With the fact that a copycat killer is stalking the streets of London now firmly established, Chandler comes clean to Commander Anderson. Naturally, the poor guy can’t do right for doing wrong. He should have told them earlier, they say. But of course if he’d told them earlier he’d have looked like a complete flake and been taken off the case anyway. Superiors, eh? They’re the same the world over. As it is, he’s threatened with being replaced by a more senior detective but manages to bluff his way past that and carry on with the case. You mad fool Joseph! It’s obvious there’s only more trouble in store.

With his team still not fully on-side, Chandler brings in a set of Ripper material – books and DVDs, in the hope that some of it might hold a clue to the next murder. Which of course it does.

But an even better and more voluble source of material makes itself known to them in the shape of creepy Ripperologist Edward Buchan. Armed with Buchan’s knowledge and interviews with other local prostitutes who claim a soldier with a large bayonet has been threatening to gut them, the police settle on a prime suspect – Private Leary. Leary, being innocent, doesn’t confess and so the intrepid plod set a trap for him.

I lost the plot at this point because the whole thing seemed way too improbable to hold water. If the modern-day Ripper was anyone but Leary, and they were recreating the murders exactly as they happened, how would they be capable of manufacturing the presence of a soldier like Leary, with large bayonet, who was going around frightening toms just like Original Jack had. Conversely, if it *was* Leary, why would he do anything so obvious as threatening girls with his bayonet?

Anyway it was all moot in the end. Buchan happened to mention that in Victorian times the police had become so desperate to find the killer that they’d resorted to photographing the dead girls’ eyes in an attempt to capture an image of Jack on their retinas. The modern-day equivalent of this, apparently, is that New Jack had licked the eyes of his latest victim, thereby leaving behind his DNA. How handy! Well, handy for Leary anyway, as the DNA was not a match for his (it had been contaminated) and his bayonet was clean too.

So the plod moved on to the next most obvious suspect – a man who clearly knows enough about the Ripper to copy his crimes in great detail. Yes! It’s our friendly neighbourhood Ripperologist, Mr Buchan himself. Now I know DI Chandler likes to do things by the book, but I thought he meant the police procedure book, not the crime drama handbook.

Two-thirds through this dollop of Rippermania and I haven’t changed my view from last week. It’s well-acted, well-shot and well-directed, but it’s still a pile of old toffee. What’s even more annoying is that having watched it this far, I’ve got to come back again next week just to find out whodunnit. And if they really do copy the Ripper perfectly (that is, they manage to get away with it and disappear without trace), I’ll be throwing something at the telly.