A few thoughts on the 10 Bells, Whitechapel, and events thereabouts

One thing I’m still trying to figure out about installment 1 of episode 1 of Sanctuary, is how Helen Magnus found Jack the Ripper outside the 10 Bells. Did he tell her “I’m headed down to the 10 Bells for a pint?” (It’s a working-class pub, and not the sort of place a swell like him would drop in for a drink and expect no one to think anything of it – not his (ex?)fiancée and not the people in the pub. He, and the incident, would be noted, remarked, and remembered. And, in his case, described to the police by the patrons of the pub. Nor would a gentleman tell his upper-class fiancée such a thing to start with – he’d probably be off to his club, if he had to give her any explanation at all. And he might not – since he’s not necessarily living with her, or even seeing her every day.) Did Helen invent a ‘teleportation tracker’? Sheer good, er, just luck? (For her, if not for Molly.) Whitechapel was not 10 meters square, and it was, and still is, a heavily built-up area with closely spaced buildings offering doorways, alleys, et cetera, into which to duck and hide. Add in a night in Victorian London (where the street lights were not that close together in this reality, and pea-soup fog was a common occurrence), and it’s practically miraculous that Helen might find Jack the Ripper by accident.

And there’s that perpetual question – why could she shoot to kill Jack the Ripper for cutting a woman’s throat back in 1888, but not even bring herself to shoot him to incapacitate him when he was menacing her own daughter, despite numerous (some down on their knees kissing her feet and begging her to take them) chances, including Jack the Ripper Druitt pushing his body right against the muzzle of her gun?

Hmm… Maybe an alternate universe Ashley inherited her father’s teleportation abilities, and went back in time to tell Helen where he’d be and when. If those powers were making her insane, too, going back and telling Helen might well have been an attempt to change the past, and destroy Jack the Ripper so he wouldn’t live long enough to destroy Ashley’s own understanding of her life and her world – her whole existence – which was the point where she started down the road that lead to learning those powers, and the insanity that followed. Ashley would essentially create the current version of the world of Sanctuary, in such a scenario… I wonder if she’d try again if this version of the Sanctuary universe lead to the same powers and insanity for her… Hmmm… I feel another fan-fic a comin’ on… /grin

Installment 1 of episode one also showcases some easily overlooked digital effects skills on the part of the Sanctuary team – building, er, building. Here we have the windows of the 10 Bells in a virtual flyby:

This is the public house's sign in the world of Sanctuary:



And here's some extraordinary windows across the way from the 10 Bells, in the world of Sanctuary:



Compare with these shots of the real 10 Bells on these Whitechapel and Jack the Ripper tour sites:

http://www.jack-the-ripper-tour.com/the_route.htm

http://www.geocities.com/basildonmusic/jack/tour/whitechapel/whitechapel.html

And Martin Wheatley's site, here:

http://thump01.pbase.com/u12/mpwheatley/small/3127316.0702DevonLondon417Enhanced.jpg

http://www.pbase.com/mpwheatley/london_england_canon_g2

Same plain windows on the top storey and the windows with two storeys of alternating arched and triangular pediments windows below, and the same pub sign! Obviously, someone’s seen the original before designing the Sanctuary version, and produced a very nice multi-window-paned version of it! Kudos!

And yet… there's some strangeness still lurking. Notice the elaborate panes of the pub windows in the real 10 Bells. Someone actually replicated them in the world of Sanctuary, not only replicated them, but, made them even more elaborate. Nicely done, overachievers! But, in Sanctuary’s London, those elaborated windows are on a building across the street from The 10 Bells!

(One wonders if the work on recreating the real 10 Bells’s windows was completed and too nice to scrap, but someone suddenly realized that a pub that’s open for business might include patrons who’d see the confrontation with Jack the Ripper through those fancy windows, come piling out and spoil the scene. /snort Of course, one then wonders next if they won’t come piling out when they hear Dr. Magnus’s pistol go off, and treat her like a mob finding someone with a bloody corpse on the pavement at her feet in the streets of Whitechapel during the Ripper hysteria /grin: i.e., she’d be lucky to get away with no more than having been beaten to within an inch of her life, and being ripped limb from limb is quite a real possibility. Run, Helen! Stuff the gun back in your reticule, pick up your skirts and run! /chuckle)

Nice building replication folks! Especially considering that it's said that the 10 Bells looks today much as it did in 1888. Kudos!