History Series / MurdochMysteries

* ItWillNeverCatchOn: Frequently, including several occasions where Murdoch or Crabtree invent entirely new policing methods or technologies (like the concept of pixels and digital transmission of images -- with a telegraph), only for Inspector Brackenried to dismiss them.

* ReedRichardsIsUseless: Not to the extent of superheroic achievements, but Murdoch is actually an author of several extremely useful inventions (e.g. sonar) he could have patented or manufactured. [[LampshadeHanging Lampshaded]] in "Invention Convention": Crabtree brings Murdoch's version of a polygraph to an inventor's fair and spruiks it as the "Truthizer". His attempt to sell it to a potential buyer backfires when the buyer sees Murdoch use it on several murder suspects, all inventors themselves and all of whom quickly figure out how it works [[spoiler:(and are all innocent anyway)]]. Though the polygraph does what it's supposed to, the buyer is unimpressed and changes her mind, much to Crabtree's disappointment.

* CrazyPrepared: Not in the physical sense, but Murdoch has knowledge on librarians, ancient Egypt and advanced science just in case.

* EternalSexualFreedom: A devout catholic Murdock chasing a divorcee Ogden. Check.
** Doctor Grace breaking convention in a manner that creates shock even today with she spurning her would be husband just before the wedding? Check.
*** No consequences in the dawning century of 1900? Check.

* CanNotSpitItOut: It's pretty clear to anyone that Murdoch likes Dr. Ogden, but he cannot get himself to say it.
* CatchPhrase: Brackenreid shouting "Bloody hell Murdoch!" whenever Murdoch does something he can't comprehend.

* CloudCuckooLander

* DemonicDummy: The ventriloquist's dummy, Mycroft, in "Belly Speaker".

** Sanguine -- George
** Choleric -- Brackenreid
** Melancholic -- Murdoch
** Plegmatic -- Julia

* IdiosyncraticEpisodeNaming: The writers are quite fond of using anachronistically modern expressions for episode names

* StarCrossedLovers: Murdoch and Dr. Ogden, with a brace of [[ThePaolo Paolos]] each, and various other impediments. At the end of Season 3 Dr Ogden [[spoiler: leaves Toronto because she can't give William children]]; as of Season 4 [[spoiler: she's returned, but become engaged to another man while in Buffalo]]. [[spoiler:Though she marries Darcy at the end of season 4, by the end of season 5 the marriage is over and she and William rekindle their relationship.]]
* SteamPunk: A couple of episodes toy with this, before the Season 3 finale goes full-tilt into it with [[spoiler:Tesla's microwave death ray]].

* TemporaryLoveInterest: Anna Fulford. Murdoch first meets her in "The Murdoch Identity" while suffering amnesia in Bristol, but remembers Julia before their relationship can go anywhere. She returns briefly in season four, but [[PutOnABus has to go into witness protection]] when her dead fiancé's criminal gang target her. [[spoiler:TheBusCameBack again briefly in series 5, but Murdoch was forced to [[FakingTheDead fake Anna's death]] to help her escape this time.]]
* ThanatosGambit: [[spoiler:Used by Karl Schreiner in "Invention Convention". Dying of cancer, he develops a device featuring components from the creations of the his rival inventors at the convention that shoots him in the head as he's making his speech after winning the Eton prize for best invention. In killing himself, he prevented himself from suffering further and almost successfully managed to frame all his rivals for his death.]]
* ThoseTwoGuys: Crabtree and Higgins often fall into this when they're paired up

* Catchphrase: Breckenridge shouting "Bloody hell Murdoch whenever Murdoch does something he can't comprehend.

* CanNotSpitItOut: It's pretty clear to anyone that Murdoch likes Dr. Ogden, but he cannot get himself to say it.

[[quoteright:350:http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/murdoch-mysteries_season-four_announced_2033.jpg]]
[[caption-width-right:350:[-This '''is''' your grandfather's ''Series/{{CSI}}''.-] ]]

** The episode "[[{{Anvilicious}} Murdoch.com]]" revolves around women being lured to their deaths by a sexual predator... on the telegraph lines.

* {{Area 51}}: After Murdoch and Company stumbled into a US/UK secret airship research facility in the middle of Ontario, the G-men noted that it's probably smarter to relocate the research station to the deserts of New Mexico.

* CaliforniaDoubling: Set in Toronto, filmed in Cambridge, Ontario as none of the streets of modern Toronto looks like 1890s Toronto.

* CloudCuckooLander: George often goes off on strange tangents while discussing cases with Murdoch. He thinks his anecdotes might be useful, but they're often not.
** Higgins has shades of this, though is generally more grounded than George.
* TheCoroner: Drs. Julia Ogden, Llewellyn Francis and Emily Grace.

* TheDanza: Thomas Craig as Inspector Thomas Brackenreid.
* DashinglyDapperDerby: Murdoch's got one, after Crabtree made detective, he gets the same hat too.
* DaydreamSurprise: Used frequently from Murdoch's perspective, mostly involving Doctor Ogden and kissing.
** In one daydream Murdoch saw his older self camping with his wife and son. While Murdoch sees and seems to know the identity of the wife (he smiles when he sees her), [[TheFaceless the audience doesn't]].

** The episode "[[{{Anvilicious}} Murdoch.com]]" revolved around women being lured to their deaths by a sexual predator... on the telegraph lines.
** In addition, Murdoch quite frequently solves crimes by using the limited resources of his time to get at a primitive version of a contemporary technology that would be quite familiar to the audience. (In one episode, for example, the evidence is underwater in Lake Ontario, so Murdoch essentially invents a rudimentary version of sonar to find it.)

* EstablishingShot: In the form of tinted Stereoscopy photos (a type of 3D photography popular in the 1900s).
* TheExile: Series 5 begins with [[spoiler: Murdoch prospecting for gold in the Yukon]], having left Toronto and the police force after his actions in the season 4 finale.
* FairCop: Murdoch, George, and Higgins.

** [[spoiler: Anna Fulford]]
** [[spoiler: James Gillies]]

** [[spoiler:And in the final episode of series four, Murdoch.]]

** In season two, [[spoiler:George, who was a DoorstopBaby]] meets his birth mother.

* PlayingAgainstType: Mary Walsh and Gavin Crawford, playing a grieving mother of a murdered daughter and a possibly insane puppeteer, respectively. Both are best known as anchors on the comedy news show ''Series/ThisHourHas22Minutes''.

* ShortRunInPeru: Despite being a Canadian-produced series, new episodes air much earlier in the UK.

* StarCrossedLovers: Murdoch and Dr Ogden, with a brace of [[ThePaolo Paolos]] each, and various other impediments. At the end of Season 3 Dr Ogden [[spoiler: leaves Toronto because she can't give William children]]; as of Season 4 [[spoiler: she's returned, but become engaged to another man while in Buffalo]]. [[spoiler:Though she marries Darcy at the end of season 4, by the end of season 5 the marriage is over and she and William rekindle their relationship.]]

* DemonicDummy: The ventriloquist's dummy, Mycroft, in "Belly Talker".

* ConspicuousCGI: This has been introduced in more recent seasons for some reason.

[[caption-width-right:350:This '''is''' your grandfather's ''Series/{{CSI}}''.]]

--> "Perhaps someday, everybody will be as fascinated with pathologists and police detectives."
--->--Detective William Murdoch

''Murdoch Mysteries'' is a Canadian detective series set in late nineteenth-century {{Toronto}}, based on a series of novels by Maureen Jennings. The series centers around William Murdoch, a detective in the Toronto constabulary with an interest in using then-unorthodox/unknown forensic techniques for catching criminals. Murdoch is assisted by Constable George Crabtree and Doctor Julia Ogden, TheCoroner. His boss Inspector Thomas Brackenreid is usually skeptical of Murdoch's methods but doesn't complain too much, just as long as they catch the criminal in the end.

The series was preceded by a trilogy of [[MadeForTVMovie TV movies]] in 2004, which were more direct adaptations of the ''Murdoch Mysteries'' novels. With Peter Outerbridge as Murdoch, KeeleyHawes as Dr Ogden and Creator/ColmMeaney as Inspector Brackenreid. Overall much darker and gritty than the TV series.

!!Provides examples of:

* AllPartOfTheShow: The production of ''LaBoheme'' in 'Murdoch at the Opera'- [[spoiler: Knowing that she will be arrested for murder after the performance, Elvira Cummings takes a fatal dose of poison and plays out Mimi's death scene, expiring after singing Mimi's last words. The audience isn't any wiser for it and applaud wildly; the other players only realise she has died after the curtains have fallen.]]

* {{Anachronism Stew}}: The story seems to be set in a "greatest-hits of Late Victorian/Edwardian Era" world.
* AnnoyingYoungerSibling: Julia's younger sister, IntrepidReporter Ruby, who irritates her older sister by flirting with Murdoch.

* AssholeVictim: A few, but especially the victim in Me, Myself, and Murdoch. [[spoiler: The prime suspect for his murder is his daughter, who has multiple personalities that resulted from her seeing her father hack up her mother with an ax, when she was a child. The man got another woman to marry him and pose as his original wife, and throughout the years he's been abusing his daughter and locking her up in the basement where he dismembered her mom. The murderer is his stepson from his first wife, who ran away as a kid and came back years later disguised as a farmhand, who was suspicious of why another woman was posing as his mother, and axed his stepfather to death]].
** [[spoiler: Inspector Brackenreid even said he would do his best to avert the death penalty for the stepson, saying about his stepfather, "Bastard bloody deserved it"]].
* TheBadGuyWins: Most notably in [[spoiler:''Belly Speaker'', in which the [[CreepyDoll puppet-wielding]] suspect [[ObfuscatingInsanity deceives]] ''everyone'' (including Murdoch) and ultimately escapes justice. There is no indication that he was ever caught afterwards. However, given his reasons for doing so and the truth later coming out about his twin brother, it's hard to not feel even a bit [[SympatheticMurderer sympathetic]].]]
* BetaCouple: Constable Crabtree and Dr. Grace seem to be heading in this direction in Season 5.
* BigBad: [[spoiler: Sally Pendrick]] in Season 3.

* BuriedAlive: [[spoiler: Julia, in 'Murdoch in Toyland'. Murdoch manages to rescue her in time.]]
* CanadianAccents: In the original TV movies, only Murdoch speaks with a (slightly anachronistic) neutral Canadian accent, while everyone else talks with varying shades of Irish, Scottish, English, French, and other European accents--historically accurate considering Canada's history of immigration. The TV series tone this down, but not by much.

* DaChief: Inspector Brackenreid.

* {{Does This Remind You Of Anything}}: The episode "[[{{Anvilicious}} Murdoch.com]]" revolved around women being lured to their deaths by a sexual predator... on the telegraph lines.

* {{Doorstop Baby}}: [[spoiler:George Crabtree]], as revealed in a recent episode
* DownerEnding: Series 3 concluded [[spoiler: with Julia ending her relationship with William and leaving Toronto for Buffalo. To add insult to injury, William- having decided to propose to Julia- [[RaceForYourLove rushes to the train station]] just in time to see her train pulling away.]]
** [[spoiler:It's more {{Narm}} than anything else, since the train is still moving so slowly that he could have easily ran and climbed aboard, and even if it wasn't he could have just taken the next train.]]
** Also applies to Series 4's conclusion, where it looks like [[spoiler: William's future in the Toronto constabulary is under threat and Julia appears to go through with her wedding to [[RomanticFalseLead Darcy]] despite still being in love with William.]]
* DrJerk: Murdoch regards Dr Francis this way.
* EstablishingShot: In the form of tinted Stereoscopy photos (a type of 3D photography popular in the 1900s)

* FakeNationality: Canadian Dr. Ogden is played by Australian actress Helene Joy.
* FakingTheDead: [[spoiler: Anna Fulford]]

* FiveManBand:
** TheHero /TheSmartGuy: Murdoch
** TheLancer: George
** TheBigGuy: Inspector Brackenreid
** TheChick: Julia
* FourTemperamentEnsemble:
** Sanguine: George
** Choleric: Brackenreid
** Melancholic: Murdoch
** Plegmatic: Julia
* GoodGirlsAvoidAbortion: (averted)

* HeyItsThatGuy: [[Series/{{Alias}} Jack Bristow]] turns up in the series four premiere as Murdoch's retired predecessor.
** [[{{Supernatural}} Death]] believes adamantly in a Mummy's curse.
* HistoricalDomainCharacter / InThePastEveryoneWillBeFamous: Several well-known figures make appearances, including Jack London, Buffalo Bill and Annie Oakley, Harry Houdini, Creator/ArthurConanDoyle, [[HGWells H. G. Wells]], NikolaTesla and Prince Albert Victor.
* HistoricalInJoke: Murdoch mentions the phrase "CallOfTheWild" to Jack London.

** The episode about a serial killer who seduced women on line--telegraph lines, that is--is titled "Murdoch.com".
** The one about a man who was murdered on an elevator is called aptly [[SpinalTap "This one goes up to eleven".]]
** The episode where Murdoch wakes up to find himself in the wrong country, with no memory of how he got there and everyone trying to kill him is of course, named "[[TheBourneIdentity The Murdoch Identity]]" (the episode even included a character called Treadstone).
* INeedAFreakingDrink: Often invoked by Inspector Brackenreid.
** [[spoiler: And in the final episode of series four, Murdoch.]]
* InVinoVeritas / KissingUnderTheInfluence: [[spoiler: After an evening of consuming absinthe, Murdoch and Julia end up making out on a blanket. Subverted in the case of the latter trope; neither regret their actions on the morning after and consequently pursue a relationship]]
* IntrepidReporter: Paddy Glynn frequently pops up at the Toronto Constabulary during the fourth season looking for a [[GoingForTheBigScoop Big Scoop]] and usually irritating Inspector Brackenreid in the process. [[spoiler: In the penultimate episode of the season, he's unmasked as the Kissing Bandit, a thief who has been [[JustLikeRobinHood robbing banks and giving the money to an orphanage]] and [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin kissing women during the robberies]]. He tells Murdoch and Brackenreid that he did it to ''make'' the news instead of just reporting on it.]]
* ItsPersonal: For Inspector Brackenreid, when his son is kidnapped and held for ransom.
** Murdoch experiences this when he discovers [[spoiler: Julia]] has been kidnapped and the perpetrator he's got in custody won't tell him where [[spoiler: she]] is.
* ItWillNeverCatchOn: Frequently, including several occasions where Murdoch or Crabtree invent entirely new policing methods or technologies (like the concept of pixels and digital transmission of images--with a telegraph), only for Inspector Brackenried to dismiss them.

** Even Murdoch gets in on the game, when he scoffs at Crabtree's idea of a board game (basically, ''Clue'').
** The episode "Murdoch Night In Canada" is basically all about how paying people to play ice hockey will never catch on, and if it does, the game will be ruined. The chief constable also assures the Wellingtons' owner that one thing he doesn't have to worry about is Americans buying his players, because they'll never be interested in hockey.

** Said word for word by Brackenreid about automatic sprinklers in 'Murdoch in Toyland'.
* IWantMyBelovedToBeHappy: [[spoiler: Julia's reason for breaking off her relationship with William. Because she cannot have children, she leaves him in the hope that he'll find a woman who can give him a family.]]
* JackTheRipper: Believed to be murdering young women in Toronto in one episode. Murdoch is joined by a Scotland Yard detective who has been chasing the Ripper through Europe. [[spoiler: He is later revealed to be the Ripper himself, and is killed by Doctor Ogden in self-defense.]]
* LadyInRed: In 'Twentieth Century Murdoch', [[spoiler: Julia]] wears an off-the-shoulder red dress to the new year's ball.
* LongLostRelative: [[spoiler: In the series two finale, Murdoch discovers that the Mountie he is working on a case with is in fact his older half-brother, the product of an affair their father had before marrying Murdoch's mother.]]
** In season two, [[spoiler: George, who was a DoorstopBaby]] meets his birth mother.
* LostLoveMontage: Used very briefly in series one when Murdoch is thinking of Liza, his dead fiancee.
* MakeItLookLikeAnAccident: The season two finale has a contract killer that specializes on this.
* MoralDissonance: While Murdoch and Dr. Ogden are quite ahead of their times, the setting is definitely ''not''; racism and sexism are rampant, and Murdoch & Co. even run into eugenicists and anti-papists.
** Inspector Brackenreid isn't above [[PoliceBrutality beating up a suspect during interrogation]] to try and get answers.
* MythArc: For the first two seasons the episodes were mostly self-contained. Season 3 has one dealing with [[spoiler: The Pendricks]]
* NearDeathClairvoyance: The aim of the society in 'Staircase to Heaven'. [[spoiler: Murdoch experiences it for himself.]]
* NeverFoundTheBody: In the season three finale after a chase and explosion the accomplice's body is found, but not [[spoiler: Sally Pendrick]]. As of yet this has had no effect on the story, as season four went back to having self-contained episodes.
** After managing to [[FakingTheDead escape his own hanging]] and get caught by Murdoch again, the police wagon carrying [[spoiler: James Gillies]] back to prison plunges over a bridge into a river. While the driver's body is found, [[spoiler: Gillies']] is not.

* OnlySoManyCanadianActors: ''Every'' time a teenage character is presented, the actor is part of that same ''{{Degrassi}}''/Family Channel Canada group.

* OperaGloves: As a standard accessory to late Victorian and Edwardian women's formalwear, these are seen frequently in episodes where such dress is worn (e.g., Julia, who has just been called to a crime scene from an evening at the theater, wears black OperaGloves - which she immediately takes off to examine a body - in the first season's "Elementary, My Dear Murdoch"; also in the first scene of the same season's "Child's Play").
* TheOtherDarrin: Murdoch was originally played by [[ReGenesis Peter Outerbridge]] and Odgen by KeeleyHawes in the TV movie adaptation, Yannick Bisson and Helene Joy took over the roles for the series.
* ParentalAbandonment: Murdoch believed that his drunk father beat his mother, which would indirectly lead to her death. [[spoiler: It wasn't true.]] He spent most of his childhood in an orphanage.
** [[spoiler: George]]'s mother left him [[DoorstopBaby on a doorstep]] for a couple to look after.
* PlayingAgainstType: Mary Walsh and Gavin Crawford, playing a grieving mother of a murdered daughter and a possibly insane puppeteer, respectively. Both are best known as anchors on the comedy news show ''ThisHourHas22Minutes''.
* PoliticalCorrectnessGoneMad: "We don't call people "retarded" anymore, it's insensitive. [[SubvertedTrope The polite term is "moronic".]]

* QuestForIdentity: [[spoiler: The series three opener finds Murdoch in England with no memory of who he is or how he got there. He spends the episode recovering his memory while on the run from criminals out to kill him.]]
* RaceForYourLove: At the end of series three, Murdoch rushes to the train station to [[spoiler:propose to Julia before she leaves Toronto]]; [[YouAreTooLate he arrives in time to see her train pulling away.]]

* ReedRichardsIsUseless: Not to the extent of superheroic achievements but Murdoch is actually an author of several extremely useful inventions (e.g. sonar) he could have patented or manufactured.
** [[LampshadeHanging Lampshaded]] in 'Invention Convention': Crabtree brings Murdoch's version of a polygraph to an inventor's fair and spruiks it as the 'Truthizer'. His attempt to sell it to a potential buyer backfires when the buyer sees Murdoch use it on several murder suspects, all inventors themselves and all of whom quickly figure out how it works [[spoiler: (and are all innocent anyway)]]. Though the polygraph does what it's supposed to, the buyer is unimpressed and changes her mind, much to Crabtree's disappointment.
* RomancingTheWidow: In series two Murdoch pursues a relationship with Enid Jones, a widowed single mother he meets while investigating a case.
* ScienceMarchesOn: Intentionally invoked in the episode set at University of Toronto, where currently outdated scientific concepts (luminiferous aether) and laughably basic ideas (single/double molecular bonds) are presented as revolutionary and cutting-edge...because they were at the time.
* ScrewTheRulesImDoingWhatsRight: [[spoiler: When William decides to unlock Ava Moon's cell and let her escape]] in the series four finale.
* ShipperOnDeck: Ruby Ogden, for William and Julia. [[spoiler: When she returns in series four, she is clearly disappointed that Julia has chosen to marry Darcy over William.]]
** George also ships William/Julia and has trouble understanding why they're not together.

* {{Spinoff}}: 'The Curse of the Lost Pharaohs', a 13 part web series based on the mystery novel Crabtree's written.
** A second web series was made to coincide with series 5, 'The Murdoch Effect', which features William in a FishOutOfTemporalWater situation, winding up in [[PresentDay present-day Toronto]] with modern-day versions of his colleagues.
* StarCrossedLovers: Murdoch and Dr Ogden, with a brace of [[ThePaolo Paolos]] each, and various other impediments. At the end of Season 3 Dr Ogden [[spoiler: leaves Toronto because she can't give William children]]; as of Season 4 [[spoiler: she's returned, but become engaged to another man while in Buffalo]].
** [[spoiler: Though she marries Darcy at the end of season 4, by the end of season 5 the marriage is over and she and William rekindle their relationship.]]
* SteamPunk: A couple of episodes toy with this, before the Season 3 finale goes full-tilt into it with [[spoiler: Tesla's microwave death ray]].
* SweetPollyOliver: A woman basketball team's worth. And back then, cross dressing was considered quite scandalous.

* TemporaryLoveInterest: Anna Fulford. Murdoch first meets her in 'The Murdoch Identity' while suffering amnesia in Bristol, but remembers Julia before their relationship can go anywhere. She returns briefly in season four, but [[PutOnABus has to go into witness protection]] when her dead fiance's criminal gang target her. [[spoiler: TheBusCameBack again briefly in series 5, but Murdoch was forced to [[FakingTheDead fake Anna's death]] to help her escape this time.]]
* TheGayNineties
* ThanatosGambit: [[spoiler: Used by Karl Schreiner in 'Invention Convention'- dying of cancer, he develops a device featuring components from the creations of the his rival inventors at the convention that shoots him in the head as he's making his speech after winning the Eton prize for best invention. In killing himself, he prevented himself from suffering further and almost successfully managed to frame all his rivals for his death.]]

* TimeTravel: Part of the plot in 'Twentieth Century Murdoch'- Murdoch investigates a scientist who has created a TimeMachine and the claims of others who have used the machine and gone forward in time. [[spoiler: It turns out to be a hoax using a form of shock therapy to show the user the future they want to see.]]
* UptownGirl: George experiences this with Emily Grace. Though he wants to invite her to the policeman's new year's eve ball, he observes that she's probably used to far finer parties and feels justified in his opinion when she later turns down his invitation. [[spoiler: Happily, this is later averted when she does join him at the ball and announces that she finds him more interesting than the people at the party she was planning on attending.]]
* WrittenInAbsence: [[spoiler: Dr. Ogden leaves Toronto for a job at a children's hospital in Buffalo at the end of series three. She's still in Buffalo at the beginning of series four, but returns to Toronto and her old job halfway through the series.]]

* NeverFoundTheBody: In the season three finale after a chase and explosion the accomplice's body is found, but not [[spoiler: Sally Pendrick]]. As of yet this has had no effect on the story, as season four went back to having self-contained episodes.

Five seasons have been produced so far. The fifth series, broadcast in 2012 by Citytv, was to be the final series, but rival broadcaster CBC has [[{{uncancelled}} picked up the series]] and has already commissioned a sixth series for broadcast in late 2012.

** A second web series was made to coincide with series 5, 'The Murdoch Effect', which features William in a FishOutOfTemporalWater situation, winding up in [[InThePresentDay present-day Toronto]] with modern-day versions of his colleagues.

** The episode "Murdoch Night In Canada" is basically all about how paying people to play ice hockey will never catch on, and if it does, the game will be RuinedForever. The chief constable also assures the Wellingtons' owner that one thing he doesn't have to worry about is Americans buying his players, because they'll never be interested in hockey.

* ShipTease: Ruby Ogden frequently flirts with George Crabtree and some scenes have alluded to their chemistry.