good back-story, and good acting

Excellent, a Must See

After playing with our expectations, this turns out to be a very different sort of film.

This movie feels like it was made purely to piss off people who want good shows

My title says it all really. If the CIA have "operatives" as guillible and downright naive as Ms Fox God help the USA. Avoid wasting your valuable time watching cheap tv trash like this.

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.

I was intrigued by the idea H H Holmes could be Jack the Ripper. There are many other suspects out there but Mr Holmes does seem to match along a few lines. This drawn out series follows his great great grandson Jeff Mudgett and a former CIA investigator as they follow clues which may give us some answers. The objective word is may as History Channel wants to drag this out for as many seasons as possible.At first I thought this was going to be a limited series. However, we are told right after the first episode airs this is the first season. I was not happy as I hoped to get some answers to this mystery. But like the Oak Island Treasure show, we will not get any.The biggest problem of this series is the use of rather flimsy circumstantial evidence to move it along. For instance, they find several rather vague descriptions of Jack the Ripper and have a forensic artist make a photo which looks like H H Holmes. The problem is, we have such varied descriptions as height as well as only a one agreement Jack wore a mustache. And yet, the picture looks amazingly like H H Holmes. I'm calling shenanigans on this one.Then we get the scarf incident which is quite laughable if they didn't take it so seriously. An alleged piece of a scarf worn by one of the victims is tested for DNA. We all know the outcome of this filler moved used by the producers. The chain of custody is questionable as the scarf has been handled by just about everyone. And wouldn't Jack the Ripper wear gloves during his foul deeds?The final straw was the Dear Boss letters. They have them analyzed to see if an American could have written them. I wondered why they just didn't compare handwriting specimens at first. The reason is they didn't match. If the Dear Boss letters were actually written by Jack (some question if they were), then this is proof H H Holmes is not the Ripper.Then we are treated to an episode where they look in the Chicago River for possible evidence. They claim they can prove Holmes is the Ripper by examining old bones. I doubt it as they would need his DNA to match with that of the Ripper's. And Jack left so few clues during his crime spree.The other problem I have is this show is quite gruesome, sometimes needlessly. I know we are dealing with a serial killer who did monstrous acts of violence to his victims. I also do think the victims at least are owed a shred of dignity. We know what happened and don't need to be shown close-ups of the old photographs along with gruesome re- enactments. The problem is how can Mudgett prove his ancestor was the notorious Jack the Ripper? Holmes would not be familiar at all with London even if he did visit. A few names that might match on some lists are not evidence of anything. Hundreds of thousands of people sailed across the Atlantic from the US to Britain during that short period. It is possible he did, but not likely.The burden of proof is on Mudgett as he is making an extraordinary claim. There are so many other names out there who fit the profile and time better than Holmes did. We will need a smoking gun to prove this theory, not some attempt to dig up a corpse because Mudgett believes his ancestor escaped the hangman's noose. I'm betting we will have to wait for season two for those DNA test results.On a minor point, I don't like the idea of calling Holmes America's first serial killer. There were probably many others who were able to get away with their deeds. A better way to put it is America's first KNOWN serial killer.The show itself does have some interesting moments. However, I don't know if the investment in the long run will be warranted as we will never get the answers we want.As for Jack the Ripper, his identity will never be solved.Update: The season finale just aired and it did come to a conclusion about the body in the crypt as to its identity. I thought they would use it as some sort of cliffhanger but they at least told us the body's DNA tests positive as a direct ancestor to Jeff Mudgett. The end of the show has Mr Mudgett stating he will go on his quest to prove Jack the Ripper was his great great grandfather.Stay tuned for season two if you want. I don't plan to as I got better things to waste my time with.

I understand Americans do not have a good relationship with facts, wisdom, history and general knowledge but this History Channel is driving me crazy. Somebody should shut them down. They have invented a method to mess with history, sensationalize it and worst of all reproduce facts and present it as 'new'. This series follow the same poisonous method. 1) Take a historical figure or story 2) Find some conspiracy halfwits that want to be on TV 3) Add a Hollywood touch by inserting some low self-esteem ex military or secret service people who have absolutely no pride or self-worth. 4) Narrate it using a deep sensational voice 5) Shamelessly claim known facts to be new facts 6) Do not hesitate to disturb a person or grave if it serves the sensationalizing agenda. 7) Don't conclude anything until you reached 7 to 10 episodes. The result is not important. They pulled this horrible scam with 'Hunting Hitler', a long hunt with no conclusive results. Just sensationalized BS. Everybody knows about Argentina. They simply had the audacity to disturb people who have been suppressing these horrors for decades. Ultimately the History Channel added ZERO to history. Shame! Then they turned to Earhart. The female Pilot who crashed and got captured by Japs. What they did with her is simply compile known statements by a whole lot of people, but found nothing new. For fun they disturbed some grave. Essentially making a documentary about nothing. Shame again. So now the mess with Jack the Ripper. I have seen two episodes and already know that the end will be inconclusive, no new facts will be added and the last sentence will be 'we will never know for sure'.The History Channel is an insult to History.