History YMMV / MurdochMysteries

** [[AWolfInSheepsClothing Cecily McKinnon]], from season 8's [[Recap/MurdochMysteriesS8E1OnTheWaterfrontPart1 two]]-[[Recap/MurdochMysteriesS8E2OnTheWaterfrontPart2 part]] premiere "On the Waterfront", pretends to be a harmless businesswoman, but in reality, she ruthlessly controls Toronto's waterfront through her psychopathic [[CoDragons henchmen]], the O'Shea brothers. When Inspector Brackenreid investigates the extortion and violence on the docks, [=McKinnon=] has the brothers savagely beat him and leave him for dead. When a fellow businessperson uncovers [=McKinnon's=] HumanTrafficking business and tries to stop it, she has him beaten to death and tries to frame him for her own crimes, nearly succeeding in selling off seven innocent women into a life of slavery. When Brackenreid confronts [=McKinnon=], she is utterly shameless about her atrocities, making a final attempt to murder him before being subdued. Hiding her monstrous nature beneath a benign facade, [=McKinnon=] stands out as one of the most callous and heinous criminals ever faced by the police of Station House No. 4.

** Watts' (longer surviving) foster brother Hubert Marks, whose role as his ally, tie to his childhood and protectee is mostly just in a flashback.

* FanonDiscontinuity: A few of the past culprits being mentioned as hung on the blackboard in "Murdoch in Toyland" can inspire this feeling.

* HolyShitQuotient: Viewers all across the board were completely stunned when Gillies kisses Murdoch rather passionately in "Midnight Train to Kingston"; ''no one'' saw that coming!

* CallBack: Not within the show, but within ''Frankie Drake Mysteries'', which exists in the same universe. George Crabtree appears in a first-season episode set in the early 1920s, where it's revealed that the investments he made in "Who Killed the Electric Carriage?" have made him [[EarnYourHappyEnding wealthy enough to retire from the police force while still very young]].

* TheWoobie: Detective Watts has had a number of horrible things happen to him over the years. His parents died when he was 12, his sister abandoned him, he moved in with a family and gained two brothers, but then one of his brothers was tortured and murdered by a neighbor who had been bullying them for years. He also became friends with Constable Jackson, before the Constable ended up getting shot and killed.]]

* EnsembleDarkhorse: There are many fans who are quite fond of Henry Higgins, and would very much like to see his character become part of the main cast. He and Constable Jackson have both been making more appearances since the beginning of season 8, often together with Crabtree, so it seems the writers have listened to some extent.

** [[BitchInSheepsClothing Cecily McKinnon]], from season 8's [[Recap/MurdochMysteriesS8E1OnTheWaterfrontPart1 two]]-[[Recap/MurdochMysteriesS8E2OnTheWaterfrontPart2 part]] premiere "On the Waterfront", pretends to be a harmless businesswoman, but in reality, she ruthlessly controls Toronto's waterfront through her psychopathic [[CoDragons henchmen]], the O'Shea brothers. When Inspector Brackenreid investigates the extortion and violence on the docks, [=McKinnon=] has the brothers savagely beat him and leave him for dead. When a fellow businessperson uncovers [=McKinnon's=] HumanTrafficking business and tries to stop it, she has him beaten to death and tries to frame him for her own crimes, nearly succeeding in selling off seven innocent women into a life of slavery. When Brackenreid confronts [=McKinnon=], she is utterly shameless about her atrocities, making a final attempt to murder him before being subdued. Hiding her monstrous nature beneath a benign facade, [=McKinnon=] stands out as one of the most callous and heinous criminals ever faced by the police of Station House No. 4.

* CompleteMonster: [[FauxAffablyEvil James Gillies]] is Detective William Murdoch's ArchEnemy and one of the most dangerous men he's ever met. Initially coming into conflict with Murdoch after he murdered his professor as part of a way to [[ForScience test a theory of Applied Physics]], Gillies was defeated when Murdoch tricked his weak-willed partner, Robert into turning on him. After escaping the noose by bribing a dying man into taking his place, Gillies murders Robert by sawing his head off while he's still alive. He then initiates a [[CriminalMindGames twisted mind game]] with Murdoch that culminates in him [[BuriedAlive burying Julia alive]], with Murdoch only narrowly getting there in time to save her. Unfortunately, Gillies escapes and one year later [[FrameUp frames Julia]] for the murder of her husband, all as part of a plan to lure Murdoch into a SadisticChoice of either saving his own life or that of Julia. Fortunately Murdoch is able to alert his fellow officers, who arrive in time to save him before the [[DeadlyGas poisonous gas]] floods the room. Afterwards he arranged for several criminals to break onto the train transporting him into prison, causing chaos which he used to try to escape, all the while taunting both Murdoch and Julia that they "owe him" for killing Julia's husband and allowing them to be together. Finally he makes a final play for revenge on Murdoch that climaxed in him endangering a child Murdoch had come to care for. Sadistic and defined by pettiness, James Gillies is the worst that Detective Murdoch has ever faced.

* ValuesDissonance: All over the place due to the setting, as the series largely averts PoliticallyCorrectHistory:
** Casual racism towards blacks, Jews, the Irish, Chinese, etc., a sharp divide between social classes, sexism, the treatment of homosexuals, and religious intolerance are openly on display. More progressive characters do call attention to the unfairness of it, but other characters are allowed their prejudices without losing sympathy, and these attitudes are presented as simply how the world is.
** Heroin, opium, cocaine, and other drugs are all used medicinally with nary a blink.
** Eugenics is still considered a serious science, despite having been discredited. What makes it this as well of ScienceMarchesOn is its close ties to concepts of racial and class superiority; one murder was committed by a man whose fiancée's father disapproved of their marriage because of his "lesser" pedigree. Ironically, the victim reconsidered and was even going to leave the Eugenics Society.

* TheStoicWoobie: Whenever Murdoch breaks down and is NotSoStoic, especially when Julia told him about her abortion and that it left her barren and implied that she wanted to break up their relationship.
* TheWoobie: Detective Watts has had a number of horrible things happen to him over the years. His parents died when he was 12, his sister abandoned him, he moved in with a family and gained two brothers, but then one of his brothers was tortured and murdered by a neighbor who had been bullying them for years. He also became friends with Constable Jackson, before the Constable ended up getting shot and killed.]]

* TheStociWoobie: Whenever Murdoch breaks down and is NotSoStoic, especially when Julia told him about her abortion and that it left her barren and implied that she wanted to break up their relationship.

* CallBack: Not within the show, but within ''Frankie Drake Mysteries'', which exists in the same universe. George Crabtree appears in a first-season episode set in the early 1920s, where it's revealed that the investments he made in "Who Killed the Electric Carriage?" [[spoiler:have made him [[EarnYourHappyEnding wealthy enough to retire from the police force while still very young]]]].

* FoeYay: Some fangirls began to ship Murdoch and James Gillies together after [[spoiler: the latter kisses the former on the mouth for a full three seconds in "Midnight Train to Kingston."]]
* HarsherInHindsight: "Let Us Ask the Maiden"'s AssholeVictim [[spoiler:Isaac Begelman]] became even less sympathetic after his actor was found to be at the middle of a sexual harassment scandal and lost his artistic director job at Toronto theatre company Soulpepper.
* HolyShitQuotient: Viewers all across the board were completely stunned when [[spoiler:Gillies kisses Murdoch rather passionately in "Midnight Train to Kingston"]]; ''no one'' saw that coming!

** The Season 11 premier has a moment between Murdoch and [[spoiler:George, when he learns George survived the ambush after he was originally reported killed. Lampshaded with amusement by Brackenreid and Julia, when they both note Murdoch was more overjoyed to see ''George'' than he was to see them. Yes, even moreso than his ''wife''.]]
* RetroactiveRecognition: Morris Bailey from the episode ''Snakes and Ladders'' is played by Paul Haddad, the original voice of [[VideoGame/ResidentEvil2 Leon Kennedy]] and [[WesternAnimation/XMen Quicksilver]].
* TheWoobie: Whenever Murdoch breaks down and is NotSoStoic, especially when Julia told him about [[spoiler:her abortion and that it left her barren]] and implied that she wanted to break up their relationship.
** Detective Watts has had a number of horrible things happen to him over the years.[[spoiler: His parents died when he was 12, his sister abandoned him, he moved in with a family and gained two brothers, but then one of his brothers was tortured and murdered by a neighbor who had been bullying them for years. He also became friends with Constable Jackson, before the Constable ended up getting shot and killed.]]

** Eugenics is still considered a serious science, despite having been discredited. What makes it this as well of ScienceMarchesOn is its close ties to concepts of racial and class superiority; one murder was committed by a man whose fiancée's father disapproved of their marriage because of his "lesser" pedigree. [[spoiler:Ironically, the victim reconsidered and was even going to leave the Eugenics Society.]]

** Detective Watts has had a number of horrible things happen to him over the years.[[spoiler: His parents died when he was 12, his sister abandoned him, he moved in with a family and gained two brothers, but then one of his brothers was tortured and murdered by a neighbor who had been bullying them for years. He also became friends with Constable Jackson, but he ended up being shot and Watts couldn't save him.]]

* HarsherInHindsight: "Let Us Ask the Maiden"'s AssholeVictim [[spoiler:IsaacBegelman]] became even less sympathetic after his actor was found to be at the middle of a sexual harassment scandal and lost his artistic director job at Toronto theatre company Soulpepper.

* CallBack: Not within the show, but within ''Frankie Drake Mysteries'', which exists in the same universe. George Crabtree appears in a first-season episode set in the early 1920s, where it's revealed that the investments he made in "Who Killed the Electric Carriage?" [[spoiler:have made him [[EarnYourHappyEnding wealthy enough to retire from the police force]]]].

* CallBack: Not within the show, but within ''Frankie Drake Mysteries'', which exists in the same universe. George Crabtree appears in a first-season episode set in the early 1920s, where it's revealed that the investments he made in "Who Killed the Electric Carriage?" [[spoiler:have made him wealthy enough to retire from the police force]].

* CallBack: Not within the show, but within ''Frankie Drake Mysteries'', which exists in the same universe. George Crabtree appears in a first-season episode set in the early 1920s, where it's revealed that the investments he made in "Who Killed the Electric Carriage?" [[spoiler have made him wealthy enough to retire from the police force]].

* CallBack: Not within the show, but within ''Frankie Drake Mysteries'', which exists in the same universe. George Crabtree appears in a first-season episode set in the early 1920s, where it's revealed that the investments he made in "Who Killed the Electric Carriage?" [[EarnYourHappyEnding have made him wealthy enough to retire from the police force]].

* HoYay: Between Crabtree and one-off character Nuniq, including a goodbye kiss (on the cheek).

* CompleteMonster: [[FauxAffablyEvil James Gillies]] is Detective William Murdoch's ArchEnemy and one of the most dangerous men he's ever met. Initially coming into conflict with Murdoch after he murdered his professor as part of a way to [[ForScience test a theory of Applied Physics]], Gillies was defeated when Murdoch tricked his weak-willed partner, Robert into turning on him. After escaping the noose by bribing a dying man into taking his place, Gillies murders Robert by sawing his head off while he's still alive. He then initiates a [[CriminalMindGames twisted mind game]] with Murdoch that culminates in him [[BuriedAlive burying Julia alive]], with Murdoch only narrowly getting there in time to save her. Unfortunately, Gillies escapes and one year later [[FrameUp frames Julia]] for the murder of her husband, all as part of a plan to lure Murdoch into a SadisticChoice of either saving his own life or that of Julia. Fortunately Murdoch is able to alert his fellow officers, who arrive in time to save him before the [[DeadlyGas poisonous gas]] floods the room. Finally, he arranged for several criminals to break onto the train transporting him into prison, causing chaos which he used to try to escape, all the while taunting both Murdoch and Julia that they "owe him" for killing Julia's husband and allowing them to be together. Sadistic and defined by pettiness, James Gillies is the worst that Detective Murdoch has ever faced.

* PoliticallyCorrectHistory: While the racial and sexual biases of the era are prominent in the background, and often inform the cases being investigated, the central characters seldom espouse them, and if so only during subplots that require introspection and are resolved by learning the corresponding 21st-century value:
** Murdoch, a Catholic, initially receives some stick from Brackenreid for being a "Papist", but this is dropped relatively early.
** Murdoch also must come to terms with Dr. Ogden's abortion, both as a moral dilemma and because she's his OneTrueLove.
** In one episode, Brackenreid worries that his son might be gay because he wants to play a female part in a play. This leads to the boy getting hurt badly in rugby trying to impress his dad. While the boy's ultimate reasoning for wanting the female role (she had more lines) is later revealed and accepted, it doesn't come before Dr. Ogden has to talk Brackenreid into accepting his son's possible sexuality. In an episode set nearly ''seventy years'' before the decriminalization of homosexuality in Canada.
** While initially not thrilled to discover that Dr. Grace is engaging in lesbianism, Brackenreid rather quickly ends up showing understanding for her.
** Justified in the cases of Dr. Ogden and Dr. Grace, as two rare female physicians and pathologists during that period. Indeed, Dr. Ogden's unabashed statements of progressive views led to marital strain during her first marriage to Dr. Garland. In later seasons, we see her start an underground women's health clinic teaching birth control (which she was briefly arrested for), and vehemently object to the MaritalRapeLicense of the period. Dr. Grace, meanwhile, [[BiTheWay engaged in a same-sex relationship]]. Both were involved in the nascent suffrage movement of the early 1900s.
*** It is pretty safe to assume that Toronto did not have two female coroners around that time, and that the men of the time would not have accepted the idea of women working in a morgue nearly as well as they do throughout this series. However, there was at least one skilled female Canadian pathologist, Maude Abbott.
*** There's also little comment on Dr. Ogden choosing a black woman to serve as her assistant, aside from one politician who was blackmailed into submission.
** In "A Merry Murdoch Christmas", Brackenreid feels guilty for having harshly told off his father as a child for having made him a Christmas present instead of buying him a toy soldier he wanted (which his father was too poor to afford). A child of English working-class parents at the time would have been well aware that his family's income was literally subsistence-level and would likely have understood why he or she was not receiving any store-bought presents, if any.
** In "The Big Chill", the term "Inuit" is used throughout the episode. The name "Eskimo" (which is considered obsolete and inappropriate in Canada today but is correct for the period) appears only once.