan (Steve Pemberton) is tenuous this time, and my fear that Whitechapel was a decent miniseries unwisely brought back feels proven correct. A three-part modern-day Jack The Ripper crime drama with a sense of grisly fun about itself became one of ITV's most enjoyable dramas of recent times... but this attempt to catch lightning twice has missed the bottle. It's too silly to take seriously, but not silly enough to be confident the writers intended it to be that way, which means it comes across as misjudged and dumb.

I'll watch next week's finale and blog about it, but only because the series at least has the sense not to drag on for 6 weeks or more.

Asides

• What happened to Casenove (Peter Serafinowicz) this week? He only got a few scenes, despite being introduced as a major player in the story. Also, why didn't he reveal the existence of Jimmy/Johnny Kray last week? That might have really helped!
• I think another reason this series isn't working for me that, simply put, I have less knowledge and interest in the Krays than Jack The Ripper, and I daresay I'm not alone. There was fun to be had in watching series 1's copycat duplicate The Ripper's crimes, but because I know so little about the Krays, the crimes in series 2 carry no deeper meaning or significance for me. I feel like Chandler, Miles and Buchan are getting very anxious and astonished by similarities that just don't speak to me in the same way.

WRITERS: Ben Court & Caroline Ip
DIRECTOR: David Evans
GUEST CAST: Sam Stockman, Ben Bishop, George Rossi, Craig Parkinson, Peter Serafinowicz, Steve Nicolson, Claire Rushbrook, Christopher Fulford, Daniel Percival, Chrissie Cotterill, Robert Putt, Nicholas Blane, Richard Clifford, David Mumeni, Martin Turner, Lacey Bond, Charlie Covell, Luing Andrews & Colin Campbell
TRANSMISSION: 18 October 2010 – ITV1/HD, 9PM

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TV Ratings: 'Whitechapel', ITV1

Crime drama Whitechapel returned last Monday night, attracting 5.6 million viewers (including 202,000 on ITV1 HD). It narrowly beat BBC1's Spooks in the same 9pm timeslot (which mustered 5.2m), but fell far short of the 8.1m who tuned into series 1's premiere back in February 2009. Still, all things considered, this was a decent start for series 2, but will the ratings hold steady for the remaining two weeks?

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'WHITECHAPEL' 2.1

Whitechapel had a compelling if unoriginal premise that captured the imagination of ITV audiences in 2009; a modern-day Jack The Ripper copycat stalking the same London streets, killing women in the same manner as his 19th-century hero. A mismatched detective duo were tasked with capturing the felon: fastidious, upper-class DI Chandler (Rupert Penry-Jones) and shambolic, working class DS Miles (Phil Davis), who clashed over how the investigation was done, but came to admire and respect each other. Whitechapel was very predictable fare, but the concept was so juicy and fun that you could overlook its many faults. A sequel didn't feel likely, necessary, or even possible... but here it is, and it left me unimpressed.

Chandler's now part of the Whitechapel constabulary, but his team are lower down the pecking order because they didn't actually catch The Ripper. The new golden boy is DCI Casenove (Peter Serafinowicz), whose Organized Crime Division (OCD!) have reduced street crime to an insignificant level, which in turn means there are less "whodunit?" murders for Chandler's team to investigate. That is until a dead body is found floating in the Thames with injuries that remind Miles of The Krays; twin brothers from the 1960s who became notorious as Britain's first gangsters, unafraid to get their hands dirty to spread fear and intimidation amongst communities that made it difficult for the police to build a case against them. Is someone copying The Kray's style to build a modern equivalent of their crime empire?

My problem with Whitechapel's second series premiere is simple: it feels ridiculous to me that anybody would copycat The Krays. You can understand why a psycho would want to mimic Jack The Ripper, who's become a legendary boogieman, but why would anyone want to copy The Krays? Two criminal twins who want to achieve the same level of success as The Krays might find inspiration in their forbearers, sure, but to outright copy them shows a lack of originality and puts them firmly in the shadow of their antiheroes. How can you command respect by slavishly copying the kills of gangsters who worked the same territory 40 years ago? You just don't copycat mobsters like The Krays, unless you're writing the sequel to a TV miniseries where the USP was its copycat angle and the Whitechapel district only has two world-famous criminals for baddies to imitate.

Even if you're forgiving of the stupid concept, there was a worrying feeling that Whitechapel has nothing new to offer us in terms of the main character's relationship and arcs. Ripperologist Andrew Buchan (Steve Pemberton) is suddenly an expert on The Krays, but his excellent theories are rudely dismissed by Miles -- again. Having proved himself in The Ripper case, why is this so? No explanation is given, beyond the feeling Miles just dislikes Buchan's "armchair detective". Chandler is still a neat freak (he'd fit in at Casenove's OCD, right?) and his relationship with Miles is better, but sometimes fraught for no discernible reason. There's a feeling that everything's been reset and the script is going through the motions, with The Krays replacing The Ripper in the story. The only real difference is that, assumedly, this won't be a "whodunnit?" for very long, because these copycats have no reason to keep their identities a secret if they want to truly emulate The Krays, and because The Krays are villains from living memory it means Miles can have a family connection to them. That should make things slightly juicier, with Miles facing a demon from his past, rather than a semi-mythic figure like The Ripper.

The casting of comedian Peter Serafinowicz might prove itself a worthwhile idea, because he has a wolfish look and will undoubtedly be revealed as a pawn of "The Kraypcats" scheme, but you also can't help feeling like Serafinowicz is seconds away from delivering a sardonic punchline to a cop show sketch. He's like Whitechapel's version of the famous faces Ashes To Ashes used to throw into its series (Roger Allam, Daniel Mays), but we'll see how Casenove develops. A sequence where he brutally smashed a picture frame over a colleague, before punching him continuously in the ribs, was certainly memorable and proved Serafinowicz has a degree of menace about him.

Overall, I just don't think Whitechapel needed a sequel, or one that stuck to the copycat angle of its initial three-part series. I don't particularly like Penry-Jones's drippy character, I'm close to actually hating the smirking Davis in this, the script alternates between being ham-fisted and outright ridiculous, and David Evans's direction relied heavily on time-ramping, blurriness and double-vision to give everything a veneer of "style". Pemberton's the only one giving this material the tongue-in-cheek treatment it deserves.

Maybe it'll improve next week, but I can't help thinking it's a sequel built on very shaky foundations.

Aside

• One thing undermining a lot of this episode is that publicity material has revealed what the "Krays" look like, and it looks to me like one of them is working in Whitechapel fixing the office ceiling that fell down.

WRITERS: Ben Court & Caroline Ip
DIRECTOR: David Evans
CAST: Rupert Penry-Jones, Phil Davis, Steve Pemberton, Sam Stockman, Ben Bishop, George Rossi, Alex Jennings, Peter Serafinowicz, Steve Nicolson, Claire Rushbrook, Christopher Fulford, Daniel Percival, Trevor Martin, Andrew Tiernan, Jason Maza, Irene Bradshaw, Tommy Carey, Nila Aalia, Dimitri Andreas, Mark Flitton, Andy Beckwith & Craig Parkinson
TRANSMISSION: 11 October 2010 - ITV1/HD, 9PM

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Coming Soon: 'Whitechapel' series 2

There's no reason for crime thriller Whitechapel to get a sequel, beyond the fact it was ITV's best-performing drama of 2009 and one that received good reviews and strong ratings. Considering it was about a serial-killer copying the exploits of Jack The Ripper in the titular London district, there didn't seem to be much chance of a second run. This was a one-off drama special, right..?

Well, no. ITV weren't prepared to let Whitechapel's success go unexploited, so it's back soon with another three-part story, this time focused on copycat murders based on the infamous Kray Twins, who operated around Whitechapel in the '60s.

Rupert Penry-Jones and Phil Davis are back as mismatched detectives Chandler and Miles, again joined by Steve Pemberton's Edward Buchan -- a Ripperlogist who assumedly knows a little something about the Krays, too. New characters include DCI Cazenove (comedian Peter Serafinowicz) and Craig Parkinson as both Jimmy and Johnny Kray. The series is once again written by Ben Court and Caroline Ip, directed by David Evans (Unforgiven, Survivors).

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Coming Soon: Whitechapel II

I'm quite pleased to hear that ITV have commissioned a second series of Whitechapel, but not convinced it really justifies a sequel. The three-part thriller, starring Rupert Penry-Jones and Phil Davis as mis-matched detectives investigating a Jack The Ripper copycat, snagged 7 million viewers when it aired earlier this year... but how do you sequel-ize it?

Apparently, the answer is to put the detectives on the trail of another copycat -- this one basing his crimes on the '50s/'60s antics of East End organized crime family The Krays.

Laura Mackie, ITV's Director of Drama Commissioning:

"Whitechapel II will be as audacious and as compelling as the first series, strengthened by further character development and very real personal jeopardy. We are delighted to be commissioning more episodes following the success of [the first series of] Whitechapel."

The new three-part story starts pre-production very soon, for transmission next year. Anyone excited? I'm not convinced Whitechapel warrants a sequel, considering how it was written as a self-contained story, but I guess ITV can't argue with those kind of ratings and need a reliable performer on the schedules. I can understand their thinking from a business point of view. But The Krays? I'd have preferred something a bit more imaginative, like Dick Turpin, or a criminal most people aren't too familiar with from history.

Any thoughts?

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