Lockdown, Lowdown… Ringside Report Looks Back at The Murdoch Mysteries

By Donald “Braveheart” Stewart

I am, this time around, not in the UK nor am I in the US for my look at a televisual feast which has caught my eye. I am also not looking back at something long gone nor finished but one which has just got another series commissioned and I, cannot wait till this international co production reaches our shores.

Yet another crime series, The Murdoch Mysteries is a UK-Canadian affair which began life in a film and has spawned, to date 14 series, of excellent drama. The usual things needed are there – a maverick detective, love interest, an odd sidekick and a bumbling superior officer. Classic drama.

The international flavour of it all comes with the fact that this period piece has an English superior officer giving it the colonial feel which makes it authentic. Canada has its odd history, having been a British colony, once we had fought and defeated the French! Go figure!

Based in Toronto, the premise is simple. Detective William Murdoch played by Yannick Bisson, assisted by Constable George Crabtree played by Jonny Harris, alongside medical examiner, Doctor Julia Ogden played by Helene Joy his love interest, solve many crimes whilst the Inspector, Brackenreid played by Thomas Craig tries his hardest to manage a situation which sees his abilities to so do tested to the limits.

It has managed to give us 14 seasons with a 15th to come and no fewer than 222 episodes. It began life on Citytv and is now on CBC whilst in the UK it appears on Sky. Based on novels with the same eponymous character by Maureen Jennings, there is an air of real quirkiness to the tales.

Murdoch is a Canadian form of Sherlock Holmes, using techniques that are new and challenging to his peers. He is a constant trier of new things, often rigging up crude types of machines that will become the norm later in crime detection but which for the period would have been quite revolutionary. This quirkiness is charming to an extent but can sometimes stretch credibility.
If he is that much of a bleeding genius, why is he only a Detective?

Romance is never far away and given Murdoch’s tendencies to singularly focus on the solving of crimes his personal life becomes the abiding mystery and one which is unsolved for him as he cannot tell the good lady doctor how he feels. Eventually she marries another, and a new doctor comes along – Doctor Emily Grace, played by Georgina Reilly. She shows romantic leanings too – in Constable Crabtree. The loneliness of the genius detective lives on.

From a historical perspective, mock scientific discoveries aside, there are characters of the time brought into the stories which are real characters of the period to enhance the authenticity. We get to meet Arthur Graham Doyle himself! It’s a n interesting nod to the time and makes for great plotlines, though Toronto seems to have been quite the stopping point for so many famous people of the Victorian era!

I found the period piece in amongst my looking for something new, in fact, anything new to watch. It was pushed quite heavily in the UK especially; I think because of the fact it had a nod to the crime detective novels we all love within it. The historical element which they try really hard to get right works very well though we have to accept that Murdoch gets more of a free pass for his efforts than anyone of the time period would have – especially as Roman Catholic as he is in such a Protestant city as Toronto. It’s not a case of whitewashing the past but it does remind us that this is an entertainment and not a social history lesson.

Bisson himself was not the original Murdoch but came along in 2007 after the film had been shown and there was a demand for a television series. The original actor to play Murdoch, Peter Outerbridge, was probably too tied to ReGenesis, another TV series, in which he played an important role so could not commit to two punishing recording schedules. I have not seen the film, so for me, Bisson remains quite perfect in the role of Murdoch as his unbuttoning is never far away but always elusive as he plays a Victorian lad of the Victorian times with such ease.

There have been many guest stars – William Shatner for one as Mark Twain – cameos from real people – the Canadian Prime Minister has appeared as a hapless police constable – demonstrating how popular it is and how much people love to join the cast. It enhances its appeal as the endorsement of people with profile makes you keen to see what they have bought into.

There have even been spinoffs into a web series – several of which are available – and show that as well as its principal character willing to dabble in the new and exciting world in which he found himself, the production company are up for innovation as well.

The blend of the historical and the criminal is not always as successful as it attempts to be but here is has a quant premise ably supported by some delightful plotlines. They do get stretched a little at times, but the overall impression gained is of a gentile drama which has at its heart decent plots and character development – what is not to like?

British television is a curious affair. Begun through the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) it is funded through the universal license fee. In essence, if you wanted to watch the television , you had to pay the license fee. The BBC got it all and is state run, albeit at arms-length. Then came along commercial television in the form of the Independent Television (ITV) in 1955. Designed to bring a bit of competition to the BBC, it was paid for through advertising but still free to air… well they didn’t add another license fee to it. By the time that I was born, 1965, there was BBC1, BBC2 and ITV. And that was it. It was still years before Bruce Springsteen would moan that there were 55 channels and nothing on but here in the UK, we kept this going until in 1982, we added a fourth channel and in 1997, a fifth. With sparkling imagination, they were called Channel Four and ehm Channel Five… In between came Sky and we understood what Springsteen meant. And so, my childhood and leading up to early adulthood we had three options… But the programs made were exceptionally good. And so, here is some critical nostalgia as the lockdown has brought a plethora of reruns, new formats and platforms and old classics trying to make their way back into our consciousness as broadcasters flood their schedules with classics… or are they classics at all? Let me take you through an armchair critics’ view of what we have to see, to find out… Welcome to the Lockdown Lowdown…

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