Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10

Cast: Matthew Macfadyen, Jerome Flynn, Adam Rothenberg, MyAnna Buring, David Threlfall, Killian Scott, Matthew Lewis, Benjamin O’ Mahony, Anna Burnett, Anna Koval, Sonya Cassidy, Jamie Ballard, Charley Palmer Rothwell, Jon Øigarden, Daragh Kearney.

There was no greater sentence of dread to the poor of the East End of London, save transportation to the colonies, than to be told they were to be sent to the workhouse; that place where the even the lowest of hearts tried their level best to keep out of and to which the sometimes sadistic tendencies of those in charge was as criminal as any who might work the lunatic asylums of the day or even the evil at large that often preyed upon the weak and suffering.

The Victorian hangover still exists, as it does in many areas of life, that almost rotten smell of judgement that can confine a person to such shame and feeling of degradation is only ever one Government and one national tabloid outrage away from ever being thought of as a suitable place for the “Undeserving Poor”; it is a practice that as a society we strive against or face the accusations later of having Some Conscious Lost.

It is conscious and fate that has driven Detective Inspector Reid back to Whitechapel with his now recovered daughter Matilda and perhaps it is in some small way of atoning for the biggest error of judgment in his career, that he is driven to solve the reasons why a young boy would be found in a slum hallway on the verge of death and traumatised by starvation and ill treatment.

Ripper Street has never shied away from offering a story to its audience in which social parallels can be drawn, in which the viewer is left with the stark realisation that if not for the welfare state, the need to look after each other, the ways of Victorian Britain could return; one seen by many as a golden age of enlightenment and discovery but also one of rank hypocrisy and advantage taken over the poor and one that allowed conditions to be reached in where profit is more acceptable than looking after one’s social responsibilities.

Some Conscious Lost is a perfect illustration on what happens when that lust for profit is taken to its dangerous conclusion. In an episode in which Matthew Macfadyen excels and is joined by a superb Sonya Cassidy as Leda Starling, Rachel Bennette’s script is delivered with sympathy and damning accusation; it is a warning of what social cleansing can bring if unchecked and not kept in balance; that the chase for the saved pound now can cause the intolerable loss of life later.

A well delivered and almost impassioned tale, Some Conscious Lost is where society starts to fall apart.

Ian D. Hall