History Series / HoudiniAndDoyle

* AgentMulder[=/=]AgentScully: Doyle and Houdini, respectively, as they were in real life. For one episode, ''The Monsters of the Nethermoor'', they switch roles, with Houdini believing that a woman really was abducted by aliens, while Doyle doubts it due to the only witness being an alcoholic prone to hallucinations. Doyle peevishly accuses Houdini of taking the contrary view simply to annoy him.

* MalignedMixedMarriage: There is a great deal of prejudice toward Daniel Berry, being a mixed race man married to a white woman, which you'd expect in rural 1901 England. He's accused of murdering her largely based on this (although he ''was'' the last person to see her), with the police holding him for his safety, since they're afraid he'd be lynched otherwise.

* VeryLooselyBasedOnATrueStory: Doyle and Houdini actually were friends, although they had a falling-out over spiritualism. They never solved crimes together, but Doyle investigated a few cases and exonerated wrongly convicted prisoners. Houdini went on a debunking campaign against mediums, while Doyle retained his spiritualist faith to the end.

* AgentMulder[=/=]AgentScully: Doyle and Houdini, respectively, as they were in real life.

* FakeBrit: Adelaide is played by a Canadian actress who affects an accent for the role.

** [[spoiler:During the episode with the faith healer, Houdini suffers from symptoms that get worse every time he denounced God. After the healer looses his faith after learning that his sister had been attacking his hecklers, Houdini collapses and wakes up recovered. Also, Doyle's wife, who had awoken after the faith healer visited, (despite Harry's insistence that it was the result of a seemingly failed experimental treatment) falls asleep again]].

* NotEvenBotheringWithTheAccent: Doyle came from Glasgow, Scotland and Houdini grew up speaking German, though in American. Both the actors playing them put on normal English and American accents, respectively.

* PlaceboEffect: Faith healings turn out to be caused by this, as many people claim is really the case.

* TwoGuysAndAGirl: Houdini & Doyle with Constable Adelaide Stratton.

** [[spoiler: "Spring-Heeled Jack": not all the attacks were perpetrated by a man, with the last shot being of the real thing behind the others.]]

** [[spoiler:During the episode with the faith healer, Houdini suffers from symptoms that get worse every time he denounced God. After the healer looses his faith after learning that his sister had been attacking his hecklers, Houdini collapses and wakes up recovered. Also, Doyle's wife, who had awoken after the faith healer visited (despite Harry's insistence that it was the result of a seemingly failed experimental treatment) falls asleep again]].

* NotMeThisTime: [[spoiler:The reporter who hired the gymnast to scare people and get publicity for his Spring Heeled Jack stories claims that he got the idea after the first death attributed to the demon]].

* MaybeMagicMaybeMundane: Frequently, there's a wrinkle to the Mystery of the Week that isn't easily explained. [[spoiler: "Spring-Heeled Jack" for instance shows that not all the attacks were perpetrated by a man, with the last shot being of the real thing behind the others.]]

* ArtisticLicenseHistory: The series opens in 1901, with Adelaide as a constable in the Metropolitan Police Service (Scotland Yard). Women officers were not admitted to the MPS until 1919. Also Doyle and Houdini never solved crimes together of course.

* MaybeMagicMaybeMundane: Frequently, there's a wrinkle to the Mystery of the Week that isn't easily explained.

* NotEvenBotheringWithTheAccent: Doyle came from Glasgow, Scotland and Harry grew up speaking German, though in American. Both the actors playing them put on normal English and American accents, respectively.

* HistoricalDomainCharacter: There are a few historic people other than the two titular characters that appear in the show.

* LeParkour: Used by Houdini to demonstrate that, yes, a human being ''could'' have made it onto the walled property where the first "Springheel Jack" attack took place.

''Houdini & Doyle'' is a show loosely based on the RealLife strained odd friendship between the two famous historical people. Not to be confused with the [[{{Series/Houdini}} 2014 miniseries on Houdini]], which also features Doyle.

* ArtisticLicenseHistory: The series opens in 1901, with Adelaide as a constable in the Metropolitan Police Service (Scotland Yard). Women officers were not admitted to the MPS until 1919.

* CondensationClue: One appeared in the first episode.
* HistoricalDomainCharacter: There a few historic people other than the two titular characters that appear in the show.

* PsychichSurgery: Houdini fakes this on a man, convincing him he's been "cured" of his stomach pain.

* AgentMulder / AgentScully: Doyle and Houdini, respectively, as they were in real life.

* {{Reincarnation}}: The subject of the second episode where a boy claims to be the reincarnation of a man who was murdered trying to take revenge on the woman who killed him. [[spoiler: It turns out the boy was the man's illegitimate son and the woman was his biological mother who thought he died in childbirth.]]

Creator/HarryHoudini, a skeptical StageMagician EscapeArtist, and Creator/ArthurConanDoyle, a medical doctor[=/=]writer devout spiritualist, come together to solve crimes and determine whether they are done by natural means or the supernatural.

''Houdini & Doyle'' is a show loosely based on the RealLife strained odd friendship between the two famous historical people. Not to be confused with the [[{{Series/Houdini 2014 miniseries on Houdini]], which also features Doyle.