The first series was broadcast in the UK on 2 February 2009 and depicted the search for a modern copycat killer replicating the murders of Jack the Ripper.

[4] The first and second series were broadcast in the United States on six consecutive Wednesday evenings beginning 26 October 2011 on the BBC America cable network.

[11] The Assistant Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, and head of the Criminal Investigation Department at the time of the murders was named Robert Anderson, he was the highest ranking officer to work on the cases.

[citation needed] Guest starring; Series one and two were broadcast as a single six-episode season on BBC America, and were subsequently released on DVD as such.

For the BBC America DVD releases, the three stories were given individual titles: The Murder in Darkness, The Hunger for Mercy and The Sins of Betrayal respectively.

Buchan, retained by Chandler as the team's historical adviser, believes that the huge archive at Whitechapel station will provide the necessary insight into the baffling crime, that appears to echo the Ratcliff Highway murders two-hundred years earlier.

When limbs of a second victim are uncovered, Buchan believes the crimes echo the Thames torso murders of the 1880s - can the team, with the help of a female DI from South of the river, attractively like Chandler in her habits, crack the gruesome case?

Part Two: When traces of the aphrodisiac Spanish fly are found in the bodies of the two murder victims, Chandler and Miles question what kind of killer they could be up against.

Chandler, Miles and the team suspect a dangerous patient and former Whitechapel resident, who has recently escaped from a psychiatric unit, and is obsessed with Lon Chaney and the film London After Midnight, where the sins of the victims are used against them during their murder.

Part Two: With the body count rising following the murder of a young boy in a police firefight, Miles and Chandler clash over the direction of the investigation.

When a priest is brutally murdered, a link to a doomsday cult is uncovered, where members of the group believe that eating the organs of innocent souls will save them from an oncoming apocalypse.

ITV Director of Drama Laura Mackie said "Whitechapel is a very modern take on the detective genre which combines the Victorian intrigue of the original case with the atmospheric backdrop of a contemporary East End of London.

This is not simply about bloodthirstily recreating the Ripper murders, but rather focusing on the three main characters at the heart of the story and the black humour that binds the team together.

[16] A review in the Leicester Mercury said that it was "Life on Mars, without the time-travel" adding "what Whitechapel lacked in originality, it more than made up for with atmosphere and enthusiasm.

"[17] After Episode 2 was broadcast on 9 February, Andrew Billen in The Times said that he had warmed to it more and more, adding, "slowly, the show is making Ripperologists of us all, as Jack's 'canonical' murders are separated from the ones he actually committed.

"[18] However, The Daily Telegraph was less impressed, writing "The premise was feeble, the script imbecilic, the acting on autopilot, the direction lacking in any glimmer of tension.