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.

First I love documentaries and this is about 50% documentary and 50% conjecture.Learning about this serial killer was interesting and scary, but the attempt to draw a connection to Jack the Ripper is very so-so with at best coincidences.Worth your time?If you love documentaries about crime and wasting half your time,you're good to go.

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.

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.

Interesting show, but I don't know why I cringe during the intro when he says,"My Great Great Grandfather". He almost seemed.... proud to attach himself. I'm just a weirdo so hey!