Stephen Fry

If you've never watched A Bit of Fry and Laurie or Jeeves & Wooster, then I don't know what to say. It's a crime if you're only familiar with Hugh Laurie from the American show House.

Unfortunately, Stephen Fry hasn't gotten quite the same recognition in the States as has his pal, Hugh. That's a shame. His movie Wilde is a quiet masterpiece, and his British television shows Last Chance to See and Stephen Fry in America are witty, urbane travel documentaries. His podcasts are among the most popular in Britain.

Here is one of Fry's podcasts, in which he expresses his irritation at overly punctilious grammarians.

Ripper Street & Copper

Copper and Ripper Street are two BBC America series that pose essentially the same question: What would a police procedural television show look like if it were set in the 19th century? Both shows have their strengths, but, on the whole, I think Ripper Street is more successful.

Ripper Street, set in the London slum area frequented by Jack the Ripper just a few months earlier, stars Matthew Macfayden as police inspector Edmund Reid, who failed to catch the Ripper when he prowled the streets killing prostitutes. Now, the inspector, aided by stalwart Sergeant Drake (played by Jerome Flynn, who might be better known as Bronn in Game of Thrones) and American surgeon Homer Jackson (played by Adam Rothenberg), works to solve crimes that seem destined to remain unsolved, such as the case of a psychopath who killed a woman in an imitation of the Ripper and the case of a flour mill manager who wants to kill more people than the Ripper by poisoning bread.

Macfayden, as Inspector Reid, stands out as a man dedicated to getting to the truth of a case, even if that means pursuing suspects that his superiors would prefer left alone. His single-minded pursuit of justice, however, leads him to neglect his wife and alienates some of his colleagues. (By the way, Macfayden was absolutely terrific in the BBC mini-series Any Human Heart, based on the superb William Boyd novel.) His sidekick, Sgt. Drake, however, is loyal to a fault and never neglects to support him, even at the risk of his own life. Together, they form a formidable partnership of brains and brawn.

Although much of the setting is undoubtedly computer-generated, the slums of Whitechapel, with its beggars, prostitutes, drunkards, and thieves, acts as another character in the show. The level of detail is amazing as I can practically smell the stench of raw sewage and feel the soot in the eyes. Anglophiles hooked on Downton Abbey would be well served to watch this show to get a sense of “the real England,” which is certainly not the manor life of the Edwardian countryside.

In contrast to Ripper Street, Copper is set across the pond, in the Five Points slum area of New York City in 1864. It stars Tom Weston-Jones as Corky Corcoran, an Irish immigrant police sergeant who has recently served heroically in the Union Army. Although he's haunted by the memories of the daughter that died and the wife that ran away while he served, Corky is determined to see that even the poorest residents of Five Points get equal justice under the law. His former commanding officer, Robert Morehouse (played by Kyle Schmid), the scion of a wealthy family, and the black surgeon who treated him in the war, Matthew Freeman (played by Ato Essandoh), assist him in solving cases, including the threat of Confederate saboteurs infiltrating into New York City. Complicating matters for Corky is Mrs. Haverford (played by Anastasia Griffith), a beautiful widow who manipulates men into serving her own selfish needs.

The primary flaw in this series, for me, is that some of the plot twists seem gimmicky and clichéd and some of the characters are stereotypes. Corky, for example, is the typical hot-tempered but honest Irish police detective while Mrs. Haverford is the typical icy-blonde femme fatale, which means that their relationship is stormy but predictable. More interesting, I think, is the character of Matthew, a surgeon beyond ordinary competence, who continually has to prove himself because of the dark color of his skin. Too many subplots, however, leave this series feeling somewhat insubstantial, like it's not been fully developed.

I certainly don't think Copper is a bad show, but I do, however, think Ripper Street is superior.

House of Cards (Netflix)

House of Cards is the new Netflix original series, starring the great Kevin Spacey, based, loosely, on the original BBC series of the same name. Both versions are worth your time, especially if you like stories of political intrigue.

Although the first season of the American version is quite good, it had big shoes to fill, and, perhaps unsurprisingly, it falls a bit short, beginning with the name of its protagonist, Francis Underwood (Spacey), the Democratic Whip in the House of Representatives. While I realize that the name “Urquhart” (pronounced Ur-kurt) is rare in the United States, its harsh, guttural sound, with its implied malevolence, sets a tone in the BBC version that “Underwood” simply doesn’t have.

More significantly, however, the plot, particularly towards the end of this first season, has some wholly unconvincing twists that I won’t elaborate on here in case you see the show. The acting in the series, however, is consistently superb, beginning with Spacey’s performance, in which his character pretends to be obsequious toward the President but really plans to seize power at the first opportunity. Also outstanding is Robin Wright, who plays his wife and ally in his quest for power. Through her chilliness and narcissism, there’s a hint of vulnerability.

Both versions of the show are well worth your time, especially if you like your anti-heroes on the cynical side, but I especially hope that you’ll check out the BBC version. And if you think I’m being unpatriotic by preferring that series, I’ll just have to reply, “You might think very well that, but I couldn’t possibly comment.”

P.S.: Once you’ve seen the Netflix show, you’ll enjoy this parody, starring Spacey himself.

Wonders of the Universe

An iPad app well worth your time (and easily worth its $5.99 price) is Wonders of the Universe, hosted by physicist Brian Cox. I spent many hours happily scrolling through the app and learning about basic physics, from the particles of the quantum world to the monstrous black holes that destroy entire stars.

The app, which combines the text of the book with dozens of video and animated clips from the BBC television series, is gorgeous and extremely informative. Divided into eight episodes, from “Subatomic” to “Universe,” with each episode then further subdivided into chapters such as “Gravity,” the app is organized so that you can tour the universe systematically or simply dive in and out. The graphics are particularly beautiful and really pop out on the iPad’s Retina screen. Most importantly, I think, the text is clearly written for the general reader.

The host, a professor of physics who used to play in a rock band that had some hit songs, has an extremely engaging and enthusiastic personality, which has made him one of the most popular science presenters in England. He’s currently affiliated with the University of Manchester and conducts research into particles at the Large Hadron Collider at CERN in Switzerland.

So if you’re interested in how the universe came to exist, or if you want to know how it’s going to end, check out Wonders of the Universe.

House of Cards (BBC)

House of Cards is the new Netflix original series, starring the great Kevin Spacey, based, loosely, on the original BBC series of the same name. I watched both recently, and while the American version is quite good, the English version is the undisputed master.

The BBC aired House of Cards, a political thriller based on a novel by the same title, in four hour-long installments in 1990. The plot traces the machinations of the protagonist, Francis Urquhart, Chief Majority Whip in the House of Commons, as he plots a rise to Prime Minister following the deposal of Maggie Thatcher by her own Conservative party. Urquhart, ingeniously played by Ian Richardson, seduces a young reporter to spread his backstabbing gossip about his colleagues. Meanwhile, his wife, played by the wintery Diane Fletcher, aids him in his seduction so that she can consolidate her own power. Neither husband nor wife will hesitate to use blackmail on even their closest supporters if it will help further their aims. Throughout the show, Urquhart breaks the fourth wall by directly addressing the camera, much like the villains in Shakespeare’s tragedies use asides to let the audience know their own deceptions.

At this point, you’re probably thinking “Those plot points remind me of Shakespeare’s Richard III, with a dollop of Macbeth,” and I think that you’d be entirely correct with your analysis, especially if you stir in some Machiavelli.

The immense success of the series led the BBC to commission two sequels, To Play the King (1993) and The Final Cut (1995), in which Urquhart manipulates the royal family and then steals elections in order to continue as the longest-serving Prime Minister in the 20^th century. Furthermore, he’s determined to erase the Thatcher legacy (he sees Maggie as his true rival even after she’s left the political scene) so that he can secure his legacy as the most powerful Prime Minister in English history.

If you like dramas about political intrigue, or if you’re an Anglophile, then you’ll love this series. I’ll post about the Netflix series in a few days.