Murdoch Mysteries Reviews

Murdoch Mysteries Review – Darkness Before The Dawn Part Two

Darkness Before The Dawn Part Two
Shared Responsibility: Julia and Watts bond over their guilty consciences.

When Darkness Before The Dawn Part One ended last week, William Murdoch had arrested Inspector Brackenreid’s son John for murder. It was also looking like the lad would be left paralyzed after an investigation gone wrong, initiated by Detective Watts. Also, Julia felt guilty that she hadn’t waited for a spinal surgeon and Miss Hart was up to no good.

Part Two begins as Julia (Hélène Joy) enters John’s (Charles Vandervaart) hospital room. He still can’t feel his legs or move his toes. Watts (Daniel Maslany) arrives and tells him he’s sorry for getting him mixed up in the Lucille Palmer mess.

Meanwhile, Miss Hart (Shanice Banton) has been appointed to the position of City Coroner. She meets Inspector McWorthy (Sean Bell) for a drink to celebrate. Continue reading “Murdoch Mysteries Review – Darkness Before The Dawn Part Two”

Murdoch Mysteries Reviews

Murdoch Mysteries Review – Darkness Before The Dawn Part One

Darkness Before The Dawn Part One
How Is Our Son? Julia has some unsettling news for Margaret and Thomas.

This week’s Murdoch Mysteries begins with a crazy series of events. Murdoch (Yannick Bisson) is at a meeting where he is introduced as a candidate, but a candidate for what? Someone walks into the meeting and whispers in Murdoch’s ear and he takes off for Station House No. 4 on his bike. He races into the station to see Brackenreid (Thomas Craig) punching Detective Watts (Daniel Maslany) in the face in Darkness Before The Dawn Part One.

Julia (Hélène Joy) is at the University of Toronto’s School of Medicine running down a hallway to see John Brackenreid (Charles Vandervaart), who is lying on a gurney, bleeding profusely from his side. Continue reading “Murdoch Mysteries Review – Darkness Before The Dawn Part One”

Murdoch Mysteries Reviews

Murdoch Mysteries Review – Manual For Murder

Manual For Murder
What An Unpleasant Surprise: Murdoch and Brackenreid run into Ralph Fellows at a retirement party.

William (Yannick Bisson) and Julia (Hélène Joy) discover that someone is committing the murders detailed in their new book, chapter by chapter, in Manual For Murder.

The episode begins with another sparsely-attended book reading for William and Julia. William begins to read Solving Murders aloud and says each chapter reveals a different murder and how it was solved. He starts with the case of the electroplated works of art that began showing up around Toronto. Viewers will recall they were actually the bodies of young women from the season 9 episode Barenaked Ladies.

Constable Higgins (Lachlan Murdoch) interrupts him, to tell him he is needed at the Windsor House Hotel, as the owner believes she has discovered a body in the lobby. He and Julia apologize to those in attendance and leave.

They arrive and hotel detective Ralph Fellows (Colin Mochrie) shows them what he calls an electroplated body on a chair. “Just as in our book,” William says to Julia. “Have you read our book then?” she asks Fellows.

“It may astonish the two of you that the world doesn’t revolve around just you,” Fellows says. “The case was in the newspapers.”

William pierces the electroplate and finds blood. Continue reading “Murdoch Mysteries Review – Manual For Murder”

Murdoch Mysteries Reviews

Murdoch Mysteries Review – One Minute To Murder

One Minute To Murder
Dull Demonstration: Murdoch shows the process of fingerprinting to a less than enthusiastic audience.

When a man is electrocuted during a typing contest that includes George Crabtree (Jonny Harris) and Louise Cherry (Bea Santos), Murdoch believes the tenacious reporter was the planned target in One Minute To Murder.

Season 12, Episode 15 begins as contestants limber up their fingers for the demonstration of the Langston Electric Typewriter. Julia (Hélène Joy) and William (Yannick Bisson) are in attendance, to cheer George on. He doesn’t do so well though and ends up with a paltry score of 31 words per minute.

Miss Cherry looks at George before her turn and smugly says: “Watch how it’s done.” But her attempt is cut short when her right hand cramps up.

“My deepest regrets Miss Cherry,” George says, smirking.

The next contestant is lightning fast, but his attempt culminates in a spark coming from the typewriter. He collapses and Julia and William rush to the stage. She takes his pulse. “He’s dead William.” Continue reading “Murdoch Mysteries Review – One Minute To Murder”

Murdoch Mysteries Reviews

Murdoch Mysteries Review – Sins Of The Father

Sins Of The Father
Stop Right There: William seeks justice for his murdered father Harry.

Inspector Brackenreid (Thomas Craig) asks Murdoch (Yannick Bisson) to investigate the aftermath of a rooming house fire on the poor side of town in Sins of the Father.

George Crabtree (Jonny Harris) and William Murdoch arrive at the scene of the fire just as a body is being removed. They search it for clues and find a key and a metal cigarette case. Inside the case are cigarettes and a tinplate photo of a man and a boy.

“Oh my God,” Murdoch says, clearly shaken.

“You know these people? Crabtree asks.

“That’s me,” Murdoch replies. “This man is my father.” Continue reading “Murdoch Mysteries Review – Sins Of The Father”

Murdoch Mysteries Reviews

Murdoch Mysteries Review – Murdoch And The Undetectable Man

Murdoch and the detached man
Great Minds Think Alike: Julia and William have dinner with Nikola Tesla.

Murdoch enlists inventor Nikola Tesla to help investigate the murder of an inventor who was experimenting with invisibility, in Murdoch And The Undetectable Man. 

The episode begins with a man going into an arcade and paying to see a short film through a viewer. In the film, a man is covered with bandages and is holding up a sign that says “Now you see me”. The next time we see the man, he is dead and Murdoch (Yannick Bisson) and Crabtree (Jonny Harris) are in a lab, standing over his body. They find a bloody fingermark on a metal shelf.

Tesla (Dmitry Chepovetsky) arrives and tells Murdoch he and Bosworth had corresponded with each other. Bosworth had been looking for advice because his investor was about to pull his money from his invention.

Bosworth had wanted to share his invention with Tesla, but when he arrived to meet with him, Bosworth was already dead and some of his equipment was missing. Murdoch asks what the dead inventor had been working on.

“Professor Bosworth was working on a device to render objects invisible,” Tesla says.

Season 12, episode 13 is Tesla’s return to Murdoch Mysteries, the real-life historical character was last on the show in The Tesla Effect in 2010. Continue reading “Murdoch Mysteries Review – Murdoch And The Undetectable Man”

Murdoch Mysteries Reviews

Murdoch Mysteries Review – Six Of The Best

Detectives Watts and Murdoch team up when a young girl comes across the body of a dead child in the woods in Six Of The Best.

Violet Hart (Shanice Banton) is brought to the crime scene to determine how long the body had been buried. She determines he had been there “a week at most.”

Six Of The Best
Time of Death: Miss Hart will conduct the autopsy on the child.

As they continue the investigation, Murdoch (Yannick Bisson) and Watts (Daniel Maslany) discover the child, Wesley Seaver, had run away from an orphanage a week earlier. They go to the orphanage for boys to interview some of the staff and Wesley’s friends.

Watts finds out the deceased boy had been caned for impertinence to a teacher the same day he disappeared. He also discovers that caning is a common practice at the home for disciplining the boys. Continue reading “Murdoch Mysteries Review – Six Of The Best”

Murdoch Mysteries Reviews

Murdoch Mysteries Review – Annabella Cinderella

Annabella Cinderella
Not In The Mouth: Watts, you want me to do what?!

George Crabtree and John Brackenreid transport a convicted axe murderer to prison but trouble is afoot when she escapes, to exact revenge on those who testified against her, in Annabella Cinderella.

The episode opens at Station House No. 4, and Murdoch (Yannick Bisson) asks John (Charles Vandervaart) and George (Jonny Harris) to find convicted murderer Annabella Maloney (Rachel Van Duzer), who has escaped. They chase the woman down an alleyway and John captures her.

Back at the station, both John and Detective Watts (Daniel Maslany) admit they followed the case in the newspaper and express their sympathy for Annabella. Like Lizzie Borden before her, Annabella took an axe and gave her mother forty whacks. Well not exactly 40 whacks – she plunged an axe into her mother once, although the woman wasn’t actually her mother, she was her guardian. Continue reading “Murdoch Mysteries Review – Annabella Cinderella”

Murdoch Mysteries Reviews

Murdoch Mysteries Review – Pirates Of The Great Lakes

Pirates Of The Great Lakes
Undercover Crabtree: George as antiques collector Boston Rhodes.

Murdoch assists Italian detective Flavio Pupazzi recover a stolen shipload of antiques, and Inspector Brackenreid hopes to recover his shipwrecked marriage in Pirates Of The Great Lakes.

Season 12, episode 10 begins with William Murdoch (Yannick Bisson) showing George Crabtree (Jonny Harris) his latest invention, an elaborate-looking dishwasher.  He explains to Crabtree that one part of his contraption “pushes strings of soapy water” at the dishes and then shows him “the motor for the dish closet.”

Crabtree wonders why he would be in need of such a machine. “How many dishes do you have, Sir?” he asks. Murdoch tells him Julia has purchased a couple of sets of dinnerware and plans on entertaining a lot.

“Then I look forward to my next invitation,” Crabtree replies, grinning.  Continue reading “Murdoch Mysteries Review – Pirates Of The Great Lakes”

Murdoch Mysteries Reviews

Murdoch Mysteries Review – Secrets And Lies

Secrets and Lies
Long-Lost Love: Will the Inspector rekindle his romance with a former flame? CBC

Secrets and Lies begins with Inspector Thomas Brackenreid (Thomas Craig) in unfamiliar surroundings, searching for a missing person. Within minutes, he’s jumped by several men and knocked flat on his back. When he finally gets back on his feet, he makes his way up a staircase to a one room apartment, and is greeted by a black woman with whom he’s obviously well acquainted. He tells her he still hasn’t found “our daughter”. Then the audience loses its collective mind.  Continue reading “Murdoch Mysteries Review – Secrets And Lies”