American Ripper

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.

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.

Over the years I've always had a fascination of just who Jack The Ripper was? So when I heard about this new documentary I tried to keep an open mind going into it. I will always listen to theories on who it could be. I had done a little research and had heard that many people had said that Jeff Mudgett who has the leading role in this documentary series and is H.H. Holmes great, great grandson, or something like that, was a bit 'nutty' ... All this show really does is confirms that. His theory that H.H. Holmes is Jack The Ripper... NO, HE'S NOT. 100% he's not. Don't waste your time with this. It's full of close but not close enough theories. A lot of it is based on if Holmes faked his own death and the Ripper style murders that happened afterwards.. Well, it turns out he didn't fake his own death and the Ripper style murders still happened. They go on about periods where he stopped killing. And the murders started in London. There could be many other explanations for this.

Like I said, there are too many... so it's Holmes, it's Holmes, it's Holmes... Only to discover it's not. All the conclusive - we can't say it's not him... yeah, but you can't say it is him. Like I said. Don't waste your time on this. If I could give a good bit of advice - Go and read some books on Jack The Ripper and come to your own conclusions... Just be prepared for your main suspect to change the more you read into this... I know I have over the years

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!