Lucy Worsley's Victorian Murder Club

[SnoopyPajamas]

Anyone else been watching this? I usually enjoy a Worsley series, but this one seemed much weaker than her usual output.

The framing device of the Murder Club meeting to discuss each new development was a bit bizarre, as those scenes were clearly all filmed at one time. So Lucy would say things like "I've got to get back and find out what the Murder Club thinks about this", then you'd get a scene of her supposedly filling them in on the latest discovery . . . and they'd be sat there in the same outfits and hairstyles as before! It was very obvious they weren't actually going back and forth, so why the silly pretence? Were we just not supposed to notice it?

I wasn't a fan of the final episode either, where Lucy - having presented us with three equally plausible suspects for the killer - decided the last one must be the one, and they'd cracked it, case closed! I know it's just telly, but it felt so arrogant for the ladies to sit and declare they'd "solved it" and given the victims justice. They hadn't! I really don't see why they couldn't have ended the series with a wrap-up of the three biggest suspects and leave the audience to decide what we thought of it all.

I don't actually blame Lucy for this. Her name is on the show, but I doubt she's in control of scripting and storyboarding it. Someone else at the BBC clearly made the decision to lay it out this way. Some producer obviously decided the audience needed a silly framing device, and a neat ending where the women got to solve the mystery. Hurrah, girl power!

But as a viewer, I didn't need any of that. I thought it was bloody stupid.

I agree with all of this. I automatically watch anything Lucy Worsley presents as I find her both reliably entertaining and informative. This series was neither and it only took one episode to convince me not to bother. It reminded me a bit of that series where Emilia Fox and some academic "examine" cold cases. Pointless and dull.

I watched it through and came away with a ‘wtf’ by the end of it.

Yes, the research was good (although I wanted to murder the ‘guest‘ woman with the breathy baby-soft voice!) but why bring in the guy in America about the Polish suspect? Surely he must have committed some crimes whilst in the US for there to be interest, so why not tell us about them?

The round tables drove me nuts. There were 3 good historians there but they treated it like an episode of ‘Murder She Wrote’.

I agree on the ‘we have given them justice’ point too - you haven’t, you’ve just managed to identify 3 men that were possibly missed.

What I did like is that they went to the trouble of finding the graves, to at least give the victims some dignity.

Also, anyone else go ‘hmm’ at the Polish suspect being JTR too?

Yes, I love a Worsley normally! And I know what I'm in for. I don't mind a bit of silliness and dressing up. But the whole set up of this one irritated me. I felt the same way you did after episode one, and ended up regretting giving it the full three hours of my time.

I was moved by the visit to the graveside. I will give them that. That aspect was handled very respectfully. I thought the pathologist was good too.

I didn't mind them attempting to build a profile of the killer, but it all went off the rails at the end. I still don't see why they were all sure the last man was the killer. Yes, he beat his wife and assaulted several women, and yes, he threatened to kill them on the river. But the crimes were all over the papers at the time, and it's not exactly unheard for a rapist to threaten his victim with "Stay quiet or I'll kill you, I've done it before". There's no doubt this man was a violent woman-hater, but that was hardly unusual for the time. And one of his fellow suspects had poisoned three of his wives!

I felt you could make a strong case for any of the three of them. And I had the same thought about the Polish suspect. We got a bit about his activities in Poland, but nothing about his time in America? Did the budget run out?

Perhaps they spent it all animating the shifty-eyed stock photos. Oh, no, wait, that was done on the cheap with AI 🤨

Ooh 😳I'm really enjoying it.

This should be right up my street but is increasingly annoying (I've watched 2 of the 3 episodes) and like the OP said very blatant in its artifice. There's some interesting detail not being dealt with in much depth and a few 'experts' who don't have much to say. If you're into this kind of history I'd recommend the book 'The Five' by Hallie Rubenhold.
Also, it can't be that engaging if I keep wondering what colour lacy top Lucy will be wearing next!

I love Lucy Worsley and find the Victorian murder club really interesting. She did a few episodes last year on Jack the Ripper.

I own this book and have read some of it. I really can’t get behind the theory she has that some of his victims were murdered in their sleep.

I own this book and have read some of it. I really can’t get behind the theory she has that some of his victims were murdered in their sleep.
There's so many theories about the JTR mystery and some are pretty odd!
I like social history which I think is brought to life well in the book 'The Five' and instead of concentrating on the perpetrator and the violence it fleshes out the lives of the victims and gives them some respect. They weren't all prostitutes for a start and mainly had sad impoverished lives.

Really enjoy her podcast series on the BBC - Lady Killers.

Kate Lister has an incredible podcast called Betwixt The Sheets.
Thoroughly recommend a listen to everyone and anyone.

I've only watched the first episode so far. Love Lucy Worsley! I'm just watching along more for entertainment than on the edge of my seat to see how they come up with the murderer, because it's interesting to watch the historian trying to come up with identities for the murder victims and give them their names back. I also love Kate Lister, although I'm not quite sure what the novelist is meant to add to the conversation - I write novels and am compelled to try to put narrative in where there probably isn't one, which just confuses the issue.

I agree that the framing device is awkward, but TV has to be watchable these days, sadly, not just effective. So they are attempting to put a story around some sad and tragic events which is fair enough, otherwise people won't bother to watch. I agree that it's like that dreadful programme with Emilia Fox and David Wilson pretending to come up with all sorts of 'clues' while all the work was being done by people behind the scenes!

Theres a a lot of myths surrounding the JTR case. She did concentrate on the canonical victims which is rare for a ripper book that usually wants to ‘name’ the man responsible. I like social history too and have read about this case for years. Unfortunately we don’t know anything about his last victim MJK because everything told about her came from her ex partner and she’s never been found in any record which hints she’s didn’t use her real name and no family members came forward after her death. So any information we know about her needs to be taken with a pinch of salt.
We will never know if they were all prostitutes unfortunately, we know most of them were and the likelihood is that they all turned to prostitution at some point or another even if it wasn’t how they earned their living full time. Most people in Whitechapel were very poor, it was a slum area with high crime and extreme poverty.