Doctor Who Vs Jack The Ripper

I try not to use a video from the same poster in the same week, nevermind the same day. However, while looking up the short from this morning’s Quickpost I noticed there were still two videos from Dalek 63•88 I hadn’t watched in my continuing quest to finally get caught up with my YouTube backlog. So I watched them, and one was so interesting I wanted to share it with you guys.

I hate when science fiction or horror tries to use Jack The Ripper as a character. It’s why, good as it might be, I haven’t read Gotham By Gaslight. The idea of a 19th Century Batman going up against a serial killer sounds interesting but not if that villain is supposed to be Jack The Ripper. I understand the mystique surrounding him. He was never caught, the tabloids gave him an almost mythic presence in how he escaped justice…but he murdered people. His identity was never found and now most likely never will for what little good would come out of finding out. He escaped punishment and a bunch of innocent women were never avenged. No, I don’t care what you think about what they did for a living. I have my issues with it but they didn’t deserve to be horribly mutilated just for choosing a morally questionable “career”. God Himself would be against this punishment and if you think otherwise you need to read His word a lot better.

On the other hand I have no issue with using him as a template for a completely unrelated villain. It’s not “ripped from the headlines” so much as using real world evil as inspiration for a fictional villain and it feels like less of a slight against murder victims. The police can catch Murderin’ Mick and we can all celebrate without the stigma of using an actual evil for a fictional story where they do find out who he is, and it isn’t some alien or demon responsible. Jack The Ripper can still be a very evil but clever man and Murderin’ Mike can be the space demon or whatever without any trouble.

The classic era Doctor Who episode “The Talons Of Weng-Chiang” usually only gets mentioned for being a good mystery story with casual racism because of course we have to highlight the casual racism as if pointing out makes us better people or some crap. However, Dalek 63•88 instead did a video about how the 51st century villain Magnus Greel may have borrowed from fictional villains the Phantom Of The Opera and Fu Manchu as well the Doctor acting like the fictional hero Sherlock Holmes, but the space villain’s plot took influence from Jack The Ripper and another serial killer operating in London around that time. It’s quite interesting…but be warned! We’re talking about the mutilation murders of sex workers. While not overtly graphic this is a video made for grown-ups and may thus be disturbing to somebody out there. Use your own judgement before hitting play.

Someone in the video’s comments mentioned that the villain was originally intended to be the Master. At the time the Master was rather mutilated himself, the result of one of his schemes backfiring as well as hiding the fact that Roger Delgado had passed away and the Renegade Time Lord was supposed to be on his last incarnation. That’s why he pulled the body snatching plots to become Anthony Ainley, who passed in 2004, and Eric Roberts in the TV movie. However, according to the poster, producer Philip Hinchcliffe was against him returning so soon. While Delgado’s Master was the main antagonist of the Third Doctor through a good part of the Doctor’s exile to Earth, you didn’t want him overstaying his welcome. Although, given that some adaptations have decided that Moriarty must be behind every case Sherlock Holmes investigated while that was true in the novels or not, it would have been an added homage given that the Master is considered the Doctor’s Moriarty.

I haven’t watched this serial in full, having only caught a few episodes. It shows up on the various Doctor Who Classic streaming channels like on Pluto TV and Freevee and is available on Britbox and other paid streaming services to watch on demand. I’d like to check out the whole thing someday. Additionally, Jago and Lightfoot would later get their own audio series at Big Finish Productions to make up for not appearing on TV again. So if you liked them here check them out there.