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Casebook: Jack the Ripper - Message Boards » Books, Films and Other Media » Television Programmes » John Doe (Fox, USA) « Previous Next »

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Stephen P. Ryder
Board Administrator
Username: Admin

Post Number: 2638
Registered: 10-1997
Posted on Tuesday, March 04, 2003 - 5:14 pm:   Edit PostDelete PostView Post/Check IPPrint Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)Ban Poster IP (Moderator/Admin only)

Sometime in March/April 2003, Fox Television will be airing an episode of John Doe (episode #118) that has something to do with Jack the Ripper. I don't have any more detail than that, but the production crew has asked to use several illustrations from the Casebook in the shooting.

The show airs on Friday nights here in the States. Episode #115 airs this week (7 March), so I would guess #118 would air either late March or early April.

More information at: http://www.fox.com/johndoe/


quote:

“So what am I? Escaped mental patient? Alien that sees in black and white? Government lobotomy experiment? What else was I to think? For a guy who had all the answers, I didn’t have the ones that mattered the most.” - John Doe

From writers Brandon Camp and Mike Thompson (“Dragonfly”) and director Mimi Leder (“Pay It Forward,” “Deep Impact,” “The Peacemaker”) comes the story of JOHN DOE, a mysterious man who rises from the primordial waters of an isolated island, possessing knowledge of literally everything in the world, yet having no memory of who – or even what – he is. Doe quickly finds his way to Seattle, where he befriends the police and uses his special gift to help them solve “impossible” crimes each week, while continuing his unending quest to uncover who he is and where he came from.

Despite his considerable charm, JOHN DOE (Dominic Purcell) is an emotional island unto himself. Want to know the population of Peru in 1853? How many blue cars there are in the state of Washington? The exact ingredients in a box of Apple Jacks? Or better yet, predict which horse will win every race at the track based on knowing all the statistical variables? Doe has all the answers. But what is he like? Family man or loner? Hero or villain? What is truly in his soul? Doe doesn’t have a clue.

In his search to unlock the key to his past, Doe is joined by KAREN KAWALSKI (Sprague Grayden) his unwitting assistant and one of his few friends. The two of them work to piece together the case of a missing girl who Doe mysteriously feels may have some connection to his previous life or hold a clue to his identity. Doe’s small circle of friends also includes DIGGER (William Forsythe), a Seattle bar owner who is one of his few confidants. Doe’s extraordinary talents catch the eye of FRANK HAYES (John Marshall Jones), the cop assigned to the case who sees something special in this odd stranger. Hayes’ boss, LT. JAMIE AVERY (Jayne Brook), on the other hand, is not as easily convinced that Doe is on the straight and narrow and seeks to uncover the truth about him in her own way.

He may be a government agent, an extraterrestrial or perhaps just a regular John Doe with an unusual bout of amnesia. Whatever secrets his past holds, Doe is now the man who knows everything – a gift that will forever change his destiny. But will it be a blessing or a curse?

JOHN DOE is produced by Regency Television, a Fox Television Studios and New Regency Enterprises Company. Brandon Camp, Mimi Leder and Mike Thompson are executive producers; Gardner Stern, Geoffrey Neigher, and Carol Trussell are co-executive producers; Gretchen Berg and Aaron Harberts are supervising producers; Michael Berns, Margaret French Isaac, Russel Friend, Garrett Lerner and Matt Pyken are producers.



Stephen P. Ryder, Editor
Casebook: Jack the Ripper
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Kevin Braun
Sergeant
Username: Kbraun

Post Number: 19
Registered: 2-2003
Posted on Monday, March 17, 2003 - 12:03 pm:   Edit PostDelete PostView Post/Check IPPrint Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)Ban Poster IP (Moderator/Admin only)

The film "From Hell" starring J. Depp and co. will make its cable television debut on HBO Saturday March 22 at 9:00 PM ET.

From MovieForum.com ...

"The film's better moments suggest Thomas Harris ghost-writing "The Alienist", but overall I found the experience plodding and completely lacking in suspense and all-out scares. There are a few welcome nods to the comic: a pointless cameo by the Elephant Man (alas, no Oscar Wilde), and Detective Abberline (Johnny Depp)'s drug-fueled clairvoyance (in the comics, the visions were those of a bogus psychic, not Abberline). Beyond that, there's not much here that's different from any other Ripper film we've seen before, from "The Lodger" to "Murder By Decree", save for Springheel Jack's unmasking and the theory that the series of "From Hell" letters were fakes.


Cheekboned wonders Johnny Depp and Heather Graham (miscast as Mary Kelly, one of the Ripper's five known victims) fake adequate "Bri'ish" accents as rather idealized leads when compared to the blotchy, toothless populace in the rest of the district. Red-tressed, aerobicized Graham is certainly the loveliest streetwalker ever to decorate a London doorway. The supporting cast is more convincing, with Ian Holm as royal surgeon William Gull, Robbie Coltrane as Johnny Depp's partner, and Jason Flemyng as the Ripper's reluctant accomplice. Abberline's opium visions are suitably nightmarish CGI montages right out of a Floria Sigismondi video, and the many "rippings" and spurting arteries are surprisingly explicit for a major studio effort. The third act "coach chase", though, might remind more than one of you of the climax of last year's "Sleepy Hollow", which featured Johnny Depp as Icahbod Crane serving the same capacity as Abberline does here.

The ultimate identity of the Ripper conforms to the popular Buckingham Palace/Freemasons conspiracy theory, which I thought had more or less been disproved by Donald Rumbelow's excellent "The Complete Jack The Ripper Casebook". I'm sure that the literary-minded Moore intended his interpretation as a political allegory/rant against the corruption of Mother England -- on film, the twist comes as a something less than a shock, in what John Carpenter calls an "Oh my God, it's Harry!" moment (for the record, it's not Harry).

***MINOR SPOILER***: While the film is impeccably designed and shot, and its denouement is hardly "upbeat", it's hard to recommend a thriller supposedly based on the facts when the most famous victim of the case somehow survives."

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Kevin Braun
Sergeant
Username: Kbraun

Post Number: 25
Registered: 2-2003
Posted on Friday, March 21, 2003 - 1:31 pm:   Edit PostDelete PostView Post/Check IPPrint Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)Ban Poster IP (Moderator/Admin only)

The movie "From Hell" makes its cable television debut on HBO, Saturday March 22 at 8:00 ET. The 9:00 listing from DISH is incorrect.
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Nikki L.
Unregistered guest
Posted on Friday, March 28, 2003 - 3:45 pm:   Edit PostDelete PostView Post/Check IPPrint Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)Ban Poster IP (Moderator/Admin only)

I caught "From Hell" from the ending, then finally yesterday I caught it at the begninning. I appreciated that the kept the crime scenes factual.


:SPOILER: Even though that one victem was switched.

But what I didn't understand was the reasoning why Jack the Ripper did it? What is with the pentagram?
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L.Redmond
Unregistered guest
Posted on Monday, May 12, 2003 - 12:32 pm:   Edit PostDelete PostView Post/Check IPPrint Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)Ban Poster IP (Moderator/Admin only)

I just saw "From Hell" and I thought it was an excellent re-telling of the "royal family" theory although it had it's flaws, such as Mary Kelly being a red-head instead of a blonde and what's the deal with the opium and the visions? Anyway the ending was a good twist although it was not true to actual events. All-in-all a very good movie.
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Jake the Rapper
Unregistered guest
Posted on Saturday, June 28, 2003 - 7:12 am:   Edit PostDelete PostView Post/Check IPPrint Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)Ban Poster IP (Moderator/Admin only)

Not sure how people got to talking about From Hell on the John Doe board, but anyhow...

That was the one and only John Doe episode I will ever watch. For a character who is supposed to be a freaking genius it's too bad the scriptwriters are such morons. Almost every Jack the Ripper "fact" they brought up was dead wrong. And the ending was trite and obvious. And, yo, worst. show. evarrrrr.



Jake the Rapper

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