Murdoch Mysteries

Murdoch Mysteries is a Canadian television drama series that premiered on Citytv on January 20, 2008, and currently airs on CBC. The series is based on characters from the Detective Murdoch novels by Maureen Jennings. It stars Yannick Bisson as Detective William Murdoch, a police detective working in Station House Number 4 in Toronto, Ontario, starting in 1890, and including the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The series was titled The Artful Detective on the Ovation cable TV network in the United States, until season twelve.

Synopsis

The series takes place in Toronto starting in 1895 and follows Detective William Murdoch (Yannick Bisson) of the Toronto Constabulary, who solves many of his cases using methods of detection that were unusual at the time. These methods include fingerprinting (referred to as "finger marks" in the series), blood testing, surveillance, and trace evidence.

Some episodes feature anachronistic technology whereby Murdoch sometimes uses the existing technology of his time to improvise a crude prototype of a technology that would be more readily recognizable to the show's 21st century audience. In one episode, for instance, he creates a primitive version of sonar to locate a sunken ship in Lake Ontario. In another, a foreign police officer has a photograph that Murdoch needs as evidence, so Murdoch has him send an early example of a fax via telegraph. This aspect of the show has been described as introducing elements of the steampunk genre of science fiction, although it is not a standard theme of all episodes.

Detective Murdoch is assisted by the three other main characters: Inspector Thomas Brackenreid (Thomas Craig), Doctor Julia Ogden (Hélène Joy), and the inexperienced but eager Constable George Crabtree (Jonny Harris), who aspires to be a mystery novel writer.