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10[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/MurdochMysteries_9660.jpg]]
11
12->''"Perhaps someday, everybody will be as fascinated with pathologists and police detectives."''
13-->-- '''Detective William Murdoch'''
14
15''Murdoch Mysteries'' is a Canadian detective series set in late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century UsefulNotes/{{Toronto}}, based on a series of novels by Maureen Jennings. The series centers around William Murdoch (Creator/YannickBisson), 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 (Creator/JonnyHarris) and Doctor Julia Ogden (Creator/HeleneJoy), TheCoroner. His boss Inspector Thomas Brackenreid (Creator/ThomasCraig) is usually skeptical of Murdoch's methods but doesn't complain too much, just as long as they catch the criminal in the end.
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17For five seasons, the series was broadcast by Creator/{{Citytv}}. The fifth season was supposed to be the last, however, rival broadcaster Creator/{{CBC}} [[{{Uncancelled}} picked up the series]] in 2011 and has been broadcasting new seasons since; beginning with the sixth in 2012. Between seasons seven and ten, the character of Dr. Emily Grace was included in the main cast. (The two subsequent coroners are {{Recurring Character}}s, even though they recur in most episodes.) A seventeenth season is being aired. Outside of Canada, the series has aired on Ovation TV in the United States, under the title ''[[MarketBasedTitle The Artful Detective]]''.
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19The series was preceded by a trilogy of [[MadeForTVMovie TV movies]] in 2004, which were more direct adaptations of the ''Murdoch Mysteries'' novels. With Creator/PeterOuterbridge as Murdoch, Creator/KeeleyHawes as Dr. Ogden and Creator/ColmMeaney as Inspector Brackenreid. Overall, they were much darker and grittier than the TV series. In 2017, a sequel series called ''Series/FrankieDrakeMysteries'' was launched with another sequel ''Series/MacyMurdoch'' debuting as a CBC Gem original in 2023.
20
21The series now has [[Characters/MurdochMysteries a Character sheet]] and [[Recap/MurdochMysteries Recaps]].
22----
23!!''Murdoch Mysteries'' provides examples of:
24
25[[foldercontrol]]
26
27[[folder:Tropes #–F]]
28* SixIsNine: In "Murdoch and the Tramp", Murdoch deducts early on that the VictimOfTheWeek resulted from the killer mistaking his hotel room, 419, for room 416 because the 9 had rotated. The real target was the resident of room 416, one Creator/CharlieChaplin. [[spoiler:Until he finds later that the murderer missed his target for a different reason.]]
29* AbandonShip: This order is given in "Murdoch Ahoy" when the cruise ship starts sinking.
30* AbortionFalloutDrama: [[spoiler:Dr. Julia Ogden]] reveals that she had an abortion and suffered severe complications, which inspired her friend to become an illegal abortionist-in TheGayNineties in Canada where even contraceptive methods are against the law. She has no regrets, because there was no way she would want to marry her lover, and she wanted to pursue her studies and career. However, it's later revealed that the abortion has seriously compromised her ability to have children. [[spoiler:When she and Murdoch try to have a child later in the series, the damage done makes it very difficult for her to conceive without fertility assistance later, and she ultimately loses the baby once they do.]]
31* AbsurdlyHighStakesGame: In "Stairway to Heaven", a small society meets annually and plays faro for [[spoiler:the chance to die in controlled circumstances and be revived in an effort to learn about the afterlife]]. One of the players extols the pure chance of the game allowing everyone to have the same chance of winning, but it turns out [[spoiler:one of the players cheated with marked cards]].
32* AbusiveParents: Murdoch's father is an abusive alcoholic [[spoiler:(or so Murdoch recalls, his father says that he was never abusive)]]; after his mother's death, Murdoch spent the rest of his childhood in the custody of a Jesuit order.
33* AccidentalMurder: Implied in "An Avoidable Hinder" when [[spoiler:Ben Hawkins is killed by his brother Donald. Ben was drunk and belligerent because Marie Lajeunesse favoured his rival Leo O'Rourke over him, and it's hinted that Donald accidentally killed him in self-defense. Donald and his friend Cyril Philpot then frame Leo O'Rourke.]]
34* AdaptationDistillation: The series differs markedly in several respects from the original Maureen Jennings novels. In the novels, Murdoch tends to solve his cases more through legwork and talking to suspects and witnesses, rarely if ever acting as the ScienceHero he is on the show. On the show, Crabtree is usually the one who does most of the legwork, whereas in the novels he usually only appeared to gather up a jury. On the show, Brackenreid is a good-natured BoisterousBruiser, but in the novels he's a pompous, arrogant {{Jerkass}} who views Murdoch with disdain and is even implied to be somewhat bigoted against the Catholic Murdoch. Oh, and in the novels, Murdoch's father '''was''' abusive, no two ways about it.
35* AfterActionHealingDrama: A frequent occurence. Notable examples include:
36** [[spoiler: John Brackenreid]] in "Darkness Before the Dawn" (both parts!).
37** [[spoiler:William Murdoch]] in "The Murdoch Identity".
38* AfterActionPatchup: Also a frequent occurence. Usually, the one doing the patching up is [[TheMedic Julia Ogden]].
39* AgeGapRomance: Carl Rodriguez and Felicity Dawes fall in love in "Lovers in a Murderous Time" when they're convinced they're the reincarnations of a pair of StarCrossedLovers from several decades ago. [[spoiler:This is implied to be RealAfterAll.]]
40* AgentMulder:
41** George is the first one to suggest that vampires, ghosts, werewolves, Martians, Venusians, or an Egyptian curse might be responsible for the crimes they're investigating.
42** Dr. Grace firmly believes in ghosts and the after-life, and that it's possible to prove it with science.
43* AgentScully: Brackenreid is typically the one to shoot down Crabtree's ridiculous suggestions whenever he thinks the supernatural is involved. He also does this to Murdoch when Murdoch is dealing with a case that has two suspects each confessing to a murder and each convinced they're the reincarnations of two people who died several decades ago. Brackenreid reminds Murdoch that he should ignore all that nonsense, and "follow the money" instead. That turns out to be the key to cracking the case.
44* AgreeToDisagree: Constable George Crabtree frequently responds to Murdoch's attempts to correct his malapropisms this way, such as when he says they have searched the crime scene "stem to sternum." Detective Murdoch corrects him that the expression is "stem to stern", but George insists on his wording and that they will have to agree to disagree.
45* AintNoRule: A recurring storyline in the eighth season is the fight for women's suffrage. When the movement appears to be falling apart, Julia observes that the best way to garner attention to the cause is by ''running for office herself'' after confirming that there's no law on the books that would bar her from doing so.
46* TheAlibi: Murdoch and his colleagues frequently have to cope with these. One suspect, a university physics professor, actually uses the word "alibi" to Murdoch and the detective finds the word choice remarkable (as does the Inspector when he hears of it).
47* AliceAllusion: The season 4 finale "Murdoch in Wonderland" abounds with references and allusions to ''Literature/AlicesAdventuresInWonderland''. The characters go to a costume party to honour the late Creator/LewisCarroll. Detective Murdoch is dressed as the Mad Hatter and Dr. Julia Ogden is Alice. The party guests play croquet, drink "potion" from flasks and together write a non-sense mirror-flipped poem. Murdoch gets [[IntoxicationEnsues drugged]] and has disturbing visions of falling down a hole and being too big to enter a door.
48* AllGaysLoveTheater: The B-plot of "Republic of Murdoch" revolves around this. Theatre buff Inspector Brackenreid proudly anticipates seeing his elder son perform in an amateur theatrical production (bragging to Murdoch about family talent), but afterward he is disturbed that his son portrayed a female character (Lady Bracknell from Creator/OscarWilde's ''Theatre/TheImportanceOfBeingEarnest'', as it happens) and "seemed to embrace the role." He consults Dr. Ogden and asks her to talk to the boy and find out if he is, in Brackenreid's words, "a nancy boy". Young John does meet with her and says he knows what his father is thinking and insists he isn't gay. He soon [[OOCIsSeriousBusiness visits his father at the station]], sporting a black eye and a split lip. Brackenreid learns from John's teacher that he picked the fight with a much-larger boy, and Dr. Ogden suggests John is desperate for the inspector's approval. In the end, Brackenreid has a fatherly chat with his son, reassuring the boy that he can pursue his true interests and still have his parents' love and approval.
49* AlliterativeName:
50** '''H'''enry "'''H'''ieronymus" '''H'''iggins
51** '''F'''iona '''F'''aust
52* AlliterativeFamily: The UpperClassTwit Newsome siblings are named '''R'''oger, '''R'''upert, and '''R'''uth.
53* AlliterativeTitle: '''M'''urdoch '''M'''ysteries''
54* AllPartOfTheShow:
55** The production of ''Theatre/LaBoheme'' in "Murdoch at the Opera". [[spoiler:Knowing that she will be arrested for murder after the performance, Rosa Hamilton 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 singers only realise she has died after the curtains have fallen.]]
56** Inspector Brackenreid also notes that most of the audience thought this was the case when a corpse fell down on the stage during a production of ''Theatre/{{Macbeth}}'' in "Body Double".
57* AloneAmongTheCouples: In the season five finale, Detective Murdoch and Constable Crabtree appear to be the only ones without a partner for a New Year's Eve policemen's ball. Constable Higgins gets a date and Inspector Brackenreid spends the evening with his wife. William Murdoch is alone as his star-crossed lover is married, and George Crabtree asked Doctor Grace out, but she had other plans. They consider not going at all, but they decide to mark a new century with a celebration. Subverted as both beautiful doctors Emily Grace and Julia Ogden make an appearance.
58* AlwaysMurder: The crime in most episodes is murder, often predictably at the beginning.
59* AmbiguouslyGay:
60** Mr. Carducci in "This One Goes to Eleven" is a dandy and has many flamboyant mannerisms, of note, James Pendrick comments that Carducci "...takes an interest in young, male painters".
61** After the bombing at the start of "War on Terror", Constable Crabtree and Dr. Grace are canvassing the neighbourhood shops when the doctor tries on a hat at a milliner's establishment. The fastidious milliner scolds her sharply for even touching the merchandise, then immediately turns to fawn over the constable, encouraging him to try on a hat and urging the reluctant Crabtree to come to his new shop's opening gala moving sale. As they're walking away, Emily observes that George's forceful manner was more successful at getting the man to give them information than anything she could do. Later, Emily slyly says the shopkeeper would be disappointed to know George is attracted to women.
62** James Pendrick is more like "ambiguously bisexual", but he fits this trope regardless. Pendrick is [[PrimaDonnaDirector dramatic and effeminate]], has various eccentric costumes, and asks Murdoch in "F.L.A.S.H", [[spoiler:upon finding out his assistant was in love with him,]] if it's possible for a man to change who they truly are while staring longingly at his assistant.
63* AmoralAttorney:
64** The Crown Prosecutor in "Hangman", who does everything to make sure the defendant gets hanged, even the obviously innocent ones. Once a judge suspects his methods, [[spoiler:he confronts the judge, kills him, and frames a known criminal for it]].
65** Leslie Garland in the two-part "On the Waterfront" has passed his bar exam and is working for one of the Crown Prosecutors -- specifically the one handling the charges against Drs. Ogden and Grace and the other suffragettes arrested at the protest march. Garland offers to have a word with his new boss in the doctors' favor, but both of them refuse his help. He later ensures Dr. Grace's charges aren't dropped immediately [[spoiler:no doubt because she threw him over after she learned he'd posed as the infamous James Gillies and threatened the lives of Julia and William]], and he gloats over her incarceration. Julia and her attorney present the Prosecutor with evidence of [[spoiler:his terror campaign]], and Garland is fired. He drops by Julia's office and gets a surprise of his own: [[spoiler:a fearsome William Murdoch who promises to take off his badge and settle their differences if Garland bothers Julia again]].
66* AnachronismStew: The story seems to be set in a "greatest-hits of Late Victorian/Edwardian Era" world. Season 1 is explicitly set in 1895, with each subsequent season moving the calendar along one year.
67* AngryGuardDog: Murdoch is attacked by one while investigating the ratting barn in "Let Loose the Dogs".
68* AnimalAssassin: In "Evil Eye of Egypt", a cobra placed in a sarcophagus bites the first person opening it.
69* AnnoyingYoungerSibling:
70** Julia's younger sister, IntrepidReporter Ruby, who irritates her older sister by flirting with Murdoch.
71** It emerges in Season 2 finale that Murdoch has a half-brother, Jasper, who is initially deeply annoying to Murdoch, but only because he's the only one who can't see how similar the two are.
72** One could argue that Detective Watts fits this trope, [[spoiler: given that his sister, Clarissa, abandoned him because she didn't like taking care of him.]] His behaviours with his sister in "Hades Hath No Fury" further cements this (although they annoy ''each other'').
73* Area51: After Murdoch and Company stumble into a US/UK secret airship research facility in the middle of Ontario (on "Concession 51", no less!), the station house four team end the episode discussing where they would choose to hide such a facility. Murdoch suggests the deserts of the territory of New Mexico, to Julia's approval; Brackenreid, meanwhile, scoffs and suggests [[AliensInCardiff Wales]] instead.
74* AristocratsAreEvil: When King George V takes the British throne, he plans to reform Britain's hereditary peerage system. [[spoiler:Some of the nobles are so angry at this that they form an organization called the Black Chalice to try and commit regicide.]]
75* ArmorPiercingQuestion: In the third episode of the series, Murdoch gets the killer to confess by gently noting, as the victim was a trained boxer and capable fighter, if things got heated, self-defense would be permitted. The killer understands and writes out a full confession, intent on claiming self-defense as his justification. Inspector Brackenreid is frustrated by this, but then Murdoch reminds the inspector of the [[spoiler:light-loaded bullets used in the gun, which have to be specially tampered with to make a more muffled sound but still deadly up close]]. Having these clearly shows premeditation and not a necessity to kill on the spot. Murdoch is sure to make this clear to the prosecutor, so he could use it against the killer's defense.
76* ArtisticLicenseEngineering: In "Murdoch and the Undetectable Man", [[spoiler:Tesla claims the Undetectable Man can't be invisible, because the camera isn't picking up his ''infra-red radiation''. This is one of the first video cameras made, and infra-red versions won't be made until 1929, ''13 years'' after the case]].
77* AssholeVictim: Quite a few of the victims were cruel, mean, abusive, or otherwise disturbed individuals who [[SympatheticMurderer made life hell for their killer, or whoever the killer was protecting]]. Even Brackenreid has noted on occasion that they deserved it, and the Constabulary usually makes an effort to ensure this is considered at trial.
78* AutopsySnackTime:
79** In "Murdoch Air", Crabtree is devouring a hot hamburger in a morgue, and Dr. Grace is horrified that he is eating hot meat with bread. Later in the episode, she's enjoying a hamburger, too, while presenting a body and post-mortem results to Murdoch -- who curls his nose at the idea of a hamburger.
80** In "Victoria Cross", Crabtree is eating a hard boiled egg while watching Dr. Grace working on a corpse when she removes [[spoiler:a prosthetic glass eye]] from the corpse's stomach. It makes for a striking visual.
81** In "Loch Ness Murdoch", there is a heat wave in Toronto, and George Crabtree eats a piece of ice in the morgue. He stops for a moment and has Dr. Grace assure him that it was fresh. He then continues and crunches it. Later in the same episode, George and Emily enjoy a new summer treat in the morgue: delicious flavored ice balls in cups.
82* AwesomeButImpractical: James Pendrick's '''F'''rictionless '''L'''evitated '''A'''ccelerated '''S'''ubsurface '''H'''ypertrain, or F.L.A.S.H. The FLASH is a train that uses electromagnetism to move far faster than any vehicle driven by steam, coal or gasoline, with Pendrick anticipating that it could take people across the ocean in an hour. Unfortunately, Pendrick's testing eventually reveals that the FLASH derails when it tries to go over a certain speed. It could still conceivably cross the ocean, but it'd take much longer than Pendrick expected. No one would want to be cramped in the FLASH's small cars for that long.
83* BabyTrap: The killer in "Loch Ness Murdoch" was a man who [[spoiler:killed his fiancée because she lied to him about being pregnant. Said fiancée also drove his one true love to suicide by gloating about having seduced him.]]
84* BackForTheDead:
85** [[spoiler:James Gillies]] returns in "The Enemy Within" [[spoiler:and is hanged at the episode's end]].
86** [[spoiler:Sally Pendrick]] returns in "Staring Blindly into the Future" [[spoiler:and dies from a laser beam fired through her head]].
87* BadassNative: The killer in "Werewolves" not only survives being shot by the white hunters he was guiding (and which motivated his RoaringRampageOfRevenge) but when he goes after one of his targets he also successfully kills the target's guard dogs.
88* TheBadGuyWins:
89** Episode "Belly Speaker", [[spoiler: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 {{sympathetic|Murderer}}.]]
90** The episode "Werewolves". [[spoiler:Although Murdoch and company prevent the killer from killing the last AssholeVictim he targeted in his RoaringRampageOfRevenge, the killer's actions also led to the surviving victim being arrested by the Toronto police for his own crimes.]]
91** Subverted in [[spoiler:"Last Train to Kingston". Although James Gillies manages to outsmart Murdoch and company and escape, he apparently gets himself killed by jumping off a railway bridge into a shallow river. Played straight again when it turns out he faked his death and lived on another few years, finally meeting his end in Season 10's "The Devil Inside".]]
92** In "Sir. Sir? Sir!!!", [[spoiler:the entire cast (and presumably, soon to be the whole world) is taken over by aliens, and it's ''not'' a dream. But given that everyone is fine in the next episode it's also a clear case of NegativeContinuity or a What-If AlternateUniverse HalloweenEpisode.]]
93** In "Journey to the Center of Toronto", by the time Murdoch figures out that the thief stole diamonds to improve his digging machine to dig through any surface and his identity, he manages to use the machine to get away.
94* BaseballEpisode: Station House 4 prepares for a baseball match with another station house in the two-parter "Stroll on the Wild Side". Brackenreid and his counterpart share a long-lasting rivalry (they make a bet on the outcome), and Inspector Brackenreid is so determined to win this year he drafts Crabtree to secretly film the rivals' practice session. Later, Crabtree examines stills from the film trying to fathom the drop of the pitcher's spitball. Murdoch reads a book about the game, and uses science to help Crabtree find out how to hit the spitball. George tries to show Higgins how to throw a pitch and accidentally breaks a window in the office, prompting Brackenreid to reassign George as the pitcher. This episode also marks the first appearance of Constable Jackson, for whom Brackenreid arranges a transfer to Station House 4 entirely because he's a big, burly power hitter. All the officers and constables look dashing in their baseball shirts and caps.
95* BatmanGambit: In the Season 2 finale, while Murdoch goes to British Columbia in pursuit of the Killer of the Week, Brackenreid targets the {{Corrupt Corporate Executive}}s who hired him. Brackenreid visits one of them on the pretext of updating him on the case, saying that they're closing in on the murderer, who's nicknamed [[MakeItLookLikeAnAccident "Accidental Al"]]. The inspector mentions in passing that Al has a nasty habit of turning on his employers when things start heating up, and then leaves. This spooks the executive enough that he calls one of his cronies to discuss the case... not realizing that Crabtree has tapped his phone line and is listening to their conversation.
96* BeachEpisode: "Loch Ness Murdoch" starts with Dr. Ogden and Inspector Brackenreid at the beach during a heatwave, with other characters joining them later.
97* TheBeard: This appears a few times in the series due to laws against homosexuality in the period:
98** In "'Til Death Do Us Part", the murder victim has a best friend who is gay and yet got married for social reasons. His wife proves to be aware of his feelings but also says he has treated her well by giving her a secure home and a child. The victim himself was also getting married to satisfy family members and [[OnOneCondition inherit half the family business]].
99** In "Monsieur Murdoch", the hotel owner and brother-in-law of the missing woman turns out to have married for this reason. His wife tells Murdoch and his French counterpart that she knew what she was getting into when they married.
100** The husband of the victim in "Murdochophobia" admits that both he and his wife were gay and had a mutually beneficial arrangement in their sexless marriage. He says he was also fond of his wife and had no desire to lose his social cover, so he had no reason to want her dead.
101** Clara Cartwright is this to [[spoiler:Jack Walker in the later half of season 14.]]
102* BeastlyBloodsports: In "Let Loose the Dogs", Murdoch investigates a murder that centres around a ratting contest. The victim turns out to have been doping the dogs.
103* BetaCouple: Generally, George and whoever his latest sweetheart happens to be.
104* BigBad:
105** [[spoiler:Sally Pendrick]] in season 3 [[spoiler:and briefly in season 13]]. It becomes clear in the season's finale who was responsible for several high-profile crimes.
106** [[spoiler:James Gillies]] in Seasons 5 and 6. A creepy sociopath who escaped the noose several times. He committed his first murder just because he could and ForTheEvulz, and it has become a challenge for him to measure his abilities with Detective Murdoch. He actually says to Murdoch, "I don't like to be bested."
107** [[spoiler:Eva Pearce]] from seasons 6 to 9. This [[TheVamp seductress]] is obsessed with Detective Murdoch, and uses her looks, mixed with cleverness, to evade capture for quite a while.
108** [[spoiler:Allen Clegg]], appearing as a recurring villain from season 4 to 14, as an antagonist for Station House 4 and, more notably, [[spoiler: James Pendrick and Terrence Meyers.]]
109* TheBigBoard: So many chalkboards:
110** Detective Murdoch has a big blackboard in his office in Station House Four. He uses it for collecting leads, visualizing crime scenes, or explaining his ideas of new forensic methods. He sometimes sticks there photos of victims, reports of related older crimes, newspaper articles and so on. In some cases when he's away from his office (Anna Fulford's pub in Bristol in "The Murdoch Identity", the train bar car in "Midnight Train to Kingston", the local inn in "All That Glitters"), he borrows a chalkboard for this purpose.
111** A chalkboard also makes an occasional appearance at the city morgue. Sometimes it has drawings and notes from an unrelated case, but Dr. Grace uses it to show her work with blood typing in "Tour de Murdoch".
112** In the B-plot of "The death of Dr. Ogden", Brackenreid and Crabtree are investigating a murder at a private club of "puzzlers" and Crabtree suggests making a chart and using Murdoch's chalkboard. Brackenreid tells Crabtree to get a chalkboard for him. Later, Brackenreid gets frustrated and pushes over the board, which in turn breaks his bottle of scotch. Even so, Brackenreid's ImagineSpot that breaks the case shows him back at that board erasing one line of the chart that so frustrated him earlier.
113** George Crabtree's ultimate wedding present to Murdoch is a small chalkboard for his home, seen in William and Julia's suite at the Windsor Hotel.
114* BigDamnKiss:
115** Julia and William kiss passionately in "Twentieth Century Murdoch", the season 5 finale.
116** George dares to kiss Emily in "Murdoch and the Cloud of Doom" when there is a possibility they will all die due to a terrorist's gas attack.
117** Emily passionately kisses [[spoiler:Lillian Moss]] in "Toronto's Girl Problem".
118* BingeMontage: George's role in one investigation is to get drunk with locals so that they can steal from him a part of a treasure map and reveal themselves. George drinks, dances, sings and is forced to kiss a fish. Good times.
119* BitchInSheepsClothing:
120** Violet Hart. While she's shown signs that she's not what she appears to be before, it isn't until "Free Falling" that [[spoiler:she's ultimately out to steal Julia's job and also do whatever (or whoever) is necessary to advance her own career. She undergoes a HeelFaceTurn later on though after getting in too far over her head and buries the hatchet with Murdoch, Dr. Ogden and Brackenreid and vice-versa.]]
121** Detective Edwards in Season 13. He originally behaves kindly towards Detective Watts, but quickly does an Instant180DegreeTurn when he learns that [[spoiler:Watts is seeing another man, the known homosexual Jack Walker.]]
122* BitterAlmonds:
123** In "I, Murdoch", Dr Ogden identifies that the BodyOfTheWeek has been killed with prussic acid because of the scent of bitter almonds.
124** In "Murdoch at the Opera", Dr. Grace describes smelling the aroma of bitter almonds coming from the corpse of the young opera singer. Later, after [[spoiler:the culprit prima donna takes poison and dies onstage]], Crabtree brings out a wine glass he found and Murdoch himself sniffs it and says, "Cyanide."
125** "Painted Ladies": The first murder victim is found in a swan boat. Dr. Ogden detects the smell of bitter almonds, and suggests it was possibly death by cyanide.
126* BittersweetEnding: In "An Avoidable Hinder", Leo O'Rourke spent 30 years in jail for murder and wants Murdoch to ClearTheirName. [[spoiler:Unfortunately, the crime happening 30 years ago means there simply isn't the evidence to exonerate O'Rourke. On the other hand, Murdoch catches Cyril Philpot, one of the men who originally framed O'Rourke, for shooting him in the present day. Marie Lajeunesse, the woman who O'Rourke fought over with the original victim, divorces her husband, the victim's brother, for murdering him and takes up with O'Rourke.]]
127* BlackComedy: Several characters employ dark humour [[DeathAsComedy to deal with the frequent deaths]] and other sad circumstances they encounter, including:
128** Dr. Ogden makes jokes on occasion, including holding up a skull she's been boiling and quoting [[Creator/WilliamShakespeare Shakespeare's Hamlet]]: "Alas, poor Yorick. I knew him, Horatio!" In "Hangman", she addresses the exhumed corpse of a judge, cracking wise that "a month in the ground hasn't done your health any good."
129** Dr. Grace is also very prone to this. On being presented with a headless corpse in "Murdoch in Toyland", she quips about it being a former resident of Sleepy Hollow, "Ichabod Crane, perhaps." When she and Murdoch are investigating a vibrating electrical chair in which a man died, she sits in it as Murdoch is trying the controls; her reaction [[StraightMan (and his)]] are very much PlayedForLaughs.
130** Constable Crabtree, speaking of a new grave a convent of nuns planned to use for one of their members, jokes about the fact that her place had been already taken by [[VictimOfTheWeek the murder victim of the week]].
131** Murdoch flirts with this once in "The Black Hand" when Constable Higgins describes how the tram car murder victim was seen conversing with another man who exited the car before it left the station. Higgins says the second man may have been "just seeing him on his way," and Murdoch remarks on the turn of phrase. [[StraightMan Higgins stares at Murdoch blankly.]]
132* {{Blackface}}: "Murdoch Schmurdoch" plays with this courtesy of a young Al Jolson getting into makeup for his first try at the routine (discreetly cut short before he finished).
133* BlindedByTheLight: In "Convalescence", a weakened Murdoch turns the tables on his attacker by slipping his experimental night-vision goggles on her head. Designed to work in near darkness, they amplify the normal light in the room to the point where she is blinded.
134* BloodFromEveryOrifice: One young woman's body is found ditched in a river and it appears that her blood has been drained. [[spoiler:The team finds out that she was pregnant and tried to induce a miscarriage by drinking pennyroyal oil, an insecticide.]] She suffered bleeding severely from her eyes, ears, nose, mouth, and other parts... She died an agonizing death.
135* BoisterousBruiser:
136** Creator/ArthurConanDoyle gets into punch-ups with several bar patrons in "Belly Speaker", until Murdoch hauls him out of the bar and puts him into a cell to sober up.
137** Brackenreid is another example. He and Creator/ArthurConanDoyle give a demonstration of fisticuffs in a bar (to the applause of the other patrons), and he sometimes [[JackBauerInterrogationTechnique uses his fists to get information from suspects]].
138* BoltOfDivineRetribution: Late in "Murdoch and the Temple of Doom", Dr. Iris Bajjali steals the Holy Grail from Station 4 and runs into the driving thunderstorm, pursued by Murdoch. He calls out to her to stop her, and she explains how she can fund her research with the sale of the much sought-after Grail. He tells her it belongs to God, she shouts back, "There is no God," and is struck and killed by a lightning bolt.
139* BombThrowingAnarchists: {{Double Subverted}} when Murdoch investigates the bombing of a clothing store that seriously injures Crabtree and Higgins. At first it seems like a group of anarchists that are hosting firebrand Emma Goldman are responsible, and then a Marxist activist tries to take credit for the bombing. However, [[spoiler:Crabtree eventually finds that the owner of the building the clothing store was in bombed his own building to try and drive out his tenant, the owner of the clothing store, so he could sell the property to a large company. Later in the episode, a second bombing occurs, and this time one of the anarchists ''is'' responsible.]]
140* BondOneLiner: In "Rawhide Ralph" Murdoch gets challenged to a High Noon duel by a cowboy while trying to rescue Julia and Harry. He lets the cowboy count to two before drawing and shooting him in the arm. When the cowboy complains that he cheated, Murdoch dryly replies "You never said we were counting to three"
141* BookEnds:
142** "Hangman" opens with an execution scene in a prison, with Murdoch, another detective and the crown prosecutor among the witnesses. Near the end, the scene returns to the same room, with [[spoiler:the crown prosecutor]] being hanged.
143** At the start of the season 5 premiere "Murdoch of the Klondike", Murdoch tosses his police badge into a creek to symbolize how alienated he is from his old life. However, after saving his landlady from the noose and catching a murderer, Murdoch decides to return to Toronto. His decision is symbolized by Creator/JackLondon giving him back his badge, which Jack had fished out of the creek.
144** Early in "The Murdoch Sting", Brackenreid is refilling his office scotch decanter and waves the bottle under Murdoch's nose, praising the aroma and asking if Murdoch finds it appealing. Murdoch replies that he hasn't had a drink in years and doesn't intend to start now. Near the end of the episode, Murdoch goes to the same decanter, pours two glasses and actually drinks his fairly quickly, [[LiquidCourage having decided to propose to Dr. Ogden]].
145* BoomerangBigot: [[spoiler:Constable Lester Jope in the episode "Bloodlines" is a virulent racist and white supremacist, like his superior and colleagues at the Niagara Station House. However, he also has a black grandmother, which by the "one-drop" rule makes him black himself. This was the reason he murdered the episode's victim, another white supremacist, who had found out the truth and threatened to expose him to the rest of their group.]]
146* BootCampEpisode: The B-plot of the episode "Murdoch Air" involves the veteran Inspector Brackenreid re-enlisting to fight against the Boers in South Africa. After [[FeelingTheirAge a rather rocky start]], his experience and leadership skills (mentoring a younger fellow recruit on how to use a bayonet) prompt the drill instructor to offer to falsify his age on his enlistment papers. Brackenreid negotiates for a full decade deduction on the records, but later changes his mind after his wife insists he be the one to explain his decision to their two young sons.
147* BornInAnElevator: [[spoiler:When Murdoch and Julia are on their way to Muskoka for a vacation, their wagon breaks down in the middle of nowhere. The driver has a nearby cabin where he lets them stay while he gets help. Julia goes into labour while she and Murdoch are waiting, and their daughter is born in the cabin.]]
148* BottleEpisode: The episode "Murdoch on the Couch" takes place almost entirely within the station house. UsefulNotes/SigmundFreud, UsefulNotes/CarlJung and some of their colleagues are brought in after a brawl at their restaurant, and Freud is stalked by death threats. The attempted murderer [[spoiler:has also come into the station house with ObfuscatingInsanity as part of his attempts to get at Freud.]]
149* BoundAndGagged: In "Convalescence", Mrs. Kitchen is kept bound and gagged while the criminals search her house for the missing loot.
150* TheBoxingEpisode: In "The Knockdown", Murdoch investigates the murder of a black prizefighter on the night he defeated a local white boxer.
151* BrainwashedAndCrazy: In "Murdoch of the Living Dead", several [[spoiler:men whose brains have been damaged by Dr. Luther Bates's experiments]] run amuck in the streets of Toronto, causing property damage and threatening innocent bystanders. The Constabulary subdues them all with fishing and dogcatching equipment.
152* BrandishmentBluff: In "Close Encounters", Watts apprehends the sniper with nothing but a pretzel...
153* BreakUpMakeUpScenario:
154** William and Julia go through one or two before they finally get together for good.
155** George begins courting Nina Bloom, a dancer at the local burlesque house, and they begin a budding relationship. However when she mistakenly believes George is growing interested in Louise Cherry, she decides to break things off [[IJustWantMyBelovedToBeHappy so he can pursue a relationship with a respectable woman.]] However in season 10, George comes to realize that it was really Nina he loved, and after breaking things off with Louise in "Hell to Pay", he seeks out Nina. This doesn't work out in the end.
156* BriarPatching: In "Marked Twain", Higgins pulls rank on a recently demoted Crabtree by instructing him to interview a suspect who lives ten miles out of town. Crabtree consoles himself by suggesting he can get a look at an attractive woman who lives nearby, which inspires Higgins to pull rank again and conduct the interview himself. Visiting HistoricalDomainCharacter Creator/MarkTwain registers his approval.
157* BrickJoke:
158** One that landed across ''series'': ''Series/FrankieDrakeMysteries'' reveals that all of George's investments, which were scoffed at by the likes of Murdoch and ''especially'' Brackenreid, have made George a very wealthy man, and allowed him to retire from the constabulary.
159** The "potato cooking room" ends up being one of its own. George thinks it up when he sees Tesla's death ray in "[[Recap/MurdochMysteriesS3E13TheTeslaEffect The Tesla Effect]]" in Season 3, and apparently badgers Frank Lloyd Wright into putting one in the Murdochs' home, ''nine seasons later''.
160* BrokenPedestal: Often for poor Inspector Brackenreid. High talent has a knack for making a monster out of the [[LargeHam divas]] that the inspector so admires, first in [[spoiler:"Body Double"]] with Stella then in [[spoiler:"Murdoch at the Opera"]] with Rosa, both of whom have committed murder.
161* BuriedAlive: [[spoiler:Julia, in "Murdoch in Toyland". Murdoch manages to rescue her in time.]]
162* BuryYourGays:
163** The entire plot of "Till Death Do Us Part".
164** [[spoiler:In Season 8, Lillian Moss is added as a female love interest for Dr. Emily Grace. Early in Season 9, Lillian is murdered - days before she and Dr. Grace were supposed to leave for London. It is revealed that she had an earlier relationship with a married woman, and was killed by the woman's husband.]]
165* TheBusCameBack: PutOnABus after the events of Season 8's "What Lies Buried", [[spoiler:former]] Chief Constable Giles returns in the Season 9 premiere "Nolo Contendre" [[spoiler:in prison for covering up a death and being homosexual]] and again in Season 13's "Rigid Silence" [[spoiler:still in prison, but now in Kingston and a frequent target of homophobic attacks]]. Constable Hodge returns in the Season 11 premiere "Up from the Ashes" as the owner of a bar.
166* BusmansHoliday:
167** Detective William Murdoch and his wife Julia apparently cannot have a moment of peace. During their honeymoon in New York, they unveil a conspiracy ("Murdoch Takes Manhattan"). Their camping trips in both "Brackenreid Boudoir" and "Murder Checks In" are interrupted by finding murder victims.
168** And Inspector Brackenreid going fishing with his sons just ends up with pulling a cadaver from the river ("Murdoch and the Temple of Death").
169* TheButlerDidIt: Played with in the episode "Downstairs, Upstairs". The butler proves to have an alibi for the murder of his employer, but [[spoiler:he knows who did it and suffocated his late employer's mother to keep her from revealing that information]].
170* ByTheBookCop: Various officers take this role:
171** Murdoch himself is very devoted to following evidence and doing a thorough job of investigating. Inspector Brackenreid will occasionally criticize him for this, saying things like, "I know you have only two speeds, Murdoch: slow and dead slow." For his part, Murdoch will sometimes express objections or discomfort with [[JackBauerInterrogationTechnique Brackenreid's propensity to use his fists to get information]], though [[FairForItsDay such hands-on methods were commonly accepted at the time]].
172** Brackenreid himself will take a stand on regulations and the law when one of Murdoch's new-fangled methods seems to push the limit, or when Murdoch is taking a long time to do his job. He'll mention ''habeas corpus'' if someone is in custody too long without a charge.
173** Percival Giles, particularly when interacting with Murdoch and Brackenreid. After [[spoiler:the escape of Ava Moon]], he is routinely critical of Murdoch and Brackenreid's methods. When they go to another jurisdiction and remove a corpse back to Toronto, he insists they return the body to the other department and write letters of apology to the other cops and coroner.
174** Detective Watts is shown to care very deeply about the moral guidelines of his job in both the main show and miniseries ''The Book of Jackson''.
175--> '''Murdoch:''' You seek justice.\
176'''Watts:''' I crave it. If I could, I would demand it.
177** Detective Edwards of Station House 1, [[spoiler:much to the detriment of Detective Watts and Jack Walker]].
178* CallBack:
179** The rabbi seen watching over the victim's body in Season 11's "Murdoch Schmurdoch" is the same one who appears Season 2's "Let Us Ask the Maiden".
180** Not within the show, but within ''Series/FrankieDrakeMysteries'', which exists in [[TheVerse the same universe]]. George Crabtree appears in a first-season episode set in the early 1920s, where it's revealed that [[spoiler:the investments he made in "Who Killed the Electric Carriage?" have made him wealthy enough to retire from the police force while still very young.]]
181** Various inventions and other props recieve uses for an episode or two before vanishing from the show, and some of the more important ones get brought back for callbacks (like the lie detector and pelican statue).
182* TheCameo:
183** By Stephen Harper, at the time of shooting the ''Prime Minister of Canada''. He often cited ''Murdoch Mysteries'' as his favourite series.
184** Another political cameo came in the form of David Onley, Lieutenant Governor of Ontario. Appropriately, he played Oliver Mowat, then Lieutenant Governor of Ontario in "Ghosts of Queen's Park".
185** CBC comedian and radio personality Ali Hassan plays an on-brand role: comedian and host Obie Stratford.
186** Canadian ''Series/DragonsDen'' investor Arlene Dickenson appears in "Invention Convention" as a would-be investor Crabtree tries to get interested in Murdoch's inventions.
187** [[Music/RushBand Geddy Lee]] appears in the episode "Devil Music" playing a character aptly named Tom Sawyer.
188** Olympic champion Andre De Grasse appears in "Dash to Death", the second Olympics episode, as a shopkeeper who chased down a thief. When Brakenreid suggests he should compete, he says that racing people who can do 100m in 11 seconds isn't enough of a challenge, and to call him when they get it down to 10.
189** Astronaut Chris Hadfield appears in "Murdoch at the End of the World" as a rocket engineer who decries the hysteria over Halley's Comet. Then he mentions being in orbit and Crabtree decides he's just another comet crank.
190* CampfireCharacterExploration: In "Murdoch of the Klondike", Murdoch has left behind his job as a Toronto police detective [[spoiler:having released a murderess who was wronged by the justice system years earlier, in part due to his scrupulous honesty and is prospecting in the Klondike.]] During the long summer night, he's sitting at a campfire with another prospector who comments on the hour (it's about one o'clock in the morning), and they have this exchange:
191-->'''Prospector:''' What do you think, mister? What do you think's worse, endless day or neverending night?\
192'''Murdoch:''' It would depend on your state of mind, I suppose. The day can consume your thoughts. The night, your thoughts consume you.
193* CampingEpisode:
194** "Murdoch of the Klondike" begins this way. Murdoch has left Toronto [[spoiler:after releasing murder Ava Moon from jail]] having given up his urban police career to pan for gold. His appearance and even speech patterns are more those of a scruffy cowboy than an articulate urban man. He camps near his claim and goes to town with the other miners, where he learns of the arrest of a hotel owner for murder.
195** The investigation in "All That Glitters" leads to one of these, with Murdoch easily returning to his lumberjack and miner garb (to Crabtree's astonishment), while Crabtree is the urban FishOutOfWater, bringing his own pillow from home and overreacting to the sounds of wildlife in the night.
196** Murdoch and Meyers go on a hunting trip with Teddy Roosevelt in Season 11's "The Great White Moose".
197** Julia and Murdoch go on a camping trip to a lodge in "Murder Checks In".
198* CannotSpitItOut: It's pretty clear to anyone that Murdoch likes Dr. Ogden, but he cannot get himself to say it. When he tries to propose to her late in "The Murdoch Sting", he still has this problem [[LiquidCourage (despite having had a fortifying drink of Brackenreid's scotch beforehand)]]; he stops himself and starts again when he tries to ask the question before [[InterruptedDeclarationOfLove Julia stops him and flees into her house]].
199* CarpetRolledCorpse: The VictimOfTheWeek in "Elementary, My Dear Murdoch" is carried out of the Toronto Paranormal Society rolled up in a rug.
200* CareerEndingInjury: In "Hot Wheels of Thunder", prior to the roller races, a CripplingTheCompetition assault on Miss Palmer ends her skating career.
201* CatchPhrase:
202** When asking Constable Crabtree for an update on his inquiries, Det. Murdoch says, "What have you, George?" or "George, what have you?"
203** Brackenreid shouts "Bloody hell, Murdoch!" whenever Murdoch does something he can't comprehend. He also calls Murdoch "me old mucker" at least OncePerEpisode, and calls Constable Crabtree "bugalugs". And while he has "many aphorisms", his motto is, "[[Film/AllThePresidentsMen Follow the money]]", a motto repeated by Watts.
204** Agent Myers has "I can't tell you that; it's top secret." Also, he invokes "national security" so often that Murdoch comes to anticipate him and says it first.
205** James Gillies, with all the charm he can muster: "I'm flattered."
206* CharacterNameAlias: In "Marked Twain", while investigating an attempt on the life of Creator/MarkTwain, Crabtree goes undercover as bartender at the Empire Club using the alias Samuel Clemens. Samuel Clemens is, of course, Mark Twain's real name, but none the club members seem to notice, indicating they were not fans of Twain.
207* TheChase: Demonstrated with all the BigBad antagonists, but especially [[spoiler:James Gillies.]]
208* ChekhovsGun:
209** DoubleSubverted in the episode "The Kissing Bandit", wherein Murdoch tries to catch the title character by installing an exploding dye pack in with the money the bank will give the Bandit. It fails to catch the Bandit [[spoiler:because the Bandit is actually reporter Paddy Glynn, who saw Murdoch explain the plan]], but it ''does'' help identify the CostumeCopycat who murders an innocent woman.
210** Played straight in another episode, when an apprentice hangman shows Murdoch and Dr. Ogden the physics of hanging. If the rope's not measured and tied correctly, the person being hanged can either end up being slowly strangled, or end up being ''completely decapitated''. Guess which one applies to the murderer of the week when he goes to the gallows. (Note that [[spoiler:he was hanged by said apprentice (for the murder of a judge) and he had implicated the hangman's boss in that crime, which strongly suggests the new hangman did it on purpose.]])
211* ChekhovsGunman:
212** A few times, since in at least two episodes there have been brief mentions of escaped convicts that usually don't have anything to do with the case, only for the criminals to show up near the end.
213** More often than not, the inconspicuous witness is the murderer. Murdoch tends to arrive on the scene of the crime to find nothing but a body and a dozen people with something to hide. Naturally, he points the finger at the closest Angry Guy with a Grudge only to find that the real murderer is the [[spoiler:whimsical old lady]], [[spoiler:the guy in the wheelchair]], or the [[spoiler:uppity university snob with an extreme interest in applied physics]].
214** Militant Irish dockworker Mick O'Shea is suspected of murder and viciously beaten by Brackenreid in the interrogation room. When he and several of his mates are arrested for causing a riot several episodes later, they [[spoiler:ambush Brackenreid and beat him to within an inch of his life.]] They are also shown to be [[spoiler:running a sex-trafficking ring in addition to extorting merchants in the harbour.]]
215* ChekhovsSkill: At the start of "Mild Mild West", Murdoch demonstrates that he knows how to use a lasso at a carnival game. Later he uses a lasso to capture a fleeing suspect.
216* ChronicBackstabbingDisorder: In "Back and to the Left", Murdoch doesn't have much evidence on the criminal cabal that framed the Irish Catholic community for a prominent alderman's murder. He eventually convinces one member of the cabal to sell the others out in exchange for an immunity deal. [[spoiler:Murdoch correctly realizes that Sean Gallagher, the Irish Catholic businessman who was willing to betray his community to line his pockets as part of the cabal's corruption, would be willing to also betray his fellow conspirators to save his neck.]]
217* DaChief:
218** Inspector Brackenreid to Murdoch and the rest of Station House 4.
219** Brackenreid's superior, Chief Constable Stockton. Since Murdoch is very much a ByTheBookCop, Stockton tends to exert pressure on him and on Brackenreid to make a quick arrest or back off of [=VIPs=], never mind the evidence.
220** Stockton's successor, Chief Constable Giles. Like his predecessor Stockton, he tends to show up when Murdoch is investigating important cases, usually warning Brackenreid and Murdoch to be discreet and not stir up too much trouble. And he hasn't forgotten Murdoch's role in [[spoiler:Ava Moon's escape from jail]] and implies that any further slip-ups will cost him his badge.
221* ChristmasEpisode: "A Merry Murdoch Christmas", "Once Upon a Murdoch Christmas"
222* CircusEpisode:
223** "Blood and Circuses", in which a traveling circus has a tiger get loose in the town and is found to have partially eaten the trainer. Of course, things aren't as straightforward as that...
224** "Mild, Mild West" debatably ''also'' falls under this.
225* ClearTheirName: A couple of examples:
226** Murdoch's landlady is accused of murder in "Murdoch of the Klondike", and Murdoch has to prove her innocence.
227** "The Murdoch Trap" centers around Murdoch, Brackenreid and Crabtree trying to prove [[spoiler:Dr. Ogden's innocence when she's framed for Darcy Garland's murder.]]
228** Season 10 ends with [[spoiler:Murdoch in jail for murder and having to clear his own name amid corrupt police officials]].
229* ClosedCircle:
230** "Stairway to Heaven" is set at a lodge on an island [[HostileWeather during a heavy thunderstorm]]. Detective Murdoch arrives soaking wet and tells everyone there that the ferry to the mainland won't operate again until the storm lets up, so he and Dr. Grace have to work the murder case entirely onsite.
231** "Friday the 13th 1901" starts as a "hen party" (a batchelorette party) on an island over a weekend. The boatman isn't scheduled to return for several days, the only boat on the island is found to have a gaping hole in it, and the period setting means there's no communications technology. Thus Drs Ogden and Grace have to take the lead in solving the problem of the ax-wielding killer.
232* CluelessDetective: While Station House 4's detectives are highly skilled, other station's teams leave much to be desired:
233** Watts of Station House 1 subverts this by appearing to be clueless before his HiddenDepths are revealed. The constables play it straight, as Watts says they're "dullards to a man."
234** Watts's successor at Station House 1, Detective Edwards, hasn't solved a case in his first three weeks on the job and needs Watts's help to finally solve his first one.
235** Detective Chester Macdonald of Station House 3 is described by Brackenreid as "an obvious dunce." His bungling of a murder investigation nearly gets an innocent man hanged, and Crabtree finds a mountain of evidence that Macdonald never thought to look for.
236** Macdonald's successor at Station House 3, Graham Irwin, is described by Louise Cherry as a "twit." Effie Newsome mentions that her law firm has filed three separate lawsuits for false arrest against him.
237** Detective Hamish Slorach at Station House 5 made his name by solving a high-profile murder case, but that was because he got an excellent description of the killer that made it easy for Slorach to find them. He disdains the idea of fingermarks, Murdoch and Brackenreid note that he's not all that smart and Slorach himself says he could've solved a lot more cases with Murdoch and Julia's police technique book to help him. He does help to find Murdoch and catch the criminals in his first appearance, but his methods are rather unconventional.
238** Despite Slorach's flaws, he was still one of the best men at Station House 5. Brackenreid describes the officers in general as "lazy sods", particularly when they make Station House 4 deal with a murder in their jurisdiction. The Station House was also rife with corruption while Jeffrey Davis was its inspector.
239* CoffinContraband: In the aptly-named "Confederate Treasure", a large amount of gold was stolen from the Canadian government during the American Civil War. However, the conspirators all had their own agendas and in the resulting GambitPileup the gold was presumed lost when the ship carrying it sunk. More than three decades later, the police discover that the mastermind behind the theft was GenreSavvy enough to switch out the gold before the sea voyage and hid it in a coffin. The coffin was then buried in a cemetery but the mastermind died before he could dig it up.
240* ColdBloodedTorture:
241** Often a situation James Pendrick finds himself in; he's kidnapped and tortured by [[spoiler:Allen Clegg]] and associates in both "Murdoch Air" and "Code M For Murdoch", and he's held at gunpoint by [[spoiler:his ex-wife Sally Pendrick]] in "Staring Blindly Into The Future".
242** One of the reveals in "Brother's Keeper" is that [[spoiler:Watts' adoptive brothers were both tortured and killed by the episode's {{Asshole Victim}}, Nigel Baker.]]
243* CombatPragmatist:
244** Dr. Julia Ogden is a prime example of one. She will attack you from behind or use her skill with scapels to mortally injure you (see "Snakes and Ladders") if you attack her or someone she cares about.
245** Dr. Emily Grace takes after her [[MentorArchetype mentor]]. In "Murdoch of the Living Dead", when she was grabbed by one of the "zombies", she [[ImprovisedWeapon stabbed him in the hand with her hatpin]], and in "Friday the 13th 1901" she hit Julia's ax-wielding attacker from behind with a bottle.
246** Anna Fulford in "The Murdoch Identity" is quite [[ImprovisedWeapon handy with a frying pan]], and later in the same episode she shoots one of Murdoch's captors and pistol whips one in the back of the head.
247** Watts, despite his usual pacifistic nature, uses handcuffs to choke [[spoiler: Detective Armstrong]] in the [[TheVerse shared canon webseries]] ''The Book Of Jackson''.
248* CometOfDoom: "Murdoch at the End of the World" is set during the 1910 appearance of Halley's Comet and features various doomsday predictions. The ''actual'' doomsday threat is someone trying to spread pneumonic plague, using comet hysteria as a cover.
249* TheComicallySerious: Murdoch can easily fall here, always staying quite serious even in the most bizarre situations. Inspector Brackenreid once asks Crabtree if he'd ever seen him laugh.
250* ComingOutStory: Season 13 is one for [[spoiler:Detective Watts]], as the cast either discovers that he is gay/bisexual, or [[TransparentCloset reveals that they already knew.]]
251* TheCon: In "The Murdoch Sting", Murdoch and company pull one of these to get the culprit [[spoiler:Eva Pearce]] to incriminate [[spoiler:herself]] in a murder, and it really is a case of all hands on deck. Brackenreid solicits the help of one Cassie Chadwick, who claims the culprit has impersonated her to get engaged to the murder victim. Constable Higgins impersonates an attorney, Dr. Grace portrays the murder victim's floozy girlfriend, and she even drags in Leslie Garland at one point when his unexpected entrance threatens to blow the whole set-up.
252* ContinuityNod: The online CBC mystery game ''A Nightmare on Queen Street'' involves a PsychoPsychologist who is a murder suspect but is in fact innocent. When he appears in the TV series in "Murdoch of the Living Dead", he alludes to the events of ''A Nightmare on Queen Street'' and how Dr. Ogden got him fired from the hospital he worked at because of that case.
253* ContinuityCavalcade: The series aired its 200th episode on January 13, 2020. To celebrate, it brought back many of the {{Historical Domain Character}}s who've appeared over the years, and even brought back [[spoiler:the long-missing Sally Pendrick!]]
254* ConvictionByContradiction: Shown many times throughout the show.
255* CoolAndUnusualPunishment: [[HistoricalDomainCharacter Annie Edison Taylor]], the first person to take a trip down Niagara Falls, is touring with the barrel she rode down the falls in. When her barrel is stolen during an appearance in Toronto, she enlists Crabtree's help. Crabtree discovers that the thieves are a group of university students who stole the barrel as a prank. The boys plead with Crabtree not to arrest them, since the scandal would lead to their being disowned by their families. In lieu of arresting them, Crabtree punishes the boys by forcing them to clean the entire stationhouse from top to bottom, and he insists they write a letter of apology to Ms. Taylor.
256* TheCoroner: Drs. Julia Ogden, Llewellyn Francis, and Emily Grace. Additionally, Rebecca James and Violet Hart.
257* CouldntFindAPen:
258** In "Bad Medicine", the VictimOfTheWeek writes the letters "W Y" in his own blood on a rock after he is shot in the back with an arrow.
259** In "Snakes and Ladders", the killer writes the words "TRY TO STOP ME" in his victim's blood at the sites where he dumps their bodies.
260** In "Winston's Lost Night", the killer left a message in blood on the wallpaper of the victim's room. However, the blood darkened as it dried until it blended in with the dark red wallpaper, and the message is missed until late in the episode and only revealed via Murdoch's ultraviolet light. [[spoiler:What's written in the blood is "Omdurman," indicating that the murder was committed in revenge for the victim's involvement in the Battle of Omdurman and the desecration of a Muslim priest's tomb.]]
261** In "The Murdoch Appreciation Society", the ultraviolet light finds the phrase "BLUE SKY" also written in blood.
262* CostumeCopycat:
263** The Kissing Bandit is a LovableRogue and GentlemanThief who becomes something of a folk hero in Toronto. Later, the Kissing Bandit seemingly turns cold-blooded when he shoots a woman he'd kissed during one of his previous robberies. Murdoch has caught the ''real'' Bandit and has him in custody when the shooting takes place, and so Murdoch realizes that the Bandit who supposedly killed the woman is in fact an impostor disguised as the real one.
264** Almost this exact plot happens with The Lurker in "Excitable Chap", when a copycat of [[spoiler:James Pendrick's alter-ego]] kills a sausage vendor.
265** And then there's "I Know What You Did Last Autumn" where the killer of the week is a MonsterClown who [[spoiler:is actually two sisters alternating the same clown costume to avenge the humiliation one of them suffered.]]
266* CPRCleanPrettyReliable: In "Murdoch Ahoy", a drowning Detective Murdoch is saved by Dr. Ogden using CPR.
267* CrammingTheCoffin: In "The Black Hand", Murdoch is investigating the shooting death of a businessman from New York City when he learns of a sudden change in the funeral arrangements for the dead man. He and Constable Crabtree visit the mortician, and Crabtree notices the body seems to be rather high in his coffin. The cops find the coffin has a false bottom concealing another dead man [[spoiler:the fiancé of Anna Fulford, who stole counterfeit money from an organized crime outfit]].
268* CrankyNeighbor: When William and Julia first start looking for a home, Murdoch buys a plot of land on the rural outskirts of Toronto surrounded by farms. They discover several bodies buried on their new property, the corpses of [[TheFamilyThatSlaysTogether a family of violent thugs that terrorized the district.]] When Murdoch arrests the neighbors who killed the family, the rest of the neighborhood becomes hostile. William and Julia wisely decide to sell the property.
269* CreepyDoll:
270** "Belly Speaker": The belly speaker's puppet is very disturbing. The fact that it was manufactured to look like its owner, complete with different colored eyes, adds to the creepiness factor.
271** In "Me, Myself and Murdoch", the constables find a rag doll without an eye in a CreepyBasement. It was buried there with a chopped-up skeleton.
272** "Murdoch in Toyland": Detective Murdoch is taunted by a series of dolls with recorded messages as a part of CriminalMindGames scheme. Lampshaded by Inspector Brackenreid: "I know it's supposed to be adorable, but to me it just looks bloody creepy."
273** In "Friday the 13th 1901", Julia gets locked in a cold storage cellar and finds a childish drawing and a doll, which triggers her memories of James Gillies [[spoiler:who kidnapped her and buried her alive]]. She is later reminded of this again when going over the Gillies case file and looking at a photo of one of the dolls.
274* CreepySouvenir: Subverted. A suspect was seen talking with a victim on a train and he admitted he liked her a lot. They find he has home-made jewellery made of human hair of multiple people, and the victim's hair is among them. However, she gave it to him voluntarily while she was alive. Jewellery from human hair is still seen as very weird, but he is not her murderer.
275* CriminalMindGames: In "Murdoch in Toyland", Detective Murdoch is left a series of talking dolls designed to give him just enough clues to reach the next one, and also to make him overthink things and miss more blatant clues.
276* CripplingTheCompetition: In "Hot Wheels of Thunder", prior to the roller races, an assault on Miss Palmer [[CareerEndingInjury ends her skating career]].
277* CrocodileTears: A young Charles Ponzi is caught red-handed by Brackenreid after he cons the people of Toronto. Brackenreid is ready to arrest him, but Ponzi resorts to this trope to pretend that he'll never do it again. Unfortunately, Brackenreid believes him.
278* CruelMercy: In "Midnight Train to Kingston", Murdoch and Dr. Ogden are among those on the train taking James Gillies to be hanged. At one point, they're discussing the situation, and Julia speculates that it might be better for Gillies to rot in prison instead, suggesting that a life sentence would be "crueler".
279* CutLexLuthorACheck: Murdoch develops several innovations for crime-fighting that could make him a wealthy man if he patented them. It's subverted in one episode when Murdoch develops a polygraph lie detector device, and Crabtree tries to persuade a wealthy businesswoman to invest in it. The device works exactly the way it's supposed to, but it doesn't register anything since all the people Murdoch is testing it on are telling the truth and are all innocent. Thinking the device is worthless, the businesswoman (played by Canadian ''Series/DragonsDen'' regular Arlene Dickenson) loses interest and walks off.
280* CuttingTheKnot: In "Murdoch Escape Room", Crabtree and Brackenreid are stumped by the riddle they're forced to try and solve. Their failure causes a wasp's nest to be released in the room. They catch the nest in Crabtree's jacket and smash it with Brackenreid's cane instead of escaping it by solving the riddle.
281* TheDandy:
282** James Gillies is an impeccably dressed and charming young man of fashion, despite being a cunning villain.
283** Mr. Carducci in "This One Goes to Eleven". He has a neatly trimmed beard, twirly-styled hair, and wears several fashionable suits in addition to owning a walking stick. He is impeccably gentlemanly throughout the episode [[spoiler:until the reveal]].
284** Detective Watts is always wearing suits that are much more colorful than the other men in the Station House, including a green plaid suit introduced in season 12. He's also often quoting philosophers and famous authors, and never seems to use any vulgar language or incorrect grammar.
285** James Pendrick, particularly in "The Filmed Adventures of Detective William Murdoch", looks the part, but can be a bit of a {{Jerkass}}.
286* DarkIsNotEvil: The title characters of "The Witches of East York" are {{Witch Classic}}s, wearing dark clothing, invoking various divine beings and mixing various herbal brews, but they only retaliate against people who've wronged them and are not otherwise harmful.
287* DashinglyDapperDerby:
288** Murdoch wears a Homburg, but Brackenreid often wears a Derby. The mistake in Brackenreid's costume is that men did not regularly wear a derby with a morning coat until after UsefulNotes/WorldWarI.
289** [[spoiler:While Crabtree is temporarily promoted to acting detective, he]] gets a derby, too.
290* DaydreamSurprise:
291** 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), [[UnrevealAngle the audience doesn't]].
292** Doctor Ogden's point of view: When the case involving a "[[HemoErotic vampire]]" is solved, she imagines her post-case conversation with Murdoch giving way to a passionate makeout. The ImagineSpot is rudely interrupted by the arrival of [[spoiler:Julia's fiancé]] Dr. Darcy Garland.
293* ADayInTheLimelight:
294** Season 7 has two: the GirlsNightOutEpisode "Friday the 13 1901", in which a ClosedCircle meant Dr Odgen had to play detective, and "Kung Fu Crabtree" in which, as the title suggests Crabtree took the lead, because Murdoch was caught up in a StoryArc related B-plot.
295** Season 8 has "Crabtreemania", which keeps the focus on Crabtree even though Murdoch is involved in the investigation as well, and ends with him being offered a detective position.
296* DeadGuyJunior: [[spoiler:When Murdoch and Julia have a daughter, they decide to name her Susannah in honour of Murdoch's sister, who died sometime after she appeared on the show.]]
297* DeadlyGame: The episode "The Artful Detective" has an early 20th century version, minus the wide audience. A group of people who are desperate for money (and one EgomaniacHunter) agree to attempt to kill each other for the entertainment of a bookmaker and his clients. The results are published in a local racing paper, disguised as a non-existent race. When Murdoch starts getting too close, a new "horse" is added to the listings: the Artful Detective. Murdoch technically wins, since he catches the only other competitor and the competitor is going to be hanged for the murders he committed in the game.
298* DeadpanSnarker: As noted below under SherlockHomage, Murdoch is one of these from time to time. Late in "The Murdoch Sting", he comes upon [[spoiler:Eva Pearce]] standing in a pond desperately searching for [[spoiler:the corpse she hid there]]. He addresses [[spoiler:her]] and says, "What ''are'' you doing? You'll catch your death." Bear in mind, this is in a time and place where there is a death penalty for murder, and his listener has just been caught red-handed.
299* DeadPersonConversation:
300** William speaks to his deceased fiancée Liza, in "Elementary, My Dear Murdoch", with the help of [[ISeeDeadPeople Sarah Pensell]].
301** Dr. Julia Ogden has a heated discussion with [[spoiler:the ghost/memory of her deceased father -- just as she is autopsying him. She has two other discussions with him later as she's investigating his death]].
302* DeadPersonImpersonation: Done in two episodes:
303** In "The Return of Sherlock Holmes", the ersatz Holmes' young client [[spoiler:was reared for several years by criminals impersonating his dead parents.]]
304** Subverted in "The Missing" with a young boy who was kidnapped from his wealthy family. The boy's grandmother has published ads trying to find him, and multiple con artists have pretended to be her now grown-up grandson to try and swindle her out of her fortune. [[spoiler:The subversion is that the boy is actually alive and Murdoch's investigation leads him to be reunited with his grandma.]]
305* DeathByFallingOver: The murderer in "Murdoch Ahoy" loses his balance and falls down a flight of stairs to his death. Unfortunately, this happens before he can tell what he did with the young woman who witnessed the murder, who is trapped somewhere on a sinking steamship.
306* DeathFakedForYou: For [[spoiler:Anna Fulford]] by the Toronto Constabulary, no less. She is pursued by a powerful criminal organization who want her dead as a revenge for her fiancé's actions. They stage her murder when they know a member of the organization is watching and they arrange a new identity for her as well.
307* ADeathInTheLimelight: [[spoiler:Constable Worsley gets his first lines of the show in the season 9 finale, and gets shot minutes later.]]
308* DeliberateValuesDissonance:
309** While Detective Murdoch and Dr. Ogden are quite ahead of their time, and so are other sympathetic characters like Inspector Brackenreid or George Crabtree, the setting is definitely ''not''; classism, racism, sexism and homophobia are rampant, and Murdoch & Co. even run into the odd anarchist, eugenicist, and virulent anti-papist (RealLife turn-of-the-century Toronto was under the complete control of the Orange Order, every mayor up to 1955 was a card-carrying member). Inspector Brackenreid isn't above [[JackBauerInterrogationTechnique beating up a suspect during interrogation]] to try and get answers. Going in the other direction, abortionists were treated as complete pariahs, even by Murdoch until Ogden shook him out of it. The attitude that birth control interferes with a man's right to control his wife is accurate to the time, too.
310** Given that this is a Canadian series, the constant use of the death penalty is this as well. Canada hasn't executed anyone since 1962, and the death penalty was ''de facto'' abolished in 1963, officially abolished in 1976 for civilians, and officially abolished for the military in 1998.
311** The prevalence of sexism is demonstrated in "Virtue and Vice", where the language used by the crown prosecutor in Dr. Ogden's trial veers into outright misogyny, which is something that would be stamped down hard by any judge in a modern trial.
312** Detective Murdoch falls victim of anti-Catholic bigotry in "The Long Goodbye - Part One" when the time comes to choose Inspector Brackenreid's replacement - the city officials assure Murdoch that his long and distinguished record will be taken into consideration, but when the time comes, Murdoch is passed over for promotion in favor of Edwards, a younger, more inexperienced detective, with the clear implication that Murdoch's Catholicism is what cost him his promotion.
313* DeliveryGuy: [[spoiler:Murdoch becomes this in "Devil Music" when Julia goes into labour while they're stuck in a roadside cabin. He delivers their daughter, who they name Susannah.]]
314* DemonicDummy:
315** The ventriloquist's dummy, Mycroft, in "Belly Speaker". [[spoiler:Subverted at the end.]]
316** The dolls in "Murdoch in Toyland" also probably qualify.
317* TheDentistEpisode: The B-plot of "Invention Convention" revolves around Inspector Brackenreid's aching tooth and his avoidance of the dreaded dentist's drill. His wife books him an appointment and accompanies him, but he has Constable Higgins interrupt with a vague work excuse to summon him away. Meanwhile, he's been using cocaine and heroin to dull the pain, with mood swings and drowsiness ensuing. Constable Crabtree comes upon Higgins outside the dentist's office and sends his colleague away on the errand Murdoch had just assigned him. Then he enters the dentist's office, tells the inspector that he isn't needed right away, and picks up a nearby apple, taking a bite as he leaves. Brackenreid is heard hollering in agony in the background as Crabtree pauses outside the dental office. Later in the episode (once the pain has subsided), Brackenreid grudgingly praises Crabtree for his guts in acting as he did.
318* DesecratingTheDead: In "Winston's Lost Night", Winston Churchill speaks out against the desecration of the tomb of [[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muhammad_Ahmad Muhammad Ahmad al-Mahdi]] in response to someone in a gentlemen's club who praised the action. The story was that [[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herbert_Kitchener Kitchener]] had ordered the act in revenge for what the Mahdi's troops had done to [[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_George_Gordon General Gordon]], and the Mahdi's skull was taken from his tomb so Kitchener could "use it as an ink pot." It turns out that this act, carried out by Churchill's friend Reginald Mayfair, was the motive for Mayfair's murder [[spoiler:by one of the Mahdi's former soldiers, who happened to be working in a bar where Churchill and Mayfair were drinking]].
319* DiabolusExMachina: The end of "Election Day". Poor, poor Crabtree. [[spoiler:While still at awe over his Detective promotion (which he admitted never thought would actually happen), he made an almost spur of the moment proposal to his girlfriend Edna. Which she accepted. Later, while he, she and her step-son Simon (who is fond of Crabtree, and vice-versa) were having dinner together and planning for the future, Edna's husband and Simon's father ''showed up completely out of nowhere''. For the entire season he was missing and presumed dead. The episode ended with them having no choice but to break things off suddenly and completely, with Crabtree going so far as to actually say [[IWantMyBelovedToBeHappy it's better for her and Simon that way]].]]
320* DiplomaticImpunity: Subverted in "24 Hours Til Doomsday", when [[spoiler:Allan Clegg is seemingly protected from being charged with murder because he's become the U.S.'s ambassador to Canada. His diplomatic immunity is revoked after the Prime Minister of Canada informs the U.S. President of Clegg's plan to start a war between their countries by firing a rocket at Manhattan.]]
321* DisconnectedByDeath:
322** The VictimOfTheWeek in "Big Murderer on Campus" is shot while on the phone to one of his colleagues.
323** In "Master Lovecraft", Miss Sarah Glass calls the Station House stating she knows more about the letter but the phone abruptly goes dead and her lifeless body is discovered at the Logan house.
324* DistractedByTheSexy: In the episode "Murdoch in Ladies Wear", Eva Pearce has this effect on Murdoch, particularly when he interviews her at the station. Dr. Ogden later describes to him and Inspector Brackenreid how Eva took control of the interview, and Brackenreid himself mentions feeling a similar effect when he spoke with her. Later still Murdoch is [[FreudianCouch on Dr. Ogden's couch]] describing a vivid dream he had about himself and Miss Pearce. Murdoch isn't pleased to find himself thus affected.
325* DistressedDude:
326** In "The Prince and the Rebel", Murdoch and Prince Albert Victor are taken captive by [[spoiler:the prince's aide]] and held hostage by Irish terrorists. They are rescued by Inspector Brackenreid and most of the rest of Station Four's contingent.
327** In "Murdoch Air", inventor [[spoiler:James Pendrick]] is rescued by Murdoch from his kidnappers, [[spoiler:American agent Alan Clegg]] and his associates. Murdoch starts a smoky fire as a distraction, and together they use [[spoiler:the inventor's stolen plane]] to escape.
328** Murdoch is rescued from "The Murdoch Trap", literally a cage in a lair set up by the infamous James Gillies, by Inspector Brackenreid and Constable Crabtree, backed by most of the rest of the men of Station Four. He's carried out by his colleagues since he's [[spoiler:unconscious from carbon monoxide pumped into the room]].
329** Late in "Murdoch Ahoy", Murdoch is helping to rescue the ship owner's daughter from a cargo hold fast filling with water when [[spoiler:a falling trunk knocks him out and he sinks below the water]]. Dr. Ogden goes to his rescue, aided by Inspector Brackenreid.
330** James Pendrick yet again in "Code M For Murdoch", after being kidnapped and tortured by [[spoiler:Allen Clegg]] and associates.
331* DoesThisRemindYouOfAnything: 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. Other conversations address some of the unforeseen consequences of new technologies. There's even at least one plot that strongly recalls what for the audience is a series of historic events. Some examples include:
332** Murdoch and Nikola Tesla collaborate on a portable audio broadcasting unit to record a criminal conversation (in essence, a wireless wiretap) in "Power". In one of their conversations, Tesla suggests moving images could also be sent over the air, and when Murdoch says such a thing would be a "telekinetiscope", Tesla replies that the word is too long and suggests "television" instead.
333** Murdoch comes up with a number of portable light sources, including one that shines UV light (helpful for detecting blood evidence) and bicycle lamps powered by the cyclist's pedaling.
334** The episode "Murdoch.com" revolves around women being lured to their deaths by a sexual predator... on the telegraph lines.
335--->'''Crabtree:''' Why, it's like a spiderweb!... It could even be world-wide!
336** There is a "digitized" and "faxed" photograph Murdoch and his Surete colleague obtain via telegraph in "Monsieur Murdoch". (Could be considered an aversion, since [[OlderThanTheyThink the first telefax line was inaugurated in France in 1865]].
337** Among the inventions mentioned in the episode "Invention Convention" are an analytical engine (a precursor to modern computers), a machine specifically for sending email (they call it "i-mail"), and sound-activated switches. [[LampshadeHanging Crabtree even notes the ease of turning off lights by clapping his hands!]]
338** In "Journey to the Center of Toronto", Murdoch builds and sets up a series of small seismographs to help the men of Station 4 track an underground boring machine used in a series of thefts.
339** After some curious metal filings are found on a corpse and at a crime scene, Murdoch hits the books and fabricates a silencer in "The Black Hand". Crabtree [[LampshadeHanging hangs the lampshade by suggesting "muffler" and "silencer" as names for the item]].
340** "Back and to the Left" starts with two government officials in an open-air vehicle when there's gunfire and one of them dies from a gunshot wound to the head. The entire event is photographed and filmed. It soon appears at least one shot came from an upstairs window of a nearby warehouse. A man is identified in the papers as the shooter and is shortly thereafter killed. Murdoch and Dr. Ogden go over the evidence and find the evidence of the bullet trajectory doesn't line up, the phrase "magic bullet" is used, and they conclude there was a second shooter. Sounds rather like the assassination of UsefulNotes/JohnFKennedy, doesn't it?
341** "The Filmed Adventures of Detective William Murdoch" directly references the rise of filmed entertainment and Hollywood, [[WhoWouldWantToWatchUs although Murdoch finds it hard to believe a show about his life could take off.]]
342* DonutMessWithACop: Crabtree and Higgins do enjoy donuts during hideouts. Jackson is mentioned to have bought donuts during ''The Book of Jackson''.
343* DoomedMoralVictor: Dr. Ogden, Dr. Grace and the rest of the "Fearsome Four" advocating for women's suffrage run one of their members in the 1902 provincial election. They don't have a prayer of winning, but they surprisingly get several dozen men to vote for their candidate anyway as a show of support.
344* DoorstopBaby: George Crabtree was left at a church's door.
345* DownerEnding:
346** Season 3 concludes [[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. 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.]]
347** Season 4's conclusion, where it looks like [[spoiler:William's future in the Toronto constabulary is under threat and Julia goes through with her wedding to [[RomanticFalseLead Darcy]] despite still being in love with William.]]
348** Season 7 ends with [[spoiler:Inspector Brackenreid brutally beaten, possibly to death. This happened immediately after Murdoch and Dr. Ogden were finally engaged and happy, in a severe case of MoodWhiplash.]]
349** Episode 8x07, which ends with [[spoiler:Chief Constable Giles and Constable Hodge both in jail.]]
350** The end of season 8. [[spoiler:Crabtree is arrested and charged with the murder of Edna's husband, and both she and Simon are missing.]]
351** Season 10 ends with [[spoiler:Murdoch arrested for murder, Julia missing, Brackenreid missing and possibly dead, and one of Constables Crabteee, Higgins or Jackson definitely dead. This episode is a cruel example of SurprisinglyRealisticOutcome, when a handful of people try to take on a Mafia-like organization of the rich and elite that's always two steps ahead of them and expect to win. There's a HopeSpot at the very end, however, with [[{{Cloudcuckoolander}} Detective Watts]] showing up outside Murdoch's cell and promising to help.]]
352** Season 11's "The Accident": [[spoiler:Despite Dr. Ogden and Brackenreid's best efforts the victim quickly dies after the car is moved, though his killers were caught and [[FaceDeathWithDignity he accepted what was about to happen]].]]
353** Season 14 ends with [[spoiler:Effie Newsome and George Crabtree in serious danger at the hands of a set of evil twins.]]
354* DownToTheLastPlay: This comes up a couple of times:
355** The police games in the episode "The Great Wall" is said to be a tie between Station 4 and Station 5 going into the final event (a tug-of-war between both teams). One of the men on the Station House 5 team loses his footing, giving Station House 4 a brief shot at winning, but Murdoch is distracted by seeing a clue that solves the murder case he's been investigating and Station House 5 wins the event.
356** The baseball game at the end of "Stroll on the Wild Side" is tied 8-8 when Murdoch comes to bat with Inspector Brackenreid on base. Despite the distracting presence of a member of the Black Hand, Murdoch hits the home run that brings both of them home to win the game.
357* DramaticThunder: Late in "Murdoch and the Temple of Death", Murdoch pursues and corners a killer (who is carrying an artifact thought to be the Holy Grail) atop a cliff. Murdoch tells the man not to jump, but the guy asserts the power of God in the Grail will protect him, then turns and jumps to his death. Murdoch looks over the edge at the corpse and hears a clap of thunder, despite the rather light sky above him. This one overlaps with AStormIsComing, since the next shot [[EstablishingShot is of the city of Toronto in a thunderstorm]].
358* DramaticUnmask: Julia does this in "I Know What You Did Last Autumn" when she subdues the MonsterClown trying to kill her and the young woman she's sheltering.
359* DreamIntro: "Murdoch Air" opens with Murdoch in bed dreaming of his and Julia's wedding. She balks at the word "obey" on her vows, he turns and jokes to the guests about negotiating that part, [[IWasHavingSuchANiceDream then there's a pounding sound and Julia thinks it's her first husband Darcy. In fact, Constable Crabtree is pounding on Murdoch's bedroom door.]] Murdoch wakes up and Crabtree urges him to hurry up and come see the flying machine in the sky over Toronto.
360* DrivenToSuicide: Mr. [=MacFarlane=], whose business is about to be bankrupt and his insurance fraud gets exposed. [[spoiler:He refuses to be saved from his sinking cruise ship and goes down with her.]]
361* DrJerk: Murdoch regards Dr. Francis this way. Others more or less agree, but see that both men have their point.
362* DrowningMySorrows:
363** In Season 3 episode "Rich Boy, Poor Boy", Brackenreid thinks his kidnapped son Bobby has been killed and gets totally wasted.
364** In "High Voltage", Julia tells Emily and Lillian of her decision not to stand as a candidate in the provincial election, to her hearers' intense disappointment. After Julia leaves, Lillian says she knows of a bar that serves women, and Emily immediately expresses a desire to go there.
365* DrowningPit: In "Murdoch Ahoy", a bomb exploded on a cruise ship and the deck is filling with water. The space can't be sealed because of a broken mechanism. Amy [=MacFarlane=] is trapped there.
366* DruggedLipstick: In "Painted Ladies", the killer is a woman who wears lip rouge laced with cyanide (coating her own lips with wax to protect herself) and then seduces men into kissing her. As they do, she bites their lip, drawing blood and allowing the cyanide to enter their bloodstream. Both Murdoch and Julia remark that she is taking a huge risk using this as a means of assassination, even with the wax on her lips.
367* DrugsAreBad:
368** Played for laughs and DeliberateValuesDissonance. Brackenreid has a tendency to fall for the latest in patent medicine and has taken Laudanum, morphine, cocaine, and Heroin, all for innocent pain management problems. Murdoch delivers the contemporary anti-drug Aesops, which sounds hilariously weak and nonsensical as the negative properties of addictive drugs was not well-known at the time.
369** The Lurker (better known as [[spoiler:James Pendrick]]) in "Excitable Chap".
370-->[[spoiler:'''Pendrick:''']] From time to time, I would awake with bruises, surrounded by items I had supposedly stolen.\
371'''Murdoch:''' Yet you kept taking the drug.\
372[[spoiler:'''Pendrick:''']] It's clear I've misbehaved.
373* DueToTheDead: Devout Roman Catholic Murdoch always crosses himself when he first comes upon a corpse, whether it's at a reported crime scene, or when someone dies in his presence (such as "Back and to the Left", "Stroll on the Wild Side" and "Tour de Murdoch"). The gesture outs him as a minority Catholic in a Protestant-controlled city, so it is more of a big deal than it seems on the surface. On occasion, other characters do this: the hotel manager in "Return of Sherlock Holmes" performs it when a guest is found dead, and Crabtree tries to imitate his boss at that graveside in "Confederate Treasure".
374* DumbassHasAPoint: UsefulNotes/SigmundFreud is presented as a KnowNothingKnowItAll in "Murdoch on the Couch." Brackenreid considers his ideas a load of rubbish and Watts is openly skeptical of the idea of psychiatry, but when Henry tells them that Freud said he was in "love" with George, they exchange glances and Brackenreid says that even a broken clock is right twice a day.
375* {{Eagleland}}: Varies between Mixed and Type 2, the latter particularly where the American government is concerned. Brackenreid has a very low opinion of Americans, and the still rather recent UsefulNotes/AmericanCivilWar is often spoken of quite disparagingly ''just for having happened''. Not only that, while Clegg and Meyers are similar in their methods, the former is usually the DesignatedVillain whenever both appear, while Meyers is at worst an AntiHero. Granted, Clegg proves to be a hyper-imperialist who advocates US domination over North and South America.
376* EarlyInstallmentWeirdness:
377** In the Season 1 episode "Body Double", Brackenreid refers to the "Toronto Police Department". The expression "Toronto Constabulary" is used almost every other time in the series.
378** Another Season 1 episode portrays Brackenreid in uniform, when meeting with superiors; he has never been shown in uniform since.
379** Early seasons used photographs of late-19th century Toronto with extras superimposed over them for establishing shots of the city. As the series wore these were dropped, and shots of the exterior location sets were used instead.
380* EasterEgg:
381** In the episode "Invention Convention", Murdoch realizes they don't need a cipher to read the random string of code -- it is actually made of substituted letters. If [[TheProducerThinksOfEverything one actually decodes the message]], it reads "It is essential that we are all seen to be watching the speech at the instant the machine fires. We have precisely twenty seconds between when the device is triggered and when the shot is fired. Should the machine be discovered it is imperative that we stick to the plan."
382** In the episode "Glory Days", there's a crate of "Big Bang" brand dynamite visible near a train that was held up, supposedly by Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.
383* EccentricMillionaire: The Newsome family are shown to be a bunch of [[UpperClassTwit Upper-Class Twits]], but several of them are also more than a little eccentric. Rupert enjoys wandering the halls of the family manor at night swinging a sword, one of the cousins is a narcoleptic who repeatedly yells at herself, and Ruth unexpectedly shows HiddenDepths when she helps Brackenreid, Crabtree, Higgins and Nina Bloom set a trap for Charles Ponzi after the latter swindles a large group of Torontonians.
384* EnfantTerrible: [[spoiler:Dorrie]] in "Dial M for Murdoch" who is responsible for [[WouldHurtAChild murdering a boy]], attempting to takeover a jewelry-theft ring, and is only a child himself. Murdoch speculates as to whether [[spoiler:Dorrie]] simply [[TheSociopath lacks a conscience]].
385* EspeciallyZoidberg: In the episode "Who Killed the Electric Carriage?", Inspector Brackenreid finds out that his wife (who's been giving him a hard time about his drinking) and other ladies from Temperance League participate in bloody gambling, so he orders Constable Crabtree to arrest everybody in the bloody den.
386-->'''Constable Crabtree:''' Sir? What? Even your wife?\
387'''Inspector Brackenreid:''' ''Especially'' the wife!
388* EstablishingShot:
389** In the form of tinted stereoscopy photos (a type of 3D photography popular in the 1900s).
390** Later in the series, establishing shots of the city of Toronto, reconstituted in CGI, are common.
391* EurekaMoment:
392** Often done OnceAnEpisode when Murdoch finally cracks the case. Other characters like Brackenreid, Crabtree and Watts have done it too. {{Lampshaded}} in "Convalescence" when Crabtree is standing for Murdoch as acting detective. Having reached a seeming dead end in the case, Crabtree starts staring TheBigBoard. When Higgins asks he what he is doing, Crabtree says that whenever this happens to Murdoch, he stares at the board and everything suddenly falls into place. He then adds that it is not as easy as Murdoch makes it look and all he is getting is a headache.
393** In "Murdoch And The Sonic Boom", UsefulNotes/AlexanderGrahamBell has pinpointed the location of the sonic weapons the villains plan to use. Higgins and Terrence Myers search the hotel Bell sends them to, but the hotel is clean. Bell insists his calculations are correct, and Henry suggests that maybe the weapons are buried. Myers immediately realizes that the weapons are kept in the sewers.
394** In the "Darkness Before Dawn" two-parter, John Brackenreid is shot in the line of duty. He's initially paralyzed, and Julia surgically removes the bullet. Unfortunately, John's paralysis gets worse after the operation. Julia doesn't understand why until she realizes that fluid is building up in John's back and putting pressure on his spine. She gives John a second operation, one that drains the excess fluid. Once the pressure on his spine is relieved, John slowly regains his mobility.
395* EvenEvilHasStandards: In the episode "The Great Wall" the officers of Station 5 are openly racist and contemptuous of the Chinese population, focusing quickly on an elderly Chinese shopkeeper as a convenient prime suspect and becoming openly hostile towards Murdoch when he refuses to charge the man without conclusive evidence against him. When [[spoiler:one of their number]] is revealed as the killer and also to have raped a young girl, it is clearly a bridge too far and the Station 5 inspector and constables openly express their disgust even though the victim was Chinese.
396* EvenTheRatsWontTouchIt: In "Convalescence", Murdoch complains about his food. His landlady can't cook, but her stand-in seems to be even worse. Even a mouse will not eat it. He later finds a dead mouse (this one was probably very hungry), and realizes that his meals are being poisoned.
397* EverybodyDidIt: In "Body Double", the first murder was committed by only one person [[spoiler:the leading lady of a theatrical company]], but the coverup (which involves a second murder) is arranged by all of the acting company.
398* EveryoneLooksSexierIfFrench: Emily Grace gets even sexier when she's asked to play a suspect in episode "The Murdoch Sting". She plays a "gold-digging trollop" with a thick French accent called Désirée Deneuve. Mademoiselle Deneuve unexpectedly meets Leslie Garland (who knows and recognizes Emily). So Emily Grace decides she must kiss him in order to keep the scheme going. Everyone thinks Mademoiselle Deneuve is ravishing.
399* TheExecutioner: A convicted murderer is hanged but then turns out to be still alive and escapes. Murdoch questions the hangman and his apprentice. The hangman is a ConsummateProfessional and the apprentice is a bumbling incompetent so initial suspicion falls on the apprentice for messing up the execution. However, the hangman then confesses to sabotaging the execution. He believes that a man he previously executed was innocent and the man he helped escape was similarly framed for murder. Murdoch has to determine whether there really is a conspiracy to subvert justice in Toronto or the hangman has had a nervous breakdown due to the stress of his unpopular job and let a dangerous murderer run free. At the end of the episode the city cannot find a replacement hangman and resorts to giving the job to the apprentice. He bungles his first execution in a grotesque way.
400* 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.
401* {{Expy}}:
402** InUniverse, Franchise/SherlockHolmes is one for [[BadassBookworm Murdoch]]. And in RealLife Murdoch is one for Sherlock Holmes.
403** Michael Seater has stated in [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gvp7Cq9YUWE this featurette]] that James Gillies is the Moriarty to Murdoch's Holmes.
404** Sally Pendrick can be read as one for Irene Adler Norton, the only woman to defeat Sherlock Holmes. Both women had scandalous pasts that involved photographic evidence and both initially defeated their sleuths (before the sleuths ultimately figured things out).
405* {{Facepalm}}: George has two glorious facepalms in "Murdoch au Naturel" when he is forced to infiltrate among a group of nudists.
406* FaceYourFears: Dr. Ogden's treatment of people who suffer from various phobias, though she exposes them gradually.
407* FailuresOnIce: A practice session for a curling match in "Friday the 13th 1901" features this trope as George assesses his colleagues' skills. Higgins and Jackson have particular trouble on the ice.
408* FairCop:
409** Detective Murdoch is TallDarkAndHandsome. Quite a few women in-universe take a liking to him.
410** George Crabtree is cute and has his fair share of admirers. Especially when he publishes his novel and enjoys a moderate success.
411** Henry Higgins is very handsome and has a sweet smile. Pity that he's a minor character.
412** Detective Watts is TallDarkAndHandsome, and has a few love interests to back it up.
413* FakeCrossover: "Republic of Murdoch" features Murdoch and Crabtree pursuing a murder suspect to Newfoundland and, as the title would suggest, said suspect appears to be an [[IdenticalGrandson identical ancestor]] of [[Series/RepublicOfDoyle Jake Doyle]]. Obviously, due to the time difference, the two shows don't technically crossover themselves. This episode is followed by the ''Series/RepublicOfDoyle'' episode "If the Shoe Fits", where Yannick Bisson guest -stars as the IdenticalGrandson of Murdoch.
414* FakingTheDead:
415** Cecil Fox, who was sentenced to death by hanging, sits up on the autopsy table and grabs Julia. He [[spoiler:had a tracheotomy tube and a helpful hangman who used a short rope]] so he would be seen to be hanged yet actually survive.
416** [[spoiler:James Gillies.]] He made a deal with a dying person who was hanged instead of him, and he made his escape.
417** Amy [=MacFarlane=] pretends she committed suicide. She loves a Native American man and her wealthy parents [[MalignedMixedMarriage would never agree to the match]]. The plan goes awry because it coincides with [[spoiler:her dad's insurance fraud]].
418** [[spoiler:James Pendrick]] in "From Murdoch to Eternity".
419* FalseFlagOperation:
420** "Back and to the Left" seemingly involves an Irish Catholic man trying to shoot Toronto's Protestant Mayor on a major Protestant holiday, but killing a prominent city councilman instead. [[spoiler:The man and the larger Irish Catholic community were framed by a cabal of crooked businessmen and politicians who were targeting the councilman to keep him from interfering in their embezzlement schemes.]]
421** Several episodes have RogueAgent Allan Clegg use these to do everything from trying to kill Canadian Prime Minister Wilfrid Laurier to force U.S. President Teddy Roosevelt to back off on his trust-busting efforts to provoke a war between the U.S. and the British Empire that would end with the U.S. conquering Canada.
422* FemmeFatale: [[spoiler:Ivanka Federov is this in "Patriot Games", trying to re-ignite the Russo-Japanese war in 1905.]]
423* TheFilmOfTheBook: The first-season episode "Let Loose the Dogs" is a direct adaptation of one of series creator Maureen Jennings' original novels (and the only one to be adapted for this series).
424* FingertipDrugAnalysis: Shockingly, Murdoch -- who is the smart one -- tastes a mysterious white substance found on the crime scene. It's plaster.
425* FirstGirlWins: This one is played with involving Constable George Crabtree and Edna Garrison. They meet in the very first episode of the series ("Power") when she's an animal rights activist protesting the planned electrocution of a dog to demonstrate the dangers of alternating current. The demonstration is sabotaged and a woman dies. George has to investigate Edna, who is found to have incriminating device plans, and the suspicion comes between them -- at one point George says, "That ship has sailed." Several seasons pass, during which George has a budding romance with Dr. Grace that also fizzles out, partly over George's class insecurities. Edna reappears in the eighth season having married a soldier with a young son; she's recently received an official letter telling her she's a widow, and over the course of the season she and George rekindle their romance. Late in the season, after learning of his impending promotion to detective, he proposes marriage to her and she accepts. Just when the trio is discussing their new family life over dinner, Edna's first husband suddenly reappears and things go downhill fast.
426* FirstNameBasis:
427** Murdoch will occasionally address Constables Crabtree and Higgins by their first names, but he generally addresses others as "Constable" or by their surnames (such as "Jackson" or "Hodge"). This seems to denote the closer relationships he has with them, particularly in Crabtree's case. Rank may also have something to do with it, since he never uses Inspector Brackenreid's first name, but always either uses "Sir" or Brackenreid's title. Brackenreid always calls his detective "Murdoch" or the endearing phrase "me old mucker" and never uses "William".
428** Detective Murdoch and Dr. Ogden tend to address and refer to each other by their titles in professional settings when strangers are involved or on business matters, and they revert to first names when discussing personal matters. Among other things, Murdoch seems sensitive to the need to underline the coroner's professional credentials for people who might be wondering what a woman is doing asserting authority at a crime scene.
429** The first time Dr. Grace is giving Murdoch a briefing (with Dr. Ogden), she notices Murdoch calls her mentor "Julia" and he corrects himself. Julia doesn't seem to mind.
430** Murdoch is observing Crabtree interrogating a culprit near the end of "War on Terror" (a first for the constable) when Dr. Grace stops by and joins him at the window. She calls George by his first name, and it's Murdoch's turn to notice the sudden familiarity. Later in the morgue, she tells George to call her "Emily" and they discuss the meanings of her first name.
431** Llewellyn Watts and Fiona Faust's bar scene in "Brackenreid Boudoir" has the detective insisting Miss Faust calls him Lllewellyn.
432* FiveSecondForeshadowing: In the episode "Murdoch in Toyland", Murdoch and Inspector Brackenreid descend the stairs of a church basement and Brackenreid comments, "It's like a tomb down here." Seconds later, Murdoch turns on a light and they find [[spoiler:a headless corpse]].
433* FoeRomanceSubtext:
434** This exchange between James Gillies and Murdoch in "Midnight Train to Kingston":
435--->'''Gillies:''' For the last time, this is it for us. Doesn't that make you just... a little bit sad?\
436'''Murdoch:''' No.\
437'''Gillies:''' Not even a teensy bit?\
438'''Murdoch:''' ''[shakes his head]''\
439'''Gillies:''' Come now, Detective. You and I share something, something... special. I'll miss you, you know that. (grabs Murdoch by the collar and kisses him)
440** There's a prop that {{foreshadow|ing}}s this in "The Murdoch Trap": a film projector has a nearby placard that says, "Turn Me On". The film is of Gillies himself addressing Murdoch.
441* FoolishSiblingResponsibleSibling: Dr. Julia Ogden's sister Ruby is introduced when she is revealed to be [[LovelyAssistant a magician's assistant]] to Harry Houdini, much to Julia's chagrin. While Julia has become a doctor and a coroner in Toronto, Ruby has gotten into popular journalism and travels the world, becoming romantically involved with the married H.G. Wells at one point. The two sisters sometimes bicker over their differences, with Julia making remarks about her sister's tendency to spend time with sultans and such. Ruby retaliates at one point by calling her sister "Jules" (an old childhood nickname Julia no longer likes) and lamenting her sister being a stick-in-the-mud, particularly critiquing the slow-motion courtship between her and William.
442* ForegoneConclusion: Dr. Ogden and Dr. Grace join a suffragette movement advocating for women's right to vote. They run one of their members as a candidate in the 1902 provincial election, but she has no chance of winning. It's not all bad, though, as they convince several dozen men to vote for their candidate.
443* {{Foreshadowing}}:
444** In "Murdoch at the Opera", the opera company's manager observes that while the dead singer was the understudy to the star, the younger woman was unlikely to go on in the lead role of ''Theatre/LaBoheme'' because the diva would sing on her deathbed. At the end of the episode, [[spoiler:the diva, who was also the culprit, took poison and sang her final scene in the opera on a bed as she was actually dying]].
445** In "Murdoch on the Corner", a seemingly crazy beggar talks to himself incessantly, and one of his early phrases is "She's the one!" It turns out [[spoiler:the culprit in a series of murders is a woman, an apparently kindly pastor's widow]].
446** In "Patriot Games", Myers says that Russia and Japan have both built up so many alliances and mutual defense pacts with other countries, most of the world could be dragged into it if the UsefulNotes/RussoJapaneseWar resumed. That same network of defensive alliances would be a critical factor in UsefulNotes/WorldWarOne.
447* ForTheEvulz: [[spoiler:James Gillies]] orchestrated the murder of one of his college professors simply to see if he could. Murdoch caught him for it, and it all went downhill from there.
448* FowlMouthedParrot: George once brought back a parrot from a murder scene that keeps spouting insults in French (in the French dub, it's in Italian). As well as [[NotInFrontOfTheParrot giving hints about the murderer]].
449* FramingTheGuiltyParty:
450** In "Still Waters", the rowing team's coach attempts to frame [[spoiler:Horace Briggs, the club gardener,]] for the murder of Richard Hartley under the belief that Hartley was killed in a rowing club initiation gone wrong. Murdoch's investigation proves that Hartley actually survived the initiation and [[spoiler:Briggs]] really did kill him, albeit later and for unrelated reasons.
451** 20 years ago, Brackenreid investigated the murders of two women and realized a man named Walter Milton committed them. When Milton was accused of a third murder, Brackenreid [[spoiler:ignored the testimony of his friend Maurice Majors, who gave him an alibi]] and got him hanged.
452* FreudianCouch:
453** Detective Murdoch usually lies down when he has a hypnosis session with "his favourite head doctor" Dr. Roberts, who is a pioneer in mental health care in Toronto.
454** Dr. Ogden becomes a psychiatrist between seasons five and six. She even went to Vienna to consult UsefulNotes/SigmundFreud himself. In "Murdoch in Ladies' Wear", Murdoch is on her couch to recount a troubling dream he had about suspect Eva Pearce; he is distressed to have found Eva desirable when he's in love with Julia and investigating Eva for murder.
455** The trope is [[PlayedForLaughs played for laughs]] when Inspector Brackenreid comes to see Dr. Ogden and he's lying on a couch in her office, talking about some random stuff. She reminds him that he wished to speak about something important. Inspector immediately rises up and asks her to see his son who he's afraid might be a "sissy".
456* TheFriendNobodyLikes: Rich airhead and UpperClassTwit Roger Newsome (of the ''Mimico Newsomes'', as he constantly reminds everyone) is such a pompous, insufferable {{Jerkass}} that none of the other members of his puzzle, golf or auto clubs can stand him, even though he thinks they're all his friends. It gets so bad that one of them actually tries to ''kill'' him. Even Crabtree, who Roger convinces himself is his friend, and is probably the friendliest person on the entire show, utterly despises him.
457* FunWithAcronyms: The episode "F.L.A.S.H." features James Pendrick's latest venture, the '''F'''rictionless '''L'''evitated '''A'''ccelerated '''S'''ubsurface '''H'''ypertrain, or FLASH.
458* FunnyBackgroundEvent: George has a small freakout in the back of Murdoch's lab when he hears Emily reveal to Murdoch that she was Lillian Moss' lover in "Double Life".
459* FullNameBasis: Whenever a historical figure appears, their full name is used as much as possible just to make sure it's clear who they are.
460[[/folder]]
461
462[[folder:Tropes G–L]]
463* GambitPileup: Terrence Myers warns Murdoch and Watts that word can't get out about a Russian RogueAgent trying to re-ignite the UsefulNotes/RussoJapaneseWar. Myers says that since the war ended, both Russia and Japan have built up a lot of different alliances and mutual defense pacts. If their war resumed, a large part of the known world could be dragged into it, including Canada and the British Empire.
464* GaveUpTooSoon: The episode "Murdoch and the Temple of Death" includes a hunt for the Holy Grail. After much effort, including defeating several traps in the titular building and pursuing a man who killed for it, Murdoch and Dr. Iris Bajali retrieve a ceramic cup. Murdoch and Brackenreid consult a local museum expert about the find, and there's a bit of disappointment when it is shown to have a hidden Christian symbol, making it too new to be the actual Grail. Constable Crabtree suggests the apparent first-century pottery exterior conceals the real Holy Grail, and Murdoch dismisses the idea of breaking so ancient an artifact just to test Crabtree's theory. The cup is donated to the museum, and later a staffer is shown accidentally knocking it to the floor, breaking the clay exterior to reveal a metal cup inside. The episode closes with the metal cup back on a shelf [[RealAfterAll suggestively bathed in a shaft of light]].
465%%* TheGayNineties
466* GenderSeparatedEnsembleEpisode:
467** "Friday the 13th 1901" has two plots (one for the ladies and one for the gents): Julia and Emily go to an island with several women friends for a weekend "hen party" (a bachelorette party) for one of the friends, while the guys of Station 4 play in a curling match on a bet.
468** "In the Company of Women" primarily centers around the women in the aforementioned title (Dr. Ogden, Effie Newsome, Louise Cherry, and Violet Hart), with a b-plot involving Watts, Brackenreid, Jack Walker, and to some extent Murdoch.
469* GentlemanThief:
470** "The Kissing Bandit". He's polite and gives the money he stole to orphanages.
471** Jumping Jack in "Once Upon a Murdoch Christmas". They [[JustLikeRobinHood steal Christmas presents from the Toronto elite and exchange them for coats for the homeless.]]
472** The "Excitable Chap" himself, The Lurker (or [[spoiler:James Pendrick]]), woos women and steals shiny things.
473* GilliganCut: In "Murdoch au Naturel", Brackenreid and Murdoch have the bright idea to send in someone undercover at a nudist colony, and since the naturists have already met Murdoch, he and Brackenreid turn to Constable Crabtree, who objects. Cut to Crabtree entering the colony ''sans'' clothing.
474* GonnaNeedMoreX:
475-->'''Crabtree:''' We'll need a bigger blackboard.
476* GorgeousPeriodDress: Lots of this, particularly in any scene where the characters dress up formally. The basic style of dress and hair seems to be early 1890s, with excursions into the 1900s (see the AnachronismStew entry above).
477* GroinAttack: In "Brother's Keeper", Murdoch has Higgins help him re-enact a suspect's [[spoiler:(Detective Watts)]] account of his struggle with the man he [[spoiler:allegedly]] killed, which involved struggling over control of a gun. Higgins does so... and knees Murdoch in the groin, which did ''not'' happen during the account. When called on it, Higgins pointed out that the men in question were in a life-and-death fight, and one of them would have tried it to gain the advantage.
478-->'''Brackenreid:''' I hate to say this, Murdoch, but [[DumbassHasAPoint he has a point.]]
479* GypsyCurse: Cleverly subverted when Brackenreid is running for Toronto City Council, his opponent starts gaining ground on an anti-immigrant platform. A rash of high-class thefts breaks out, and Brackenreid's backers urge him to arrest a caravan of gypsies to brandish his own anti-immigrant credentials, despite the fact that there's no evidence. The gypsies' leader curses Brackenreid to never realize his ambitions, and the curse seems to come true when Brackenreid realizes the real thieves are the son and friends of his lead backer. Brackenreid immediately arrests the son and his friends, and voluntarily drops out of the race, releasing the innocent gypsies in the process. In one of the episode's final scenes, the gypsy leader offers to lift her curse, and Brackenreid tells her not to, saying it wasn't a curse in the first place. The gypsy leader only wryly smiles, saying that she must be losing her touch, before thanking Brackenreid and telling him that he's "one of the good ones".
480* HalloweenEpisode: "Sir. Sir? Sir!!!", "Murdoch and the Cursed Caves", "I Know What You Did Last Autumn"
481* HandOrObjectUnderwear: George infiltrating a nudist camp in "Murdoch au Naturel".
482* HandsOnApproach: Inspector Brackenreid gets a suggestive hands-on shooting lesson from none other than Annie Oakley in "Mild Mild West".
483* HangoverSensitivity:
484** In "The Green Fairy", the usually non-drinking Murdoch spends an evening drinking absinthe. The following day is ''hard''.
485** After a night of drinking (with Annie Oakley), Inspector Brackenreid ends up hungover. Murdoch seems to be subtly disapproving, the way he's talking a bit louder than usual or slamming the door, to Brackenreid's pain, but as Murdoch earlier got the blame from Mrs. Brackenreid for Brackenreid's drinking (he left his scotch in Murdoch's drawer because his wife knew his hiding places), it's justified payback.
486** Watts and Crabtree in "Merlot Mysteries".
487* HeroicBSOD: In "Rich Boy, Poor Boy", Inspector Brackenreid's wife comes to the station, distraught at their son's abduction. Brackenreid and Murdoch instantly go to the park, and at one point Brackenreid stops in his tracks, staring blankly into space. Murdoch has to speak to him several times to get his attention on the measures they're taking to find the boy, then Brackenreid snaps back to reality and says, "I said let's get on with it!"
488* HesBack: In the Season 4 finale, Murdoch [[spoiler:lets a SympatheticMurderer go free]] and is suspended from the Toronto Constabulary. Murdoch takes a leave of absence and goes to pan for gold in the Yukon. His alienation from his old life is symbolized by his throwing his badge away, his PermaStubble and the rough mining clothes he wears. When his landlady is framed for murder, however, Murdoch tries to [[ClearTheirName clear her name]]. We then see him clean-shaven and wearing his old detective's suit and his cherished Homburg hat. In one of the final scenes, he decides to return to the Constabulary.
489* HiddenDepths:
490** Inspector Brackenreid is, surprisingly, a big opera and Creator/WilliamShakespeare fan. He also demonstrates a talent for painting.
491** Constable Higgins is revealed to speak French, since his mother comes from the Gaspé peninsula (in Quebec).
492* HiddenInPlainSight:
493** The MonsterClown in "I Know What You Did Last Autumn" is able to run around in public dressed in a disturbing-looking clown suit because it's nearly Halloween and the streets are filled with people wearing costumes.
494** In "From Buffalo with Love", the killer shoots his victim in a busy burlesque club. He avoids alerting anyone by muffling the gun with a cloth. Murdoch wonders how a man could carry a cloth around in a burlesque club without attracting attention. When a hotel maid comes to take away his and Julia's supper dishes, Murdoch has a EurekaMoment. [[spoiler:The killer is one of the club's waiters, who would naturally be expected to carry serving cloths as part of their job.]]
495* HighClassGloves: As a standard accessory to late Victorian and Edwardian women's formalwear, long gloves are seen frequently in episodes where such dress is worn. Julia, who has just been called to a crime scene from an evening at the theater, wears black opera gloves -- which she immediately takes off to examine a body -- in the first season's "Elementary, My Dear Murdoch". She also wears such gloves in the first scene of the same season's "Child's Play".
496* HighHopesZeroTalent: Crabtree tries to make some extra money by teaching a writing class. Unfortunately, only about four students show up. One of them has an incredibly boring and drab writing style, and the other can only come up with {{Cliche Storm}}s.
497* HighVoltageDeath:
498** In "Power", Toronto City Council are entertaining the idea of abandoning direct current electricity for the city in favour of the new alternating current. Two murders are committed connected to the current wars, and both of them involve electrocution.
499** In the aptly-titled "High Voltage", the VictimOfTheWeek is a salesman found dead in his product: a chair with electrodes designed to send a small amount of current through the body of the person sitting in it.
500** "Shock Value" features a test subject in a study involving electric shocks being found dead after the voltage was turned up too high.
501* HistoricalDomainCharacter: Several well-known figures make appearances, including:
502** Creator/JackLondon
503** Creator/BuffaloBill and [[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Annie_Oakley Annie Oakley]]
504** Creator/HarryHoudini
505** [[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Ford Henry Ford]]
506** Creator/ArthurConanDoyle
507** Creator/HGWells
508** UsefulNotes/NikolaTesla
509** [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Graham_Bell Alexander Graham Bell]], and later his wife, [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mabel_Gardiner_Hubbard Mabel Bell]]
510** [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prince_Albert_Victor,_Duke_of_Clarence_and_Avondale Prince Albert Victor]], though with some creative license, since in real life the prince died in 1892, several years before the events in the series are supposed to have taken place.
511** UsefulNotes/WinstonChurchill
512** [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wright_brothers the Wright brothers]]
513** UsefulNotes/ThomasEdison
514** [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emma_Goldman Emma Goldman]]
515** He doesn't appear on the show, but when she returns in Season 4 Ruby Ogden tells Crabtree about her interview with a man named [[UsefulNotes/VladimirLenin Vladimir Ulyanov]] and warns the constable to "watch out for him!"
516** In "Twentieth Century Murdoch", the professor with the time machine meets with Murdoch and mentions the work of one of his brilliant students in Berlin -- none other than UsefulNotes/AlbertEinstein.
517** Offscreen, Dr. Ogden goes to learn psychiatry from UsefulNotes/SigmundFreud himself.
518** [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_Carnegie Andrew Carnegie]] and the conwoman [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cassie_Chadwick Cassie Chadwick]] in "The Murdoch Sting". Chadwick (who famously claimed to be Carnegie's daughter) ''just'' manages to avoid being confronted by him.
519** [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clara_Brett_Martin Clara Brett Martin]], the first female lawyer in the British Empire, in "On the Waterfront - Part 2" and "Election Day".
520** [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bat_Masterson Bat Masterson]] in "Glory Days". [[spoiler:But not Butch and Sundance.]]
521** Detective Scanlon compares the murders in "Snakes and Ladders" to those of UsefulNotes/JackTheRipper and suggests that the killer, Harlan Orgill, may in fact be the Ripper himself. It's never confirmed whether this is the case or not, although [[spoiler:since Scanlon ''is'' Orgill, it's possible that he may have been indirectly confessing to the Ripper murders]].
522** Creator/MarkTwain (played by Creator/WilliamShatner)
523** Creator/WCFields
524** Canadian Prime Minister [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wilfrid_Laurier Wilfrid Laurier]]
525** Ontario Lieutenant Governor [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oliver_Mowat Sir Olver Mowat]]
526** US President UsefulNotes/WilliamMcKinley
527** US President UsefulNotes/TheodoreRoosevelt
528** Inspector Marcel Guillaume of the Sureté (the RealLife inspiration for Creator/GeorgesSimenon's ''Maigret'')
529** Creator/HPLovecraft
530** [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helen_Keller Helen Keller]] and her helper [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anne_Sullivan Anne Sullivan]] in episode "8 Footsteps".
531** [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_H._Goddard Robert H. Goddard]] in episode "F.L.A.S.H.!"
532** [[{{Ponzi}} Charles Ponzi]] in "Home for the Holidays".
533** Bell, Edison, Ford, Goldman, Houdini, Tesla, Wells and Carnagie return in the company of [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marie_Curie Marie Curie]], [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albert_Einstein Albert Einstein]], and [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ernest_Rutherford Ernest Rutherford]] in "Staring Blindly into the Future".
534** Creator/CharlieChaplin, [[Creator/LaurelAndHardy Stanley Laurel]] and Creator/BusterKeaton in "Murdoch and the Tramp".
535* HistoricalInJoke:
536** Murdoch mentions the phrase "Literature/TheCallOfTheWild" to Jack London.
537** Brackenreid keeps trying to tell Arthur Conan Doyle a story about "[[Literature/TheHoundOfTheBaskervilles the hellhound of the Highlands]]".
538** In a later appearance, Doyle is called in to meet a man who believes himself to be Sherlock Holmes. Questioning him about how he's alive following the events of the last published story ("The Final Problem", Doyle's attempt at freeing himself of the character by killing him off) fails to break the young man's delusion, but he does provide Doyle with the explanation that he would go on to use to explain Holmes's return in "The Empty House".
539** H.G. Wells is inspired by a eugenicist engaged in horrible animal experiments to write "[[Literature/TheIslandOfDoctorMoreau something on an island]]".
540** Played with in "Unlucky in Love", where Crabtree's ideas for "improving" ''Literature/AnneOfGreenGables'' (starting with making Anne a boy!) are mostly ignored.
541** "Murdoch and the Tramp":
542*** Crabtree's dodgy disguise unwittingly ends up suggesting the Tramp's costume and walk to Charlie Chaplin.
543*** A building front falling around Murdoch and leaving him unharmed thanks to the window gives some ideas to a young Buster Keaton.
544* HistoricalVillainUpgrade: Yes, Creator/HPLovecraft was a deeply weird and neurotic person. No, he was not a death-obsessed stalker who mutilated dead bodies and liked the taste of human blood.
545* HitMeDammit:
546** At the end of "Murdoch.com", Inspector Brackenreid attempts to get Crabtree to punch him to make up for his manhandling of Crabtree while he was unwittingly suffering from cocaine withdrawal. Crabtree, understandably reluctant to strike his commanding officer, eventually just lightly taps Brackenreid on the shoulder and says that they can call it even.
547** Murdoch [[TheInfiltration goes undercover with anarchists]] and needs to talk to Inspector Brackenreid. When they are both on the street after a second bombing, Murdoch tells the inspector, "Shove me!" Brackenreid takes the hint and shoves Murdoch against a nearby wall a few times to cover their quick chat, then Brackenreid sends Murdoch on his way with a threat to arrest him.
548* HoistByHisOwnPetard: James Gillies uses a device to conceal a small gun in his pocket which he can immediately drop into his hand. [[spoiler:Later, Murdoch uses the same weapon in "The Devil Within" to subdue Gillies by shooting him with a rubber bullet.]]
549* HollywoodCostuming: Look for 21st-century-style makeup on female characters.
550* {{Homage}}: The episode "Anything You Can Do" pays tribute to the ''Series/DueSouth'' episode "Hunting Season". In addition to being Mounties, Sergeant Jasper Linney's personality and physical build are quite similar to Constable Benton Fraser's. [[spoiler:Linney discovers that Murdoch -- with whom he shares many traits in common -- is his half-brother. This is very much like Fraser's situation when he learns that Constable Maggie Mackenzie -- who is essentially a female version of himself -- is actually his half-sister. Both pairs of half-siblings share a scene with their respective biological father.]]
551* HookerWithAHeartOfGold: It's eventually revealed that the "aunts" who raised George are actually prostitutes who were allowed to use a parish house by the local pastor on the condition that they run a respectable establishment. Although Murdoch initially expresses unease at this revelation, he can see that they provided a loving environment for George and that George loves them in return. Later, George elaborates on the hard lives they led as "dock girls" before the arrangement was made and contrasts it with the way they have looked out for one another since it began. In reply, Murdoch observes the now-deceased reverend was a wise man.
552* HospitalHottie:
553** Doctor Ogden. The show is set well before doctors were wearing scrubs; she performs her duties in GorgeousPeriodDress.
554** Dr. Emily Grace is a very attractive lady doctor. She works in the morgue and wears beautiful outfits.
555** Violet Hart frequently gets flirted with by Arthur Carmichael at work, and he even makes jokes about how attractive her job (cutting open dead people) is.
556* HowWeGotHere:
557** "Anything You Can Do..." opens with Murdoch, his father and a Mountie in an abandoned building being shot at by several people (the exact number is the subject of some debate among the characters). Then the action shifts to some days earlier when Murdoch is called to a suspicious death on his home turf and meets the Mountie, Sgt. Jasper Linney. From there, the story goes back and forth between events in Toronto and the situation in that abandoned town, which proves to be in Linney's jurisdiction.
558** [[YouWakeUpInARoom "The Murdoch Trap" opens with Murdoch lying unconscious on the floor of what proves to be a cage.]] After he comes to, he finds [[spoiler:a hanging mannequin that looks like Julia with a recording of her voice playing]] and is greeted by his captor [[spoiler:James Gillies]]. The story goes back to events a week earlier and then alternates between that backstory and Murdoch's present predicament.
559* HumanPopsicle: [[spoiler:Dr. Roberts]] is frozen alive with hopes that Huntington's disease could be cured in the future.
560* HumanTraffickers: In addition to extorting dockside merchants, the O'Shea brothers also do this. They "import" Hungarian women who can't speak English. Fortunately, when Murdoch and Crabtree find one of their victims, Detective Hamish Slorach enlists his Hungarian mother to act as translator.
561* ICallItVera:
562** A replacement for missing Detective Murdoch in "The Murdoch Identity" is a tough detective who calls his gun Betsy. Not to be confused with his dog Betty.
563** In the FishOutOfTemporalWater SpinOff ''The Murdoch Effect'', PresentDay Crabtree calls his gun "Aunt Daisy", a parody of 1900s Crabtree's large number of [[FloralThemeNaming florally named]] aunts.
564* ICantDance: This is a RunningGag for a time in the series. Inspector Brackenereid gives Murdoch two tickets to a dance and when Murdoch is initially reluctant to take them, his boss makes a crack about dancing not being against Murdoch's religion. Murdoch takes lessons so he can escort Dr. Ogden, and she attends the same school to improve her own skills. Both of them need the help: Murdoch steps on her feet and has to remind her not to lead. In a later episode, when Higgins says Murdoch will waltz in and have the information for which the constables are wearily searching fingerprint cards, Crabtree retorts that Murdoch doesn't waltz: "Believe me, I've seen him try."
565* IdiosyncraticEpisodeNaming: The writers are quite fond of using anachronistically modern expressions for episode names, at times with dropping the name of the eponymous hero.
566** The episode about a serial killer who seduced women on line -- telegraph lines, that is -- is titled "Murdoch.com".
567** The one about a man who was murdered on an elevator is called aptly [[Film/ThisIsSpinalTap "This One Goes to Eleven".]]
568** 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 "[[Literature/TheBourneSeries The Murdoch Identity]]" (the episode even included a character called Treadstone).
569** AddedAlliterativeAppeal is employed from time to time: "Victor, Victorian", "Me, Myself and Murdoch", "Monsieur Murdoch", and "Evil Eye of Egypt".
570** The template for a title troped as TheJoyOfX is also used quite often: "I, Murdoch" (ICommaNoun), "Me, Myself and Murdoch" (Me, Myself and X), "Dial M for Murdoch" (Dial X for Y), and "Murdoch in Wonderland" (X in Wonderland).
571** Many of the titles are also references to films, including "Dial M for Murdoch" (''Film/DialMForMurder''), "On the Waterfront" ([[Film/OnTheWaterfront an exact quotation of a film title]]), "Friday the 13th, 1901" (from [[Franchise/FridayThe13th the horror film franchise]]), "Victor, Victorian" (''Film/VictorVictoria'') and even "Who Killed the Electric Carriage?" (from the documentary ''Film/WhoKilledTheElectricCar'').
572** Books don't get left out either. Aside from "A Study in Sherlock" (which introduces David Kingsley and alludes to the first Franchise/SherlockHolmes novel ''A Study in Scarlet''), there's "Crime and Punishment" (referring to [[Literature/CrimeAndPunishment the novel of the same name]]) and "The Devil Wears Whalebone" (referring to ''Literature/TheDevilWearsPrada'').
573** Some titles touch on rock and pop music bands and songs: "Twisted Sisters" (Music/TwistedSister), "Barenaked Ladies" (from [[Music/BarenakedLadies the Canadian alternative band of the same name]]), "Glory Days" (see the song by Music/BruceSpringsteen), "Summer of '75" (alluding to the song "Summer of '69" by Canadian rocker Music/BryanAdams) and "Lovers in a Murderous Time" (alluding to the song "Lovers in a Dangerous Time" by Bruce Cockburn and covered by the Barenaked Ladies).
574* IHaveManyNames: It's hinted that Terrence Myers isn't his actual real name, just one of the aliases he uses when doing government work. However, it's what he uses when dealing with Murdoch and company.
575* ILied: Julia does this to [[spoiler:Frank Rhodes]] when she seemingly injects him with a lethal poison to get the antidote she needs to cure Murdoch's poisoning. She actually injected him with [[spoiler:a mild paralytic that would completely wear off in a couple of hours.]]
576* ImagineSpot: Murdoch typically does one of these OncePerEpisode early one whenever he cracks the case. Other characters, such as Inspector Brackenreid, Dr. Ogden or Jasper Linney have also experienced them themselves, or actually ''joined'' Murdoch in his (the first time PlayedForLaughs when the character randomly poked his head into the frame, to Murdoch's surprise). In the latter cases, they've even appeared alongside Murdoch when they have the same realization he does. They becomes much rarer later in the series.
577* ImpoverishedPatrician:
578** [[spoiler:The Newsomes become this as of Season 12's "My Big Fat Mimico Wedding". The uncle who looks after the family finances loses a large amount of money in a bad business deal, and starts embezzling the rest of the family fortune to try and recoup his losses. He fails, and soon the Newsomes are penniless.]] While [[spoiler:Rupert]] seems to take it in stride and resigns himself to a life of poverty, Henry Higgins suddenly finds himself needing to support himself [[spoiler:and his new wife Ruth]] and begs Brackenreid for his old job back.
579** The title character of "The Ballad Of Gentleman Jones" was the heir to a vast fortune, but he gave it all up to live as a hobo riding the rails. It gets him killed when [[spoiler:several other hobos attack and murder him for the money rumors say he kept sewn into his coat. Those rumors were false.]]
580* ImprobableAimingSkills: Discussed in "Mild Mild West", where Murdoch notes a shot taken from 50 yards away from the victim would have required the shooter to have remarkable aim. Which is also a bit of artistic license/RealityIsUnrealistic: while this is certainly the case for a pistol of the era (which were generally accurate out to 25 yards), rifles of the day had an accurate range of 150 yards ''or more''. And by the time they ascertain the shooter's position, Murdoch and Julia have already determined that the fatal shot was fired by a rifle.
581* ImprovisedWeapon: These crop up from time to time, including:
582** In "'Til Death Do Us Part", the murder weapon turns out to be [[spoiler:a processional cross]] that was in the room where the victim and his killer were arguing.
583** In "The Murdoch Identity", when Anna Fulford and Murdoch are confronted by his two armed pursuers in her pub, she tells Murdoch to duck before using a frying pan to hit one of the gunmen in the head.
584** In "Downstairs, Upstairs", the household objects used to kill include [[spoiler:a fireplace poker]] and [[spoiler:a chair cushion]].
585** A [[spoiler:geologist's pick]] has twice been used to kill, in "Dinosaur Fever" and "Murdoch of the Klondike".
586** In "Murdoch of the Living Dead", Dr. Grace uses her hatpin to stab a "zombie" that grabbed her arm.
587** PlayedForLaughs by Constable Crabtree in "Crabtreemania" when he finds himself suddenly in a professional wrestling match. After he fails to get the better of his opponent (including using a martial arts move he learned the previous season), his sweetheart Edna gives him a folded chair, which he uses to hit his opponent on the head and knock him out. George then hoists Edna onto his shoulder in victory to receive the cheers of the crowd.
588* InadequateInheritor: An EccentricMillionaire leaves Dr. Ogden his fortune and his house in thanks for her surgically saving his life. When he dies later of natural causes, Dr. Ogden plans to use his fortune and house to create an orphanage. We learn that the millionaire disinherited his stepchildren because they were implied to be lazy good-for-nothings who merely tried to sponge off him. [[spoiler:Those stepchildren don't appreciate losing their stepdad's fortune and try to kill Dr. Ogden, as under Canadian inheritance law they would regain the fortune if she died within a certain time.]]
589* IncrediblyObviousBug: In "Murdoch Air", James Pendricks finds a microphone hidden in his lab, that's about the size of an alarm clock. Of course this is justified by the time period, since even for spy tools miniaturization had yet a long way to go.
590* INeedAFreakingDrink:
591** Inspector Brackenreid often pours himself a drink when he's distressed and he often feels he needs a shot to calm himself down. Then again, he thinks he deserves one to celebrate when they're successful nearly just as often.
592** Inspector Brackenreid once suggested a drink to Dr. Ogden. It is when Detective Murdoch and she have a falling out, and he begins a relationship with a young widow.
593** In the final episode of series 4, Murdoch himself suggests he needs one and that the Inspector could use one as well. [[OOCIsSeriousBusiness Brackenreid knows it's a big deal because Murdoch drinks only very, very rarely]].
594** After Dr. Ogden cuts ties with Miss Hamilton over the latter's demands for censorship, she visits Dr. Grace at the City Morgue, in part to apologize for allying with Hamilton's Temperance League in the first place. (Dr. Grace had advised against it.) She produces a bottle of whiskey from a hidden compartment in a desk and the doctors quickly down three shots each.
595** Detective Watts gets drunk to cope with [[spoiler:his and Jack's breakup]] in season 14's "Everything Is Broken pt. 1".
596* INeverSaidItWasPoison:
597** In "The Murdoch Appreciation Society", the real murderer is a bit too eager to point toward the man he's trying to frame (his ex-professor who fired him from university), and tells Murdoch they have to stop him before he can strangle another person. Murdoch is prompt to note that he never revealed the victim was strangled.
598** In "21 Murdoch Street", the killer denies that anyone could have seen him murder anyone because of how dark the room was. Murdoch then calmly asks him how he could have known the room was dark.
599* InstantlyProvenWrong: In "Murdoch and the Cloud of Doom", under the threat of a deadly gas attack, the constables are lent some gas masks by the local firefighters. They voice serious doubts that those can protect them at all (they are conceived as safeguard against smoke, not lethal poison gas, and are in poor state to boot). Thus Crabtree tries to reassure his colleagues by putting on one of the masks and telling them they'll be perfectly safe -- just as his mask's tank drops from its tube.
600* InstantSedation: In "Murdoch Air", both James Pendrick and William Murdoch are hit by {{Tranquillizer Dart}}s and fall unconscious about two seconds later. Afterward, Murdoch is puzzled while analyzing the anesthetic and being unable to identify it.
601* InsufferableGenius: True, James Pendrick is a brilliant inventor, but he's also an eugenicist and acts rather arrogant, bordering rude towards Murdoch [[spoiler:until his wife tries to frame him and get him executed]].
602* InternalizedCategorism: The culprit in "Future Imperfect" [[spoiler:(the fiancé of a judge's daughter)]] believes wholeheartedly in eugenics and the eugenics movement. During the last interrogation, Murdoch confronts the man with the information on how his own family tree is full of criminal types, how the victim discovered this information, and how it might [[spoiler:or might not]] have ended his engagement. The man says he isn't worthy of his fiancée, confesses his guilt and wants to be hanged, saying, "Put an end to my mongrel blood."
603* InterruptedDeclarationOfLove: Late in "The Murdoch Sting", Murdoch literally goes down on one knee and tries to propose to Dr. Ogden. At first, [[CanNotSpitItOut he interrupts himself while trying to pop the question]], but then she interrupts him to say, "I can't!" before fleeing into her house. He doesn't know this at the time -- indeed, he knocks on her door and calls out to her -- but she's gotten a letter [[spoiler:purportedly]] from arch-nemesis James Gillies threatening death if she marries Murdoch or tells him of the threat.
604* InTheHood: In "Bad Medicine", the killer conceals their identity in a GrimReaper costume with a large hood.
605* IntoxicationEnsues:
606** The victim's absinthe in "The Green Fairy" was drugged. She and her lover were intoxicated by it, and when she was too sedated to defend herself, she was murdered.
607** Detective Murdoch's potion drink at the ''Alice in Wonderland'' party was drugged, and he became a little belligerent and didn't feel good, as he normally doesn't even drink. The experience ended in full MushroomSamba mode.
608** In "Murdoch.com", Brackenreid attempts to quit drinking through the use of the Gold Cure. However, it is eventually revealed that the main ingredient of the cure is not gold, but cocaine.
609* IntrepidReporter:
610** Paddy Glynn frequently pops up during the fourth season looking for a [[GoingForTheBigScoop big scoop]] and usually irritating Inspector Brackenreid in the process.
611** Julia's younger sister Ruby Ogden fills this role in her episodes.
612** Louise Cherry takes on this role in seasons 10-14 (and presumably will continue to in season 15). Unlike her reporter predecessors, she sometimes works directly with Detective Watts and the rest of Station House 4 to solve cases.
613* InVinoVeritas:
614** Murdoch asks Brackenreid for a drink before confessing his compromised principles in "Murdoch in Wonderland".
615** In the B-plot of "Staircase to Heaven", Brackenreid and Crabtree are in the station house guarding a prisoner due to flooding at another station when they share some whiskey. Their conversation turns to the subject of Murdoch (who is on an island investigating a murder), and they confide to each other things about their colleague that they find annoying, including the fact that he never seems to have a hair out of place. Crabtree mentions the detective's repeated advice to "look for the small details" as a particular irritant, [[{{Foreshadowing}} and Crabtree later notices such a detail]] that tips him off to [[spoiler:the presence of an infamous criminal trying to kidnap their prisoner to prevent him from testifying in court]].
616* IronicEcho: In "High Voltage'', Inspector Brackenreid learns from the mayor (and fellow Freemason) that Dr. Ogden is planning to run for office in the coming provincial election. The mayor warns Brackenreid this will have bad professional consequences for Detective Murdoch (because he is now her husband), and later Brackenreid warns her about such consequences in an effort to convince her not to run. After she objects to his interference in the decision, he takes Murdoch aside to have the detective order his wife not to run. Murdoch supports his wife's plans and tells the inspector so, concluding with the words, "This matter is closed," before [[ChangeTheUncomfortableSubject turning the topic to the current murder case he's working on]]. Later, Julia arrives at the morgue where Emily and Lillian are looking over campaign posters and tells them she has decided to withdraw her candidacy. Emily tries to talk her out of it, especially since her husband is an enthusiastic supporter. Julia firmly refuses, closing with the words, "This matter is closed."
617* IronicFear: Dr Odgen's colleague laughs at her for treating phobia with small exposure, and thinks that her patients' phobias are ridiculous (they're feathers, horses, spiders and playing the violin in public). It's later revealed he's hugely afraid of spiders as well.
618* ISurrenderSuckers: When Brackenreid and Crabtree find Gillies' hiding place in "The Murdoch Trap", the latter extends his hands out as if allowing himself to be handcuffed, but it turns out that Gillies has a small gun concealed beneath his right sleeve. Before he can use it, though, Crabtree shoots him in the shoulder with his rifle.
619* ItsAlwaysSunnyInMiami: Or in Toronto. With a few exceptions, it's almost always bright and sunny on the show. Even overcast days are rare, and winter seems practically non-existent.
620* ItsPersonal:
621** For Inspector Brackenreid, when his son is kidnapped and held for ransom.
622** 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.
623** Murdoch also experiences this to a certain degree when it looks as if his estranged father might be the killer in "Let Loose the Dogs".
624** For Crabtree, when his {{heterosexual life partner|s}} Higgins is injured in an explosion. He works the entire case himself and spends his free time reading to Higgins at his bedside.
625* ItWasHereISwear: Murdoch and Crabtree essentially say this when they bring the others to the yard where the dirigible had been based in "The Annoying Red Planet".
626* ItWillNeverCatchOn: Frequently.
627** Including several occasions where Murdoch or Crabtree invent entirely new policing methods or technologies (like sonar or the concept of pixels and digital transmission of images -- with a telegraph), only for Inspector Brackenreid to dismiss them.
628** In one episode Crabtree explains how he used tracing paper to follow a telephone line, and find out where the call came from. Nobody's interested.
629** Even Murdoch gets in on the game, when he scoffs at Crabtree's idea of a board game (basically, ''TabletopGame/{{Clue}}'').
630** The episode "Murdoch Night in Canada" is 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.
631** Murdoch is appalled to learn that Brackenreid plans to invest money from the constabulary's new widows and orphans fund in the stock market instead of the reliability and security of good old Canadian government bonds, particularly when he hears some of the companies which Crabtree recommends investing in. The list includes General Electric, Ford, and Coca-Cola.
632** Said word for word by Brackenreid about automatic sprinklers in "Murdoch in Toyland".
633** Even Crabtree of all people get into the game when a bored Higgins hopes for a machine to match finger-prints. To which Crabtree loudly exclaims: "No machine will ever replace the eye of a trained policeman!"
634** When Murdoch is introduced to coffee for the first time, he makes a face and wonders why anyone would drink that stuff while there's tea available.
635** Murdoch scoffs at the idea of a tower in Toronto with a bulged area near the top for viewing in "Murdoch and the Cloud of Doom".
636** In "The Filmed Adventures of Detective Murdoch", Charlotte suggests she could play a lady detective in James Pendrick's moving picture. Brackenreid and Pendrick both laugh their heads off and rubbish the notion that a woman could become a police officer.
637** In the same episode, Murdoch is overall rather dismissive of the idea that cinematograph could ever become a widespread mode of entertainment.
638** Dr Grace at one point tells him "You should write all these ideas down!" when he suggests the pizza salesman could use his bicycle to take the product directly to people's homes.
639** In "Tour de Murdoch", Dr Grace discovers a fourth blood type, which has elements of both Type A and Type B, and which she therefore calls Type AB. Murdoch suggests Type D would be simpler (Type O at this point was called Type C), and Crabtree agrees!
640** Murdoch does this to ''himself'' in the interactive spin-off ''A Nightmare on Queen Street''. The instructions for the player's L.A.P.T.O.P. ([[FunWithAcronyms Levered Action Portable Truth Overview Protector]]) state that it contains "a miniaturized motion picture projector that features my own innovation, synchronized sound. (A novelty to be sure. I don't imagine it will catch on.)"
641** In "From Buffalo with Love", this happens to Brackenreid for once. During the trip to Buffalo, he visits a restaurant and, when told they're out of food, says he's hungry enough to eat the chicken wings they were about to throw out (because nobody would eat chicken wings when they could have the rest of the chicken). He declares they're delicious with a spicy sauce, but everyone else is horrified, even the restaurateur, who murmurs to his wife "The Canadians are eating our garbage!"
642** Three in "Home for the Holidays":
643*** Brakenreid and food again: When Mrs Brackenreid is gloating about how much money they have for Christmas, she says they could have a turkey, a duck, ''and'' a chicken. Brackenreid suggests putting them inside each other and gets told "Don't be disgusting, Thomas!"
644*** When Ruth Newsome and Nina are spinning [[TheCon a tale]] to [[OutGambitted Out Gambit]] Charles {{Ponzi}}, they claim to be selling lip-rouge by word of mouth as, since MakeUpIsEvil, there obviously isn't a cosmetics counter at Eaton's. [[https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/eatons-hard-times One article]] about the department store shortly before its bankruptcy in 1999 says "the array of cosmetics and fashion accessories was deliciously tempting".
645*** The Newsomes apparently sunk a lot of money into attempting to make cola transparent, because brown drinks look revolting. Everyone else is completely baffled by this.
646** In "Murdoch and the Undetectable Man", UsefulNotes/NikolaTesla says that [[UsefulNotes/AlbertEinstein Albert (or possibly Alfred} Einsten]] has had some good ideas, but all this stuff about matter and energy and the speed of light has no practical purpose. In the same episode, he and Murdoch invent television, but don't bother patenting it as they don't see any commercial applications.
647** In "Manual for Murder", Henry talks Ruth out of investing in Mr Kellog's company, because he just doesn't believe people will want to eat toasted corn for breakfast.
648* IWantMyBelovedToBeHappy:
649** At the end of Season 3, Dr. Ogden moves to Buffalo because she can't have children and knows Murdoch wants a family. She even marries [[RomanticFalseLead another man]], Dr. Darcy Garland, at the end of Season 4.
650** At the end of Season 5, Darcy says he's not going to stand in the way of Julia getting back together with Murdoch. Then he changes his mind in season 6, [[RuleOfDrama because drama]].
651** Late in season 8, [[spoiler:Edna's supposedly deceased husband returns just as she and George and her stepson are talking over their new life together as a family]]. (George proposed marriage after spending much of the season courting her, and she accepted.) Shortly afterwards, she and George meet, and he tells her to return to her husband and "be happy" rather than worry about his feelings.
652* IWasHavingSuchANiceDream: Murdoch is dreaming of finally marrying Julia [[DreamIntro in the opening of "Murdoch Air"]] when Constable Crabtree pounds on his door to summon him.
653* JackBauerInterrogationTechnique:
654** On occasion, Brackenreid physically assaults suspects for information. In the episode "Dead on Arrival", he beats [[spoiler:the man who poisoned Murdoch]] half to death to get the name of [[spoiler:the chemist who made the poison.]]
655** Julia goes even further in "Dead on Arrival" when she [[spoiler:injects Frank Rhodes with what she says is a lethal poison that will kill him in half an hour, offering the antidote to her poison in exchange for the antidote to Rhodes' poison. When Rhodes provides it, Julia suddenly reveals that she simply injected him with a mild paralytic that would completely wear off in a couple of hours.]]
656* {{Jerkass}}: [[spoiler:Randall Townsend from "Great Wall". First off, he's a racist. Secondly, he's a pedophile (having raped a small girl and trying to justify it when exposed). Finally, he is willing to let his victim's elderly grandfather take the fall for killing his partner (the partner, himself a racist, was disgusted by Randall's actions and tried to confront him). He's a complete monster in almost every way, but he did genuinely try to save his partner.]]
657* JourneyToFindOneself: After a conflict of ideals with Brackenreid, Watts quits the police force and spends the first half of season 16 looking for a niche, often running into Murdoch on an investigation. He eventually decides to become a private eye but continues to try out new philosophies and lifestyles he can be his complete self in.
658* JusticeByOtherLegalMeans: Happens in "An Avoidable Hinder". [[spoiler:Leo O'Rourke was framed for murder 30 years ago by Cyril Philpot and Donald Hawkins, the victim's brother, because O'Rourke fought with the victim over Marie Lajeunesse. Philpot shoots O'Rourke in the present day, and Murdoch arrests him for it. There's no evidence to prove Hawkins murdered his brother, but a disgusted Marie divorces him and takes up with O'Rourke.]]
659* KarmaHoudini: Subverted in "Back and to the Left" when Murdoch gets [[spoiler:the Irish Catholic member of the criminal conspiracy to betray the rest of his cabal in exchange for an immunity deal. Given that he already betrayed his community to join the conspiracy in the first place, Brackenreid points out that his fellow Irishmen will likely kill him before the other cabal members are hanged. Murdoch says that, at the very least, he's a ruined man.]]
660** Played straight in [[spoiler:"Belly Speaker"]], in which the killer actually manages to outwit Murdoch and walks away a free man (the only non-recurring foe to do so), [[spoiler:"The Lady Vanishes"]], in which [[NoAdequatePunishment none of the conspirators technically broke any specific law]], and [[spoiler:"The Devil Wears Whalebone"]], in which the killer is arrested but Murdoch notes that she's likely to be acquitted as there's very little airtight evidence and no confession.
661* KarmicDeath: [[spoiler:Dr. Luther Bates has an innocent woman strangled to death by one of the men who his experiments had turned BrainwashedAndCrazy, and tries to do the same to Murdoch.]] Murdoch flashing his shiny badge at the man distracts him due to his fascination for shiny things (he had previously appropriated his victim's shiny crucifix) and he lets Murdoch go. All of the other men end up running amuck in the streets of Toronto, but the one Murdoch showed his badge to [[spoiler:tracks down Dr. Bates and subjects him to the same gruesome fate he intended for Murdoch.]] Given all the shit he pulled during the episode and ''A Nightmare on Queen Street'', he [[AssholeVictim more than deserves his fate]].
662* KindheartedCatLover: George Crabtree. He owns at least one dog and one cat and his first priority tends to be animals.
663* KingIncognito: During their honeymoon in England, George and Effie meet no less than King George V, ruler of the entire British Empire, when he's traveling in disguise. [[spoiler:He's in disguise because a group of aristocrats who're angry at his plans to reform Britain's hereditary peerage system are planning to kill him. George and Effie end up saving his life.]]
664* TheKingslayer: [[spoiler:A group of British aristocrats angry at King George V's plans to reform the country's hereditary peerage system form an organization calling itself the Black Chalice with the intention of committing regicide.]]
665* KissingUnderTheInfluence: [[spoiler:After an evening of consuming absinthe, Murdoch and Julia end up making out on a blanket. Subverted in this case; neither regret their actions on the morning after and consequently pursue a relationship.]]
666* {{Knighting}}: Subverted when [[spoiler:George and Effie save the life of King George V on their honeymoon in England. The King says he would like to knight them for their help, but the whole affair has to be kept a secret for political reasons.]]
667* KnightTemplar: Becoming frustrated at how many guilty people were getting acquitted, [[spoiler:the Crown Prosecutor of Toronto starts using false witnesses, planted evidence and murder to send innocent men to the gallows. He more than gets what he deserves at the end of the episode.]] When he's about to be hanged, he raves about how God will forgive him, since he was [[BlatantLies doing the Lord's work.]]
668* KnightTemplarParent: Darkly subverted in "Brother's Keeper". Gang leader Nigel Baker murders a man named Daniel Marks, and gets his thugs to destroy the evidence against him. Daniel's brothers [[spoiler:Detective Watts]] and Hubert resort to FramingTheGuiltyParty to get Nigel convicted. Nigel's father Thomas uses this to petition to the court to have the evidence thrown out and Nigel exonerated. Later, when Nigel murders Hubert, [[spoiler:Thomas realizes just how evil his son is. Thomas is so plagued by guilt at letting Nigel kill again that he [[OffingTheOffspring murders Nigel himself]] to try and make things right.]]
669* TheKnightsWhoSaySquee: Detective Murdoch is always delighted or thrilled to meet famous inventors and scientists, but he absolutely fan-boys over meeting Marconi who is setting up wireless telegraph in Newfoundland. Cute.
670* LadyInRed: Late in "Twentieth Century Murdoch", it's New Year's Eve 1899 and Julia is slowly getting ready to accompany her husband Darcy to a private party hosted by one of his colleagues. Darcy chides her as she's fussing with jewelry to go with her dark, long-sleeved gown (they're long overdue at the party), then [[IWantMyBelovedtoBeHappy he tells her she should be with whom she chooses that night]] and leaves the room. She next appears at the constabulary's New Year's gala ball in an off-the-shoulder red dress with a beaded fringe, together with a red feathered hair ornament. After telling William about her decision to become a psychiatrist, he expresses doubt that she came there to tell him that, and she blurts out that she and Darcy have separated. Moments later, [[BigDamnKiss they're kissing, framed in a doorway with fireworks exploding in the sky around them]]. (She wears it again in Season Six, Episode 2, albeit in flashback.)
671* LastResortTakeout: Unable to find a suitably sized fowl at the butcher's on Christmas Eve for his Christmas Dinner for One, Crabtree is forced to settle for a few sausages.
672* LatexPerfection: In "The Murdoch Trap", it's revealed that Gillies had used a latex mask of [[spoiler:Dr. Ogden's face]] to impersonate her.
673* LectureAsExposition: Late in "Big Murderer on Campus", Murdoch is in a university classroom giving a lecture on the "applied physics" of execution by hanging. The lecture turns into [[spoiler:a means of pressuring one of the accomplices to a murder into confessing against the other -- the soon-to-be-infamous James Gillies]].
674* LegallyDead: The titular scam in "The Murdoch Sting" turns on this point of law. A wealthy bank official goes missing and does turn up dead, but there's no evidence to charge the suspect [[spoiler:Eva Pearce]] with his murder. Murdoch and company persuade the suspect that she's due to inherit half the banker's substantial estate, then close the investigation with the man still officially missing, forcing the banker's heirs to wait seven years to collect. The idea is to catch her in the place the body was found, since if she killed the guy and hid his body there, this demonstration of the guilty knowledge would clinch the case against her. [[spoiler:Despite her best efforts, it works and Murdoch catches her in the act of searching the pond for the body.]]
675* LethalChef: Mrs. Kitchen, Murdoch's landlady, definitely cannot cook. In one episode, Mrs. Kitchen's friend's food is even worse -- even mice won't touch it. [[spoiler:It's actually poisoned, though not lethally, to keep Murdoch feverish while they try to retrieve some stolen things.]]
676* LieDetector: In the episodes "Still Waters" and "Invention Convention", Murdoch has a device of his own invention called a pneumograph which, as the name suggests, measures the suspect's breathing. Instead of the lights, his machine has blue liquid that rises in a spiral-shaped tube. Despite not having any of the other measurements of a polygraph, it appears to be nearly infallible... providing Murdoch is asking the right questions. Murdoch himself is the subject when he first demonstrates it for his colleagues, a demonstration very much PlayedForLaughs. Of course Dr. Ogden walks in, and the questions get very personal, and Murdoch is embarrassed by the accuracy of his own invention.
677* LighterAndSofter: The original novels and the ''Murdoch Murder Mysteries'' adaptations are fairly serious murder mysteries with plenty of character drama. This series is much more lighthearted and whimsical, with Murdoch's inventions, Crabtree providing comic relief while Brackenreid is transformed from a drunken bigot to a boisterous JerkWithAHeartOfGold (with the jerk aspect almost fading over the years) who is more bark than bite.
678* LiquidCourage: Near the end of "The Murdoch Sting", Inspector Brackenreid advises Crabtree to make an effort to win back Dr. Grace's affections. Murdoch is in the room, and after Crabtree leaves, he declares he too will take the inspector's advice and (in his own case) propose to Dr. Ogden. Murdoch then goes to Brackenreid's decanter, pours two glasses (one for himself and one for his boss), and quickly downs his own drink. It turns out he probably needed that drink, since [[spoiler:Julia refuses him before can finish]] due to [[spoiler:threats against their lives]].
679* {{Lobotomy}}: In "Murdoch of the Living Dead", [[spoiler:psychiatrist Dr. Bates is revealed to have been performing lobotomies through the nose on criminals and violent/ill-tempered men. Though a couple of his patients became docile through the procedure, more of his "patients/victims" ended up even more violent than before.]]
680* LocardsTheory: Early in "Bad Medicine", Constable Crabtree speaks a bit despairingly of the culprit's escape from a murder scene without a trace. Murdoch reassures him thusly:
681-->'''Murdoch:''' The laws of physics dictate that any time two objects make contact, trace materials are exchanged. Therefore, a killer always leaves a calling card.
682* LockedRoomMystery: These occasionally turn up in the series:
683** In "Houdini Whodunnit", a bank guard is found dead inside a vault secured by a time lock. Oh, and the vault has been robbed of a large amount of money too.
684** In "The Annoying Red Planet", Detective Murdoch asks Constable Crabtree why he was summoned to a scene where a man's body is hanging high in a tree. Crabtree draws Murdoch's attention to the lack of ''any'' footprints on the plowed earth for some twenty feet or so from the tree.
685** In "Big Murderer on Campus", a university professor is shot to death through a window, but the quadrangle where the shot came from was full of milling students at the time and no one saw a shooter.
686** In "Blood and Circuses", Station 4 has the entire surviving troupe of circus performers staying in the locked cells while the murder of the lion tamer is being investigated. One member of the troupe has a cell to himself and is stabbed to death in the night, and the weapon is nowhere to be found.
687** In "The Tesla Effect", a man is found dead inside a room with the door jammed shut with a chair. There's no obvious weapon, and aside from some curious blistering, no clearly fatal wounds. His body is later found to have been, as Dr. Ogden incredulously describes it, "cooked from the inside".
688** In "The Black Hand", a man is shot to death on a streetcar. The severity of the wound and the lack of a blood trail mean he couldn't have been shot anywhere else, but no one heard the shot.
689** In "Invention Convention", an inventor is shot in the head while accepting an award. The shot came from an impossibly high angle, and there were a dozen or more witnesses who saw no shooter.
690* LockingMacGyverInTheStoreCupboard:
691** A rather extreme example in "Staring Blindly into the Future". What happens when you lock up William Murdoch, Ernest Rutherford, UsefulNotes/NikolaTesla, UsefulNotes/AlbertEinstein and UsefulNotes/MarieCurie into a fully equipped laboratory? [[spoiler:They build a DeathRay. Sally Pendrick kidnapped them all to force them to work on an atomic weapon, and although the ray wasn't used on the door like they planned, Murdoch fires it at Sally's head when she's threatening to murder Julia.]]
692** Another example occurs in "The Murdoch Trap". Murdoch uses [[spoiler:the elaborate deathtrap James Gillies has set up to create an impromptu telegraph and warn the Constabulary where he is. Brackenreid and Crabtree lead a squad of officers to save Murdoch JustInTime and finally arrest Gillies.]]
693** In "Murdoch Escape Room", Crabtree and Brackenreid use Crabtree's coat and Brackenreid's cane to [[spoiler:capture and smash the wasp's nest that nearly kills them.]] Later, the protagonists [[spoiler:use a table as a boat to avoid getting killed by the acid pouring into the room.]]
694* LonelyTogether: Double subverted in the 2021 Christmas episode with Detective Watts, who's left monitoring the station house on Christmas Eve while most of the main cast is having a party at Dr. Ogden's newly inherited estate. Mrs. Hart comes by the station house and asks Watts if he's upset at being alone on Christmas. Watts doesn't actually mind, since he's a Jewish atheist who often prefers his own company to that of others. He asks Mrs. Hart the same question, and she doesn't really mind either since she celebrates in her own way. They do enjoy each other's company, especially when a group of orphans come in asking for help returning a lost puppy to its owners.
695* LongLostRelative:
696** In the series 2 finale "Anything You Can Do...", Murdoch discovers that the Mountie he is working on a case with is in fact his half-brother, the product of a relationship his father had with another woman after the death of Murdoch's mother.
697** In season 2, George, who was a DoorstopBaby meets his birth mother.
698** Murdoch's long-lost father turns up as a murder suspect in "Let Loose the Dogs".
699** Murdoch has a long-lost sister who turns up as the Reverend Mother of a convent where a fake priest has been killed.
700* LoopholeAbuse: Julia, Emily and the other suffragettes take advantage of a few of these with help from [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clara_Brett_Martin Clara Brett Martin]], the first female lawyer in the British Empire:
701** Although Ontario law prohibits women from voting, Martin determines that it doesn't prevent women from running in an election. Julia and the other suffragettes put [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Margaret_Haile Margaret Haile]] forward as a candidate in Ontario's 1902 election.
702** When Margaret's name is "accidentally" left off the ballots, Martin gets a court injunction prohibiting the vote from proceeding without Margaret's name on the ballots. The returning officer protests that it'll take hours to get new ballots printed. Julia and Emily then realize that the injunction only requires Margaret's name to be on the ballots, and doesn't specify ''how'' they're written. The suffragettes and some election officials write Margaret's name on the ballots by hand, allowing them to be used until the re-printed ballots with Margaret's name on them finally arrive.
703* TheLostLenore: Liza, Murdoch's fiancé who died a year before the events of Season 1.
704* LostLoveMontage: Used very briefly in series 1 when Murdoch is thinking of Liza, his dead fiancée.
705* LostWeddingRing: Happens in the hundredth episode "Holy Matrimony, Murdoch!" Best man George Crabtree discovers he's lost the bride's ring just before leaving for the church on the big day. An exasperated Brackenreid goes in search of the tardy George (who has been searching for it), and when told of the reason for Crabtree's absence the Inspector says they'll borrow his wife's ring if need be just to finally get the job done. Constable Higgins comes to the rescue, having retraced his friend's steps and finding it had fallen into George's typewriter.
706* LovelyAssistant: Ruby Ogden to Harry Houdini in "Houdini Whodunit".
707* LowSpeedChase: The B-plot of "Murdoch Takes Manhattan" culminates in one of these. Constable Crabtree tries to make an arrest and finds himself ordered at gunpoint to drive a kidnapper and his victim. Dr. Grace, Inspector Brackenreid and Constable Jackson take another car to pursue them, and at one point Brackenreid orders Jackson to bail out so they can go faster and catch up.
708* LuckilyMyShieldWillProtectMe: [[spoiler:Sally Pendrick]] has used technology stolen from UsefulNotes/NikolaTesla to develop a [[spoiler:microwave death ray]]. When he goes to try and stop her from selling the weapon, Murdoch asks Dr. Tesla to develop some sort of protection. Tesla comes up with a shield made of polished silver and aluminum that Murdoch places in front of him on the coach he rides. [[spoiler:The shield more than proves its worth when Sally Pendrick fires the death ray at Murdoch. Not only does the shield protect him, but it actually reflects the microwaves back at the gun, instantly destroying it.]]
709[[/folder]]
710
711[[folder:Tropes M–R]]
712* MagicianDetective: In "Houdini Whodunnit", Harry Houdini fills this role, helping Murdoch to work out how a bank vault was robbed without any tampering with the lock.
713* MakeItLookLikeAnAccident: The season 2 finale has a contract killer that specializes in this.
714* MakeUpIsEvil: A subtle one occurs in "Till Death Do Us Part". When Eunice is first seen, she is complaining that she remains pale no matter how much she pinches her cheeks. Later, after [[spoiler:she is revealed as a con artist and a murderer]], she is applying bright red lipstick. The trope is played straight in "Painted Ladies". Julia takes Murdoch to a purveyor of cosmetics who is frequented by his female customers discretely so that it will not be discovered that they wear makeup. Even Murdoch was apparently unaware until this day that Julia used it.
715* {{Malaproper}}: Constable Crabtree mispronounces something or messes up a phrase from time to time, especially in the early seasons. Detective Murdoch sometimes corrects him, but once George Crabtree dismisses him and says that they will have agree to disagree as to what the correct expression is, Murdoch stops doing it. The best instance was probably when George repeated after Murdoch that haemo-goblin is the substance causing a chemical reaction.
716* MalMariee: Mal Mariée is a young woman unhappily married to an older, jealous husband. A solution to the murder case of the week in "Marked Twain" lies in this trope. A rich old guy has a pretty young wife who cheats on him with a bartender from his club. The bartender is about her age and the husband kills him out of jealousy.
717* MamaBear:
718** A wealthy philanthropist is beaten to death with a shovel. The killer is [[spoiler:his wife, who turned into this trope after she found out he was molesting their adopted daughter.]]
719** Enid Jones is a sweet, young and innocently-looking lady. But do not, ever, try to endanger her son.
720* ManBitesMan: One patient [[spoiler:of Doctor Bates who has been lobotomised]] is called "a biter". He nearly attacks and bites Dr. Grace and later is seen (in a GoryDiscretionShot) [[spoiler:killing Doctor Bates, attacking him like a wild animal.]]
721* ManicPixieDreamGirl:
722** Tess Moffatt in "Dial M for Murdoch", whose repeated claims that she has heard crimes being committed in her work as a telephone operator, scorned by Brackenreid, end up drawing the team into a murder investigation, and particularly drawing Crabtree into a zanier-than-usual pursuit of the killer. At the end of the episode, she considers opening a detective agency of her own, which would show independent ambition that belies the trope. However, as this desire is never followed up on in subsequent episodes, the main function of this ambition ends up being to serve George Crabtree's character development. When he tells Tess he cannot join her in her detective agency, he reveals a sense of duty to Det. Murdoch and Insp. Brackenreid, highlighting a professional, serious side of his character that contrasts his generally goofy attitude.
723** Milo Strange, who's introduced in Season 15, is a Manic Pixie Dream ''Guy'' who hits it off with the gay Watts. He's implied to be an EccentricMillionaire, dresses flamboyantly, keeps a pet peacock that he named after Creator/WaltWhitman, and does antics with Watts like sneaking into a theater to watch a concert from the wings and get chased out by the manager. He's also heavily implied to not only be gay but very interested in Watts, who returns the favour.
724* ManlyTears:
725** Detective Murdoch's eyes fill with tears when Julia tells him [[spoiler:that her abortion left her barren. She also strongly implies that she wants to end their relationship because she knows how much William wants to have a family.]]
726** Murdoch cries when his sister tells him she has to return from Toronto to Montreal, and that [[spoiler:she's terminally ill]], so that they are not going to see each other any more.
727** Inspector Brackenreid is on the brink of tears when his son got kidnapped and his kidnappers apparently killed him. He holds them because he doesn't want to cry in front of other people, but his eyes are full of tears and he's very, very shaken.
728** At the end of "The Murdoch Trap" [[spoiler:when Murdoch brings Gillies's filmed confession and the judge orders the noose removed from Julia's neck]], Murdoch embraces Julia and tears are visibly streaming down his face.
729** Watts tears up when he sees his sister after fifteen years of believing she was missing, and [[spoiler:again when she tells him that the reason she left is because she didn't want to be stuck raising him, and never wanted him.]]
730* MarketBasedTitle: ''The Artful Detective'' on the US network Ovation.
731* MaybeMagicMaybeMundane:
732** When Inspector Brackenreid arrests a bunch of gypsies for theft for political gain despite there being no evidence of the gypsies' guilt, the leader of their caravan puts a curse on Brackenreid for him to never achieve what he most desires. Later in the episode, Brackenreid finds that the one of the actual thieves is the son of the man bankrolling his run for Toronto City Council. Despite his backer's efforts, Brackenreid decides ScrewTheMoneyIHaveRules and has the son and the rest of the thieves arrested, dropping out of the election in the process. Once the gypsies are released, their leader offers to lift her curse, but Brackenreid says that there was no curse to begin with... despite the fact that once the gypsy leader cursed him, his political ambitions fell apart.
733** The episode "The Witches of East York" features Murdoch getting blisters on his hands and Brackenreid hallucinating after they're both cursed by WitchClassic Minerva West. This is later explained by Murdoch touching the poison ivy West smeared on her spellbook and Brackenreid eating a sandwich made of rye bread tainted with a hallucinatory fungus, but they both happened after West's curse. When Dr. Ogden and Mrs. Hart follow one of West's herbal recipes in trying to figure out what killed the victim of the week, the lights in the morgue briefly flicker when they finish chanting the incantation.
734** In "Elementary, My Dear Murdoch," Ida Pensall admits to having a spy collect information by following people who attend her seances, however, she does mention things that only Murdoch and his deceased fiancé could have known, notably a mention of a silver horse.
735* MeaningfulLook:
736** Dr. Emily Grace and Constable George Crabtree are walking at the beach, and a new-playboy-in-town Leslie Garland catches Emily's eyes. They share a long look. There seems to be an interest on both sides and a clear attraction on Leslie's side. George doesn't notice because he's busy describing Emily how he invented a new beach game (basically a flying disc).
737** In "Murdoch in Ragtime", Emily Grace and George come to spend an evening in a bar and they meet Leslie Garland. Leslie and Emily attempt playing ragtime together on the piano. This time George notices them and he keeps looking at them, somewhat worried.
738* MeaningfulName: In the episode "Bloodlust", students of a girl boarding school have gone to meet a mysterious man in a nearby cemetery and have woken up in a crypt with puncture wounds on their necks and having lost blood. When Murdoch visits the crypt the markers on the walls bear the family name Tepes. Vlad Tepes was also known as Vlad Dracula and inspired Bram Stoker.
739* TheMenInBlack: Terrence Meyers is the late 19th-century Canadian equivalent of this trope. He always shows up when something shady is happening and he's connected with the country's leaders.
740* MisplacedWildlife: Of the supernatural variety. In "A Merry Murdoch Christmas", Brackenreid claims to have encountered the Krampus, a holiday demon from Bavaria and the Tyrol, as a boy in Yorkshire and that he is now terrorizing the episode's victims. [[spoiler:It's one of the culprits in disguise.]]
741* MolotovCocktail: The killer uses one to start a fire in the brothel as a distraction while he commits a murder in "The Green Muse".
742* MonochromeApparition: In the episode "The Ghost of Queen's Park", there are several mysterious deaths in a building near Queen's Park that look like murders. People report seeing a ghost that is blue and glows. [[spoiler:The ghost was a woman who wanted a revenge for her mother's death. She looked exactly like her mother and her adoptive father was a scientist who experimented with radium. She rubbed herself with it, and radium is luminescent, glowing a faint blue.]]
743* MonsterClown:
744** Season 15's "I Know What You Did Last Autumn" features a knife-wielding clown murdering the people who [[spoiler:[[SlutShaming Slut Shamed]] a girl to death.]] The clown in question resembles the Italian opera character Pagliacci.
745** In Season 16's "[[SequelEpisode I Still Know What You Did Last Autumn]]", after the previous year's incident a horror movie based on the murders is supposed to come out... until the lead actress is murdered by someone dressed as the same clown as previously.
746* MoodWhiplash: Possibly the worst case in the series so far happened at the end of "24 Hours Til Doomsday". [[spoiler:Murdoch had another adventure with James Pendrick (via the "flying suits") and foiled the plan with the rocket. Pendrick's own rocket was forced to be dismantled by the Canadian government due to pressure from the USA, and while Pendrick was lamenting this fact, Terrance Meyers was snooping around. He trapped himself inside and set it to launch, ensuring his death since one of Pendrick's suits was needed to later jump out and survive. His last moments shown onscreen were futilely screaming for help with Murdoch and Pendrick far away on the ground below, too late to do anything. Subverted later on in the series when Meyers turns up very much alive, having survived the crash.]]
747* MoralGuardians: Miss Hamilton in "Murdoch au Naturel", who browbeats George into painting over French Revue posters that [[OurNudityIsDifferent shows women's ankles]] and wants him to raid a nightclub playing "vulgar music called ragtime". Then when George returns from his undercover work at the nudist colony, she walks in on a conversation between him and one of the nudists about how restrictive clothes are.
748-->'''Miss Hamilton:''' Heathens! Reprobates! Miscreants! Degenerates! This city is ''doomed'' with moral guardians like you!
749:: Miss Hamilton returns in "Murdoch in Ragtime", still trying to get the Blind Pig shut down. When the suffragist "Furious Four" ally with the Temperance League before an election, she wants the candidate to support banning books, and she states she'd like to burn Mark Twain's works.
750* MuggedForDisguise: In "Hangman", escapee Cecil Fox surprises Constables Crabtree and Higgins to get a police uniform as a disguise. The two constables report to Station Four, one of them missing his tunic and the other missing his trousers. In his police guise, Fox goes to [[spoiler:Dr. Ogden at the morgue to get medical treatment for his tracheotomy wound]].
751* MurderByMistake: Subverted in "Back And To The Left." A gunman seemingly tries to kill Toronto's Mayor but shoots a city alderman instead. Murdoch eventually discovers that the alderman was the real target and that the gunman only pretended to target the Mayor as part of a FalseFlagOperation.
752* MushroomSamba:
753** One alcoholic drink served in a flask at the ''Alice in Wonderland'' costume party is drugged. Unfortunately, Detective Murdoch drinks it and has unsettling visions of the grinning Cheshire Cat, falling down a hole or being too big to enter a door. It turns out it was just a prank, and not directed at Detective Murdoch.
754** Murdoch attempts to invoke this in "The Green Fairy" to see if someone could be driven to murder under the influence of absinthe, but only gets a headache.
755** Brackenreid suffers this in "The Witches of East York" when he confiscates and eats the sandwich witch Minerva West made for her apprentice, who was in the station house's cells. Minerva angrily curses him, and he later hallucinates that he's being attacked by a witch. Dr. Ogden later finds that Minerva's sandwich was made of rye bread infected with ergot fungus, which caused Brackenreid's hallucinations. Ergot fungus contains many of the chemicals used in LSD [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medical_explanations_of_bewitchment and has been suggested as a cause for why people think they've been bewitched.]]
756* MusicalEpisode: The show's first musical episode "Why Is Everybody Singing?" aired on March 25th, 2024 with the musical numbers all happening while Murdoch is comatose.
757* MyCountryRightOrWrong: Terrence Myers is a lying, scheming ManipulativeBastard, but he '''is''' a loyal Canadian. He gets noticeably hot under the collar when an American secret agent starts trying to throw his weight around during an undercover mission in Toronto.
758* MyGodWhatHaveIDone: Said almost word for word by Abigail Prescott's mother in "Whatever Happened to Abigail Prescott" when she realizes that she basically signed her daughter's death warrant by first calling up her [[DomesticAbuse abusive husband]], Alderman Prescott, and then telling him where she was staying.
759* MyGreatestSecondChance: In "Unfinished Business", Murdoch plays a recording of a man's deathbed confession of murder, and Dr. Ogden recognizes the details of an unsolved case the two of them worked on early in their careers. As she retrieves the case file, Dr. Ogden [[ThatOneCase expresses regret that she couldn't find enough evidence to solve the woman's murder.]] Later, Murdoch re-investigates the woman's husband, who objects to the scrutiny along with his equally indignant brother. It turns out [[spoiler:the brother made a murder pact with the confessed killer to kill his sister-in-law]] and Murdoch sincerely apologizes to the widower for suspecting him.
760* MysteryWriterDetective:
761** George writes ''The Curse of the Lost Pharaohs'' during season 4. By "Evil Eye of Egypt" in series 5 it has been published and he's on the publicity trail for it.
762** Creator/ArthurConanDoyle appears a couple of times in the first season. Both Doyle and someone who "lives" the role of Sherlock Holmes show up in Season 6.
763* MythArc: For the first two seasons the episodes were mostly self-contained. Season 3 has one dealing with [[spoiler:the Pendricks]].
764* NakedPeopleAreFunny: Used in "Murdoch au Naturel", with George going "undercover" in a naturist colony and unwittingly running into Julia there, much to [[NakedFreakOut their mutual embarrassment]]. George quickly covers the plumbing with a [[ModestyTowel hand towel]], but then lamely says he's been wimming in the cold river. "Ohhh?" Julia responds. Later, a still-naked Julia saves George's life, only to have Murdoch and Brackenreid rush in to catch her in the altogether, and HilarityEnsues.
765* NativeGuide: When [[spoiler:Ralph Fellows]] kidnaps Harry Junior and Julia in "Rawhide Ralph", Murdoch hires a First Nations tracker to help him find where his family's being held. The man refuses to help Murdoch actually rescue them, saying that wasn't what Murdoch hired him for. He wishes Murdoch luck and promptly leaves.
766* NaughtyBirdwatching:
767** In "Child's Play", Murdoch is demonstrating his new invention 'the circumscope' (a periscope) to Crabtree and commenting on how usual it will be for surveillance. Crabtree agrees as he uses it to ogle a woman in corset who is leaning out of a window to beat a rug.
768** The VictimOfTheWeek in "Big Murderer on Campus" is shot while using a telescope to spy on a coed undressing.
769* NearDeathClairvoyance: The aim of the society in "Staircase to Heaven". [[spoiler:Murdoch experiences it for himself.]]
770* NecroCam: Happens whenever Murdoch figures out how the VictimOfTheWeek was killed. Murdoch frequently inserts himself into these flashbacks (implied to be his mental image of what happened) as a bystander to the event, and he often simultaneously narrates his explanation of the murder to someone else (and for the convenience of the audience).
771* NeverFoundTheBody:
772** In the Season 3 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 4 returned to the self-contained episodes format.
773** In "Murdoch in Toyland", after managing to [[FakingTheDead escape his own hanging]], attempting a psychologically disturbing plan of revenge and getting caught by Murdoch again, the police wagon carrying [[spoiler:James Gillies]] back to prison plunges over a bridge into a river. While the bodies of the driver and the guard are found, [[spoiler:Gillies']] is not.
774** [[spoiler:The same character]] dives into another river at the end of "Midnight Train to Kingston". Murdoch is particularly (and understandably) anxious about the lack of a corpse. [[spoiler:They find the body seven episodes later.]]
775* NeverLendToAFriend: PlayedForLaughs in "The Spy Who Came Up to the Cold", when Higgins hides Crabtree's fancy new pen because George bought it rather than repay a small loan to him. Crabtree argues that Higgins borrowed from him a year earlier to get a uniform item and hadn't repaid that loan. The two trade insults while working the case.
776%% * NeverOneMurder:
777* NewYearHasCome: Season 5's "Twentieth Century Murdoch" concludes with the characters celebrating the beginning of the 20th century.
778* NewspaperThinDisguise:
779** Murdoch employs a newspaper in this fashion while staking out the intersection of Carlton and Parliament in "Murdoch on the Corner". Constable Crabtree has been flamboyantly spending new-found money per Murdoch's instructions, and Murdoch drops his paper to urge Crabtree to go home so they can wait for the killer to follow him there.
780** Brackenreid hastily grabs a newspaper from the station's front desk in one of his efforts to hide from temperance crusader Miss Hamilton in "Murdoch au Naturel".
781* NoHonorAmongThieves: In "Whatever Happened to Abigail Prescott?", the protagonists get the corrupt Alderman Prescott's accountant and main enforcer to turn on him, as well as the convict he hired to attack Julia in prison and the police scrivener who stole critical evidence from some investigation reports.
782* NotTheNessie: The monster resembling a prehistoric serpent is just [[spoiler:a fabricated machine created to scare off people from the beach.]]
783* ObfuscatingDisability: In episode "Bad Medicine", the killer turns out to be someone who pretended to be a stroke victim so he would avoid suspicion.
784* ObstructiveBureaucrat: A frequent obstacle in Murdoch's investigations. While Brackenreid trusts his record and abilities enough to give him considerable leeway, ''his'' superiors are not so generous, and frequently interfere with Murdoch's efforts to thoroughly investigate the case by attempting to force him to drop or pursue lines of investigations. Overlaps with ScrewTheRulesIHaveMoney once public figures become involved.
785* OfficerOHara: The stationhouse is pretty evenly divided between the Irish and Scots. Most prominent are Constable Worseley (a recurring background character) and Chief Constable Stockton in seasons 1 through 3; both have strong Irish accents.
786* OffscreenMomentOfAwesome: At the beginning of "Blood and Circuses", Crabtree and Higgins breathlessly describe an encounter with a Bengal tiger escaped from a visiting circus. Higgins physically tackled the tiger to keep it from mauling an old man -- getting his arm clawed in the process -- and George hit it with his truncheon.
787* OhCrap:
788** The Crown Prosecutor of Toronto is outraged when Murdoch and Brackenreid accuse him of murder, and threatens to use his influence to ruin their careers. When Murdoch presents him with proof of his guilt, he immediately turns to this trope and then suffers a VillainousBreakdown.
789** Subverted by Timothy Beaton when Murdoch confronts him. His grandfather and his lover both have this reaction when they see Murdoch, but Timothy merely curses Murdoch for his cleverness.
790* OlderHeroVsYoungerVillain: Murdoch is approaching early middle age, while [[spoiler:James Gillies]] is a young man who studied at college until Murdoch caught him. He's easily Murdoch's match in smarts, despite his comparative youth.
791* OldMoney: Given that Toronto is one of the wealthiest and most patrician cities in Canada, several cases involve these kinds of families. In one episode, when Effie and George go to a wealthy young man's wedding, George asks Effie why she insists on their going to these types of gatherings. Effie says that she loves listening to the gossip. George generally can't stand these affairs, particularly the contempt some Old Money people have for people who work. As Effie puts it, the only respectable profession for some of them is being born rich.
792* OldTimeyBathingSuit: Lots of lovely beach wear was seen in "Loch Ness Murdoch", worn by both gentlemen and ladies.
793* TheOlympics: Though no episode has yet followed characters to the actual Olympic Games, training for the Olympics gets an occasional mention in the series, and an Olympic tryout forms one subplot:
794** "Still Waters" focuses on a rowing team at a country club and rivalry for a place in the men's eights team: a wealthy club member demands the talented gardener give up his seat in the boat, but the coach and the other team members know they need the gardener (who holds every rowing record at the club) to have a shot at qualifying for the Olympics. Guess who dies?
795** "Twisted Sisters" starts with a couple of cross-country runners finding the body of a dead woman just after a training run. Dr. Grace learns from one of the runners that a club is sending a croquet player to the 1900 Olympics, leading to a subplot in which she contests the spot ([[HiddenDepths she was city-wide croquet champion two years running]]).
796** After the curling match between his team and some members of Station 4, Leslie Garland praises Murdoch's innovative sliding shoe and asks if his club can use them in the upcoming nordic games. Murdoch is pleased to consent. Garland goes on to express the hope that those games will grow and become a "winter Olympics".
797** Brackenreid is PutOnABus temporarily in season 10 when he goes to St Louis to coach the Canadian men's soccer team at the 1904 Olympics, returning with a gold medal.
798* OncePerEpisode:
799** Murdoch nearly always pulls aside his jacket to reveal his badge pinned to his vest when identifying himself as a member of the Toronto Constabulary. Sometimes, he'll ask someone a question and when they want to know why he's asking (no doubt because they think he's just a nosy parker civilian), cue the badge flash. At other times, flashing the badge while announcing himself is his opening move when meeting someone. In "All That Glitters", he starts to do this when asking questions of a hotel clerk in a small frontier town, seeming to have forgotten he's not wearing the badge (or his city suit, for that matter). In "This One Goes to Eleven" and "Stairway to Heaven", the badge peeps out from under his jacket while he's doing something else that requires he move or raise his arms; this may be because in those stories, no authority-invoking introduction is really needed (he was on a security detail for a Rembrandt painting in one case, and he was recognized by his colleague Dr. Grace when he entered the scene in the other).
800** At a crucial point during the episode, Murdoch will have an ImagineSpot that shows him "witnessing" the crime as it's taking place. In "The Murdoch Identity", he dreams one of these while having a nap on Anna Fulford's sofa as well as having small ones rather like fragments of memory [[spoiler:in part since he's suffering the after-effects of a brain injury]]. Jasper Linney, Brackenreid and Dr. Ogden have each shared the ImagineSpot with him once, Brackenreid and Murdoch each have their own (solving the same case by different routes) in "Murdoch at the Opera", and in the Season 7 finale Brackenreid takes Murdoch's place in the ImagineSpot while solving the B-plot case.
801* OminousHairLoss: The culprit of "The Ghost of Queen's Park" begins losing her hair in the final scene she appears in, a side effect of the radium dust she painted herself with in order to appear ghost-like.
802* OneOfOurOwn: The show can handle this plot gracefully.
803** In "The Great Wall", a constable from Station Five is murdered, but the case is assigned to Detective Murdoch from Station Four. The whole constabulary still consider themselves to be a family and things get pretty ugly when the evidence leads to someone from the police force.
804** "Murdoch in Wonderland": A man is found murdered at a Lewis Carroll costume party. All clues point to the Hatter, which was Murdoch... He himself demands a detective from a different station house as none of his colleagues could be objective. But the constables of Station Four stay involved, as well as Murdoch's superior Inspector Brackenreid.
805** In "Let Loose the Dogs", Murdoch's father is a murder suspect. Murdoch doesn't want the case, but his boss refuses to reassign it. Interestingly, Murdoch is prejudiced ''against'' his father because they have serious issues.
806** In the penultimate episode and the finale of season 6, [[spoiler:Julia Ogden]] is under investigation when [[spoiler:Darcy Garland]] is murdered. Their partiality gets questioned, but the team can work the case.
807** In season 8's "What Lies Buried", a body found in the cellar of Station House 4 dates back to the 1880s, when Brackenreid, Chief Constable Giles, and a couple other senior constables were just getting started in the constabulary. Giles mandates that the station is off-limits to anyone who was with the police at the time.
808** In the season finale of season 10, [[spoiler:it's Murdoch's turn again, but he is being set up by crooked city police officials; the fate of Murdoch and several other cast members is left ambiguous at episode's end.]]
809* OOCIsSeriousBusiness:
810** At the end of "Murdoch in Wonderland", before confessing to releasing Ava Moon, teetotaler Murdoch asks Brackenreid for a drink.
811** This builds up in "Murdoch in Toyland" as the culprit's actions begin to get under Murdoch's skin, a fact Brackenreid [[LampshadeHanging lampshades]]. When Brackenreid says he can't hear anything on a recording, Murdoch testily insists he can. When the inspector is slow on the uptake after Murdoch explains the cancellation of sound waves, the normally-deferential detective snaps the goal at his boss: "A clean recording!" When he finally confronts the culprit [[spoiler:James Gillies]], Murdoch has to be restrained from punching him in the face not once but ''twice'': once by Constable Crabtree in the hotel room and once by Inspector Brackenreid in the station house interview room.
812** In "The Murdoch Trap", when the suspended Murdoch and (also suspended) Brackenreid are joined by Crabtree at the Inspector's dining table to plan their re-investigation of the case against Dr. Ogden, the regular tippler Brackenreid is drinking tea, and he promises to drink nothing stronger until the case is solved. Murdoch thanks him for the gesture, and Brackenreid urges Murdoch to hurry up and solve the case because he's sick of drinking "bloody tea."
813** In "Republic of Murdoch", Inspector Brackenreid's son John suddenly visits his father at Station House 4 sporting a black eye and an split lip. The boy has learned that his father thinks he's gay, and he picked a fight with a much-larger boy to prove his masculinity to the anxious inspector.
814** In the B-plot of "Kung Fu Crabtree", Brackenreid goes to a hotel room and is greeted by an anxious Dr. Ogden and an equally tense Murdoch holding a gun. Brackenreid reacts to the sight of the gun and realizes things are serious, since Murdoch rarely uses or even carries a firearm. He then learns that Julia has been getting death threats against herself and Murdoch [[spoiler:purporting to be]] from their nemesis James Gillies.
815** In season 12's "Sins of the Father", Murdoch [[spoiler:finds his dead father's body]]... and ''doesn't'' do a Sign of the Cross.
816* OopNorth: Inspector Brackenreid, like his actor, is from Yorkshire.
817* OtherMeAnnoysMe: Several characters feel this way about "The Filmed Adventures of Detective William Murdoch", altough most are pleased with the final result of the work.
818* OutSick: In "The Great Wall", Detective Murdoch is called upon to investigate the death of a constable whose uniformed body is found in an ethnic Chinese neighbourhood outside his patch. The excuse given is that the detective attached to the nearest station house has the mumps.
819* PapaWolf: Inspector Brackenreid is a devoted father and family man... and God help you if you threaten his boys.
820* ParanormalEpisode: These come up from time to time in the series:
821** In "Elementary, My Dear Murdoch", Arthur Conan Doyle is in Toronto to give a talk on spiritualism and invites Murdoch to meet a psychic Doyle finds compelling. Some of the psychic's information has a mundane explanation, but Murdoch is troubled to think she knows intimate personal details about his dead fiancée.
822** The psychic returns in "Bad Medicine" and goes undercover at a hospital-cum-institute that studies people with unusual brain conditions. There's another seance to attempt contact with a young woman patient who died some years previously, and the psychic is troubled by a vision of Murdoch's impending death.
823** "The Curse of Beaton Manor" revolves around a wealthy family with a history of early deaths. Some of the servants report hearing ghostly sounds and seeing an apparition of a deceased illegitimate half-brother.
824** In "The Ghost of Queen's Park", a local politician falls to his death at the provincial parliament building, and the night watchman swears a ghost is responsible. Other workers in the building also report seeing a ghost, and Crabtree is keen to follow the ghostly line of inquiry.
825* ParentalAbandonment:
826** Murdoch believed that his drunk father beat his mother, which indirectly led to her death. [[spoiler:It wasn't true.]] He spent most of his childhood being raised by Jesuits in a Catholic school.
827** [[spoiler:George]]'s mother left him [[DoorstopBaby on a church doorstep]].
828** Julia's mother is apparently dead, and Julia has a rather estranged relationship with her father.
829* PicturePerfectPresentation: The episode "Dead End Street" features a dissolve from a painstakingly detailed diorama of the street to Murdoch and Crabtree walking up the real one.
830* PocketProtector:
831** In episode "Anything You Can Do", a bullet hitting Murdoch is stopped by an English poetry analysis book that he borrowed from Dr. Ogden.
832** In "Glory Days", [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bat_Masterson Bat Masterson]] receives a bullet in the chest from a derringer, but it is stopped by his sport columnist notepad. Murdoch comments that he was lucky to have changed profession.
833* PoeticSerialKiller:
834** One mysterious killer kept disguising himself as personification of death or grim reaper, and was killing off people working in prestigious facility researching human brain. His victims caused the death of his fiancée and did not feel responsible because... that's science for you. She was just a case study for them.
835** A First Nations hunting guide kills men who accidentally shot him in the chest and left him for dead.
836* 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:
837** Murdoch, a Catholic, initially receives some stick from Brackenreid for being a "Papist", but this is dropped relatively early. It remains a barrier to further promotion, however.
838** Murdoch also must come to terms with Dr. Ogden's abortion, both as a moral dilemma and because she's his OneTrueLove.
839** 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.
840** Julia tells William not to use the word "sodomite", because the correct term is "homosexual".
841** While initially not thrilled to discover that Dr. Grace is engaging in lesbianism, Brackenreid rather quickly ends up showing understanding for her.
842** Brackenreid is also unusually open to the thought of his son bringing home a Jewish girl in season 11's "Murdoch Schmurdoch". Although Brackenreid might have simply been relieved to find out John was interested in women, given his previous fear in "Republic of Murdoch" that John was a homosexual.
843** It is pretty safe to assume that Toronto did not have three 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.
844** 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.
845** 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.
846** 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.
847** In "Murdoch at the Opera", a black opera singer is portrayed as an international star (said to have even performed with Caruso at one point), and the highest-paid member of a troupe consisting solely of white performers (except her), which is highly unlikely given the time period. There's also interracial romance going on between her and some members of the company, and noone bats an eye.
848* PoliticalOvercorrectness: Crabtree declares in one episode: "We don't call people 'retarded' anymore, it's insensitive. [[SubvertedTrope The polite term is 'moronic'.]]"
849* {{Ponzi}}: The B-plot of the "Home for the Holidays" Christmas special involves the Brackenreids and several other Torontonians being conned into one of these by none other than Charles Ponzi himself. Brackenreid, Higgins, Crabtree, Nina Bloom and Ruth Newsome hatch a scheme of their own to con Ponzi into returning it.
850* PrimaDonnaDirector: James Pendrick in "The Filmed Adventures of Detective William Murdoch". He keeps changing the script at the last moment against the wishes of the writers, give a meager pay to his staff while insisting the movie is done in time, fires the main actor because ''he was wounded by a bullet'' and cannot recover in time, etc. Of course he's the one financing the movie, so it isn't like he has any higher-up to rein him in.
851* ProchronicProduct: In the course of capturing criminals, Murdoch invents very nearly every technology of the 20th century. Many of which (e.g. sonar or the fax machine) he could have patented and gotten rich, but they're invariably forgotten by next week's episode.
852* ProducePelting: The vaudeville episode "The Keystone Constables" features this. Crabtree, Higgins and a young W.C. Fields are among the targets.
853* TheProfiler:
854** Dr. Roberts is a psychiatrist who runs an insane asylum in Toronto. Murdoch sometimes consults him when he needs to know about the psychology of a killer.
855** Later in the series, Dr. Ogden studies psychiatry and provides Murdoch with psychological perspective on criminals and witnesses.
856* PromotionToOpeningTitles: Creator/GeorginaReilly's name appears in the opening titles in Season 7.
857* PromotionToParent: Only hinted at in one episode, but a conversation between Murdoch and Brackenreid suggests that the latter lost his parents at a young age, and had to take care of his four younger siblings.
858* ProWrestlingEpisode: "Crabtreemania" has Constable Crabtree investigating a murder at a 1900s local wrestling stable, and being shocked to discover that the sport may in fact be faked. He ends up in the ring with a wrestler who is not faking, and only makes it out when [[ImprovisedWeapon his girlfriend hands him a folding chair...]]
859* PublicExposure: In "This One Goes to Eleven", Mrs. Sally Pendrick is being portrayed in an [[RecliningVenus "odalisque" pose]], lying completely naked on a sofa by the pool in her and her husband's residence. Detective Murdoch is quite embarrassed to run into her being painted like that. The painting is done in a modern, non-representational style with geometric figures in primary colors (very much a proto-Cubist style). Constable Crabtree believes it represents a pyramid, but Dr. Julia Ogden clearly sees it's "a woman in a rather intimate pose".
860* PublicSecretMessage:
861** In the episode "A Study in Sherlock", David Kingsley (a.k.a. Sherlock Holmes) insists Moriarty communicates with his gang via coded obituaries in the local paper. Murdoch and Brackenreid are dubious, but as which much else in the case, the young Sherlock proves to be correct.
862** In "The Artful Detective", Brackenreid notices an extra race published in the racing form; he's familiar with the track and draws Murdoch's attention to the discrepancy. The team compares the horse names to the profiles of several recent murder victims and finds several of the "horse" names are each descriptive of their victims. They come up with the hypothesis that the victims and a few other people are actually [[spoiler:killing each other in a DeadlyGame]], and they stake out the racing form's publisher. Sure enough, the "horses" they have matched to their corpses are missing from the next "running" of that non-existent race, but a new entry is added: "Artful Detective". Guess who soon finds himself attacked in the street?
863* PunchPunchPunchUhOh: In "Belly Speaker", a drunken Creator/ArthurConanDoyle attempts to start a BarBrawl. After punching out two drinkers, he is confronted by a huge black man. He delivers several punches to the face with no effect.
864* PungeonMaster: Constable Crabtree is apt to do this on occasion, with [[LamePunReaction his superior Detective Murdoch supplying a raised eyebrow or an admonitory "George!"]] For example, in "Love and Human Remains", when he and Murdoch are discussing the glass eye of one of the victims, George talks about getting "insight" into the case, and on getting his orders from his boss, he responds, "I will look into it."
865* QuestForIdentity: [[spoiler:The series 3 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.]]
866* RaceForYourLove: At the end of series 3, 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.]]
867* RapeIsASpecialKindOfEvil: In [[spoiler:the episode "The Great Wall", even the bigoted cops of Station 5 turn on one of their colleagues when he is shown to have raped a young Chinese girl. The brothers Mick and Tim O'Shea are violent union leaders, but what really marks them as vile is the sex-trafficking ring they operate under the cover of smuggling.]]
868* RealAfterAll:
869** In "The Curse of Beaton Manor" Murdoch scolds George that voodoo is not real. It is revealed that [[spoiler:Timothy]] Beaton used pufferfish poison (from Haitian voodoo) to induce a near-death state and thus "come back" from the dead. At the end of the episode, the final Beaton suffers a fatal heart-attack from being pierced by a VoodooDoll.
870** The Holy Grail in "Murdoch and the Temple of Death" is also strongly implied to be the real thing:
871*** The killer jumps off a 60-foot cliff thinking it will save him, despite Murdoch telling the man to stop, and [[DramaticThunder as Murdoch looks down on the man's corpse, a thunderclap sounds (seemingly in daylight) and Murdoch reacts to it]].
872*** Later, [[spoiler:Dr. Iris Bajali]] steals it from the station house and flees with Murdoch in pursuit; he tells her it belongs to God, and [[BoltOfDivineRetribution when she shouts back, "There is no God," she is struck by lightning and dies]].
873*** Murdoch himself has several near-misses while carrying the Grail but comes out unscathed. It's implied that the Grail's protection is actually working for him because he's not carrying it for a greedy purpose, whereas God revoked its protection from the killer when he jumped off the cliff.
874*** Later still, a museum staffer accidentally knocks it over and disposes of the clay outer layer, leaving a metal chalice standing on the shelf that appears bathed in a (heavenly?) shaft of light.
875** In "Lovers in a Murderous Time", it's strongly implied that Carl Rodriguez's and Felicity Dawes's belief that they're the reincarnations of two StarCrossedLovers from several decades ago is actually true.
876* RecliningVenus: In "This One Goes to Eleven", Mrs. Sally Pendrick is being portrayed in an "odalisque" pose, lying completely naked on a sofa by the pool in her and her husband's residence. Detective Murdoch is quite embarrassed to run into her being painted like that. The painting is done in a modern, non-representational style with geometric figures in primary colours (very much a proto-Cubist style). Constable Crabtree believes it represents a pyramid, but Dr. Julia Ogden clearly sees it's "a woman in a rather intimate pose".
877* RecurringCharacter:
878** Canadian government spymaster Terrence Meyers seems to show up at least once per season.
879** Mr. Pendrick, a genius inventor, who appeared first in season 3.
880* RedScare: Subverted in an episode where Murdoch investigates the bombing of a clothing store. A Marxist activist tries to claim credit for the bombing, but he's really just trying to get attention for himself and his cause.
881* ReedRichardsIsUseless: In the course of capturing criminals, Murdock invents very nearly every technology of the 20th century. Many of which (e.g. sonar or the fax machine) he could have patented and gotten rich, but they're invariably forgotten by next week's episode. [[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.
882* RelationshipUpgrade: Detective William Murdoch and Dr. Julia Ogden finally marry in the 100th episode of the series (in season 8), after years of UnresolvedSexualTension, [[CantSpitItOut his difficulties in declaring his feelings]], some distance over Julia's past abortion, career opportunities in other places, her decision to marry another man, the implosion of that marriage, the murder of her husband (for which she was convicted and eventually exonerated)...this couple really did [[EarnYourHappyEnding earn it]].
883* TheReliableOne: Station House No. 4 is collectively this for the ''entire constabulary''. The other stations are notorious for their shoddy police work, and House No. 4 frequently gets called in to clean up their messes. ''Especially'' [[TheRival House No. 5]].
884* RevisitingTheColdCase:
885** The victims in "Love and Human Remains" have been preserved by the peat they were buried in, and each new clue Murdoch and company use to identify them ends up dating them further and further back. Murdoch ultimately concludes that they were killed in approximately 1836, a good sixty years prior to the series.
886** "Confederate Treasure" dates back to the U.S. Civil War in the 1860s. Skeletal human remains in an old suit, with an old pistol in one pocket and a document bearing the signature of Canada's first prime minister suggest the date. The newspaper archives indicate a Canadian minister went missing in the 1860s, but, well, there was a war on in the neighboring country...
887** "Unfinished Business" has Murdoch share a recorded deathbed confession of murder with Dr. Ogden. He's puzzled that the confession details don't match the data Dr. Grace gathered from the corpse he and his colleagues found using the dead man's directions. Dr. Ogden recognizes the details of the confession as matching a case she and Murdoch worked on eight years earlier, one in which Murdoch investigated the husband of the murder victim but had to drop the matter for lack of evidence.
888** "What Lies Buried" involves a corpse that dates back over twenty years before the current timeline (1881, when the episode is set circa 1902). Workmen digging in the station house basement turn up the remains, and the investigation leads to a constable who disappeared and the unsolved murder of a rent boy.
889** "Concocting a Killer" opens with a man being freed from prison for a murder that he claims to have been wrongfully convicted of thanks to Murdoch and Ogden. Watts is sent to investigate since Murdoch can't be relied on as an impartial investigator.
890* RippedFromTheHeadlines:
891** The plot of the season 2 finale "Anything You Can Do" involves a Toronto mining company that plans to defraud wealthy investors by using fake ore samples to make it seem as though a specific place in British Columbia is rich in gold and ready to be exploited. Chances are that this was inspired by the [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bre-X Bre-X scheme]], which involved the Bre-X company swindling using ore samples artificially salted with gold to make it seem as though their site in Indonesia had a massive gold deposit. The exposure of the scam made national news in Canada, and Bre-X collapsed in 1997 after acquiring over $6 billion in capital from investors.
892** Season 7 episode "Unfinished Business" features a pair of prominent Toronto brothers, where one is accused of illegal behaviour, and the other appears to be the smarter, more controlling of the two who always bails his brother out and enables him. Of course they were businessmen and not Mayor and Councillor, but it does seem to be a remarkable coincidence and probably a reference to Toronto Mayor Rob Ford and his brother Councillor Doug Ford who were in the international news frequent due to their antics in 2013 and 2014.
893** Season 12's "Operation: Murder" [[spoiler:features a number of patient deaths at a hospital, including a patient Dr. Ogden had just operated on, all chalked up to heart failure. It turns out to be a series of murders by a nurse, reminiscent of the string of nursing home murders in Canada by nurse Elizabeth Wetlaufer]].
894* RoaringRampageOfRevenge:
895** The BadassNative killing several prominent businessmen in "Werewolves" acted as the men's guide during a hunting trip. One of the businessmen shot the guide by accident. They thought he was dead, abandoned him and never told anyone what happened. The extremely pissed-off guide survived his injuries and followed the businessmen to Toronto, determined to get a bloody revenge.
896** The MonsterClown killing people in "I Know What You Did Last Autumn" is out for blood [[spoiler:against the people who [[SlutShaming slut shamed]] a young woman to nearly commit suicide just for kissing her boyfriend.]]
897* RogueAgent: A couple of them:
898** Recurring villain Allan Clegg is a traitorous American agent who's tried to murder President UsefulNotes/TheodoreRoosevelt and use a FalseFlagOperation to start a war between the British Empire and the United States.
899** A rogue agent of the Russian Empire tries to re-ignite the UsefulNotes/RussoJapaneseWar by killing a Japanese secret agent in Season 15's "Patriot Games."
900* RoguesGallery: Despite mostly being a VillainOfTheWeek style show, where most villains wind up executed, a few stick around and become recurring threats to Murdoch. Among them are [[ArchEnemy James Gillies]], [[VillainousCrush Sally Pendrick]], [[TheDon The Falcones]] and [[TheMafia The Black Hand]], [[TheVamp Eva Pearce]], [[LoonyFan Amelia and]] [[WolfInSheepsClothing Dorothy Ernst]], [[DirtyCop Chief Constable Davis]], [[TheResenter Ralph Fellows]], [[FalseFlagOperation Allen Clegg]], and [[FauxAffablyEvil Maurice Majors]]. Other recurring characters like [[UpperClassTwit Rupert Newsome]], [[AmbitionIsEvil Viola Hart]], and [[TheMenInBlack Terrence Meyers]] also often find themselves at odds with Murdoch but aren't nearly on the same level as the other vile criminals.
901* RoguesGalleryShowcase: In "Murdoch in Toyland", Murdoch and Crabtree are trying to determine if one of the criminals Murdoch has brought to justice, or one of their friends or relatives, is the one playing the CriminalMindGames. They use Murdoch's blackboard to list just about all of the criminals he's confronted in many of the show's first several seasons, along with notations if they were hanged, imprisoned or escaped justice.
902* RoguishRomani: An episode has a Romani camp implicated in a robbery and Inspector Brackenreid pressured into arresting them by the backers of his mayoral campaign. [[spoiler:It turns out to be the son of his main contributor, and Brackenreid quits the mayoral race in disgust when he threatens to withdraw his support if his son is arrested]].
903* RomancingTheWidow:
904** In series 2, Murdoch pursues a relationship with Enid Jones, a widowed single mother he meets while investigating a case.
905** And in series 8, George follows suit with the similarly-named Edna.
906* RomanticSpoonfeeding: In "Convalescence", Mrs. Jones takes an opportunity to feed sick and injured Murdoch.
907* RubeGoldbergHatesYourGuts: In "Invention Convention", an inventor accepting an award is shot in the head by a complicated device using parts that implicate several other inventors. Turns out [[spoiler:the victim]] stole ideas and tech from the inventors and built the device [[spoiler:to euthanize himself and prove himself superior to his rivals]].
908* RunawayFiancee: Doctor Grace is one. Her ex-fiancé has not gotten over it.
909* RunningGag:
910** Crabtree's aunts, all [[FloralThemeNaming named after different flowers and plants]]. Fifteen identified: Aunt Amaryllis, Aunt Aster, Aunt Azalea, Aunt Begonia, Aunt Briony, Aunt Clematis, Aunt Dahlia (though George managed to pronounce just "Dahl--"), Aunt Hyacinth, Aunt Iris, Aunt Ivy, Aunt Lily, Aunt Marigold, Aunt Nettle, Aunt Petunia, Aunt Primrose. We finally meet them in season 7. As it turns out, [[spoiler:they're all prostitutes who George's preacher adoptive father gave a safe place to live at the rectory.]] They're delighted when George visits them while he and Murdoch are in Newfoundland on a case.
911** Murdoch's own tendency to explain his findings or the results of an experiment in excessive detail, with Brackenreid expressing annoyance with all the technical jargon and demanding he cut to the chase.
912** If there's a particularly embarrassing assignment or line of inquiry required for an investigation, there's a good chance that poor Crabtree is going to be the one called on to do it.
913** Characters who are put into a compromising or otherwise embarrassing position as part of an investigation will often give one of their colleagues' names instead: When Murdoch is sent to infiltrate a club secretly made up of homosexuals, he uses Crabtree's name. Crabtree, in turn, identified himself as Higgins when ordered to join a nudist colony.
914** [[RuleOfThree Crabtree again]]: His tendency to run off on tangents about minor trivia when relaying his findings to Murdoch or Brackenreid. Dr. Grace often does this, as well.
915** Crabtree ''yet again'' with his leaping to supernatural explanations. If someone is going to bring up ghosts, vampires, werewolves, or some other sort of monster as a possible culprit, it's George.
916[[/folder]]
917
918[[folder:Tropes S–Z]]
919* SamusIsAGirl: Murdoch, Crabtree and Watts initially think that the killer of the week in "The Ballad Of Gentleman Jones" is Jones's friend "Sleepy Joe", who's killing the hobos who murdered Jones. [[spoiler:When they finally catch the killer, they learn she's a woman who was nicknamed Sleepy ''Jo'' (as in Josephine). She was Gentleman Jones's girlfriend, and was devastated when he was murdered for the nonexistent money his killers thought he carried on him.]]
920* SantaAmbiguity: In "A Very Murdoch Christmas", an old man is insistent that he be released from police custody because he claims that he's Kris Kringle and needs to finish delivering the presents. Dr. Ogen thinks he's delusional but consents to releasing him when it's made apparent that he is not dangerous to himself or anyone else. At the end of the episode, the policemen hand out gifts to the local children and notice that there seem to be extra presents. They then notice "Kris" in the crowd wearing a Santa suit and smiling. He then disappears into the streets.
921* SarcasticClapping: This is how James Gillies reveals himself to Murdoch in the tribunal just after [[spoiler:Julia Ogden gets condemned to death for the murder of her husband, engineered by Gillies]].
922* SayingTooMuch: When a boy asks which criminal they are transporting in "Midnight Train to Kingston", Constable Higgins replies, "Just a man who needs to be hanged." The boy then says, "Is it James Gillies?", and all the passengers in the car begin to panic. Brackenreid later berates Higgins for his stupidity.
923* SayMyName: Whenever something weird happens in his police station -- like when he finds the artists of a whole circus crowding there -- Inspector Brackenreid can easily guess who's the culprit.
924-->'''Brackenreid: ''MURDOCH!!'''''
925* ScatterbrainedSenior: Felicity Dawes in "Lovers in a Murderous Time" is an older woman who suffers from memory lapses and occasionally thinks she's in a Russian fairy tale. She's nearly tricked into thinking she's a murderer.
926* SceneryCensor: Lots of it at the nudist colony in "Murdoch au Naturel". But we get to see several of the nudists clearly from behind.
927* ScienceHero: Murdoch uses science to solve crime, either by adapting new scientific discoveries for police work, or by coming up with his own unique inventions.
928* ScienceMarchesOn:
929** 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.
930** Inspector Brackenreid is not a scientist, but he is remarkably ahead of his time in considering the idea of eugenics to be nonsense while it was still a popular theory.
931** An out-of-universe example leads to a couple mistakes in "Dinosaur Fever":
932*** A prominent location in the episode features an Albertasaurus on display in the gallery of a museum, [[spoiler:where the victim's body is discovered in its jaws]]. However the animal is displayed in the ''modern horizontal'' walking position. In the late-19th/early-20th centuries, the skeleton would have been mounted upright in a kangaroo-like posture.
933*** Additionally, sketches of a Triceratops and Stegosaurus are visible in the background of one scene, and their forelegs are clearly drawn directly underneath their bodies, which is based on current (post-1980s) research. At the time the episode is set, these animals were believed to have splayed stance, much like a lizard.
934* TheScottishTrope: The TropeNamer is a minor plot point "Body Double", and Brackenreid mentions the curse directly.
935* ScrewTheMoneyIHaveRules: Inspector Brackenreid is recruited by a group of businessmen to run for a position on Toronto's City Council, with the intent that he'll back their efforts to build a subway system in Toronto in exchange for their getting him elected. Brackenreid starts out strong, but when his opponent gains ground with an anti-immigrant platform, Brackenreid's backers try to respond. They get the inspector to blame a rash of break-ins in the area on a caravan of gypsies, and Brackenreid arrests several of their men. However, his conscience nags at him, and when he investigates the thefts further he finds that the people responsible for the break-ins are the son of his chief backer and the son's friends. When Brackenreid tries to turn the gypsies loose and arrest the son, his backers try to talk him out of it. They try to entice him by reminding him of the perks of office when he gets elected, which prompts Brackenreid to remind them that they're skirting dangerously close to trying to bribe a police officer. He arrests the backer's son and drops out of the race.
936* ScrewTheRulesIHaveMoney: It's very common for members of the upper class to use their money and influence to protect their interests and interfere with Murdoch's investigations, to say nothing of using their position to advantage in their personal and professional lives. Classism is also rampant, with working-class and poor suspects often being looked down and assumed guilty because of their social standing. Even the police are subject to this, and are often insulted for their lower-class roots.
937** For example, in "Murdoch Night in Canada" a wealthy suspect with a past history with Dr. Grace has used his wealth and influence to avoid convictions for several altercations, to say nothing of assaulting ''her'' when she rejects his attempts to rekindle their relationship.
938** In "Downstairs Upstairs" the victim is a wealthy head of household [[spoiler:who used his position to essentially rape his female servants, creating the circumstances of his murder]].
939* ScrewTheRulesImDoingWhatsRight:
940** [[spoiler:When William decides to unlock Ava Moon's cell and let her escape]] in the series 4 finale. Brackenreid bends his own convictions to hide Murdoch's actions.
941** [[spoiler:After escaping the US agents with Pendrick's prototype plane in Season 6 first episode]], Murdoch and Pendrick are arrested by Terrence Meyers and his goons, [[spoiler:who want to use the plane for military operations.]] Pendrick promptly destroys his prototype, though Meyers threatens him with a trial for high treason.
942* SecretHandshake: In "Victor, Victorian", Freemasons Brackenreid and Crabtree introduce Detective Murdoch to the head of their lodge just after a sudden death has taken place during an initiation ritual. The head of the lodge shakes hands with Murdoch, who doesn't complete the secret handshake. Crabtree explains why the head of the lodge knew Murdoch isn't a Mason, and the man soon quizzes Murdoch on his religious beliefs. For once, [[DamnedByFaintPraise being a "papist" isn't quite a liability, since the lodge head says that's better than being a "stupid atheist"]].
943* SeeYouInHell: When Murdoch finally interrogates [[spoiler:the sisters]] who were masquerading as the MonsterClown in "I Know What You Did Last Autumn", their only request is that they be hanged quickly so that [[spoiler:they can see their parents in Hell.]]
944* SelfDeprecation: In "Republic of Murdoch", after [[spoiler:Jacob Doyle]] escapes from Constable Crabtree by hitting the constable in the head with a length of board, Crabtree sheepishly reports to Murdoch how the man got away. Murdoch is concerned for his colleague, but Crabtree dismisses this worry by saying, "He got me in my least vulnerable spot."
945* SelfMadeOrphan: [[spoiler:When a teenage girl named Heather Iverson is photographed and [[SlutShaming Slut Shamed]] for making out with her boyfriend, her parents flip out and try to have her institutionalized. Heather tries and fails to commit suicide, then she and her older sister Leigh murder their parents and fake Heather's suicide. They start a RoaringRampageOfRevenge on everyone who exposed Heather's kissing her boyfriend, dressing as a MonsterClown to do so.]]
946* SelfParody: "The Filmed Adventures of Detective William Murdoch" -- the episode and the story within the story are both this, at least out of the early 20th century context and standards.
947* SerialKiller: Several times. On season 6, the team realizes it's a recurring thing and extremely serious. They call them "sequential killers". Dr. Ogden is interested in the psychological issues.
948** Subverted in "The Ballad Of Gentleman Jones", when a sequential killer seems to be targeting Toronto's homeless population. [[spoiler:The killer is in fact targeting four very specific hobos in a RoaringRampageOfRevenge for murdering a fifth hobo who was her husband.]]
949* SerialKillingsSpecificTarget:
950** Constable Crabtree proposes this as the explanation for the multiple deaths in "Murdoch on the Corner". He posits a long-standing feud between two neighboring shopkeepers is the real motive, and that one of the antagonists killed the other people merely to cover his tracks. Murdoch and Brackenreid suggest this to the man in an interrogation, and the man tells them they are crazy.
951** The true explanation for the serial deaths in "Twisted Sisters". A man is being blackmailed by a woman who works for him, and during their argument she hits her head. The man knows she was involved in another death some years earlier (along with several other women), so he disposes of his blackmailer and the other women to divert suspicion from himself. While he's at it, his actions point to a Persian university professor who had been romantically involved with the young white woman who had died years ago, and [[spoiler:his own secret involves his interracial marriage]].
952* SexilyModest: In the final scene of "Loch Ness Murdoch", Julia and Murdoch are at the beach in Edwardian swimsuits that are very modest by today's standards; Julia's has a skirt that covers the knees, pantalettes underneath, and socks. Suddenly, Julia decides to pull the socks off; Murdoch is taken aback, but she states that it makes no sense that women are expected to wear black socks on a hot day like that. Murdoch can't help but gaze over her calves. He replies: "You're being scandalous, young lady!" He then follows her into the water and they happily horse around.
953* ShakyPOVCam: Used at the end of "The Curse of Beaton Manor", ending with [[spoiler:a zoom on a woman piercing a VoodooDoll]].
954* SharedUnusualTrait: In "Belly Speaker", the victim and his son who's a ventriloquist both have mismatched eyes, one blue and one brown. The son's DemonicDummy, modeled after him, has mismatched eyes as well. It's later revealed that he had a twin brother who also had such eyes, but with the colors inverted.
955* SherlockHomage: Detective William Murdoch has the stellar record of solving cases (which he himself cites in his promotion interview in "The Glass Ceiling"), as well as being an autodidact (self-educated) whose studies are largely scientific. He keeps a selection of reference books in his office, but is also known to send out for research materials -- or even conduct experiments -- when needed. In an episode revolving around a talented "''idiot savant''", Julia speaks of him as also being disconnected from his emotions [[BreakingTheFourthWall to no-one in particular as she stands by her office phonograph, while William himself is standing in the background]]. On occasion, he can be a first-class DeadpanSnarker: a particularly good example (from "Holy Matrimony, Murdoch!") is his epic takedown of a judge who's convinced a woman killed her husband -- the same judge mistakenly thought the same thing about Julia, and Murdoch points this out to his face. He generally avoids alcohol due to his father's alcoholism. As noted under {{Expy}}, other characters echo those of Doyle's stories: Crabtree is the mundane assistant who also pens fiction (like Watson); medical services and expertise come from Drs Ogden, Francis, Grace and Roberts; various people (including Constables Crabtree and Higgins and Inspector Brackenreid) act as TheWatson in having things explained to them; and James Gillies and Sally Pendrick bear striking resemblances to two of Holmes' most famous adversaries (Professor Moriarty and Irene Adler Norton).
956* SherlockScan: Early in "A Study in Sherlock", Murdoch is responding to an armed robbery and is distracted by a bearded man commenting on a dead robber's cirrhosis of the liver. When the constables bring along a man they found with a mask and a safe deposit box, the bearded man speaks up again, noting the red marks on the bridge of the man's nose and the fact that one hand is markedly cleaner than the other before stating he works a machinist. He goes on to state the nearby machine shop's shift change happened half an hour after the robbery, so he cannot possibly be involved in the crime. Murdoch demands to know how he knows all this, and the man peels off his false beard and introduces himself as Sherlock Holmes. Murdoch is later chagrined to learn the man was right about all the details.
957* ShipperOnDeck:
958** Ruby Ogden, for William and Julia. [[spoiler:When she returns in series 4, she is clearly disappointed that Julia has chosen to marry Darcy over William.]]
959** George ships WilliamĂ—Julia and has trouble understanding why they're not together.
960** Even Brackenreid only smiles tolerantly at the end of Season 5 when the morally uptight Murdoch is framed in an open door, highlighted by fireworks, lip-locking with the still-married Julia.
961* ShipTease:
962** Ruby Ogden frequently flirts with George Crabtree and some scenes have alluded to their chemistry. Murdoch's vision of the future in "Twentieth Century Murdoch" includes his eight year old son casually referring to "Uncle George", which could suggest marriage between Ruby and the constable.
963** Dr. Grace and Crabtree are teased in season 5.
964* ShoutOut:
965** Crabtree is showing a wealthy investor one of Murdoch's inventions with the hope that she'll buy into it. When the device appears to fail (although it actually works correctly -- it just didn't detect anything Murdoch was looking for), the investor walks off with the words "I'm out." This is the collective CatchPhrase used by the investors on ''Series/DragonsDen'' when they show they're not interested in a business pitch, and the investor is played by Canadian businesswoman Arlene Dickenson, who is a regular on the CBC's version of the show.
966** When a headless body is found in "Murdoch in Toyland", Dr. Grace jokes that perhaps it's a resident of Sleepy Hollow, maybe Ichabod Crane, referencing ''Literature/TheLegendOfSleepyHollow''.
967** Emily Grace bought tickets to see a theatre adaptation of ''Literature/TheWonderfulWizardOfOz'', and George, having read the book, enthusiastically told her the whole thing, never realizing that she wouldn't want to.
968** In "Tour de Murdoch", Chippy Blackburn tries to come up for a nickname for Murdoch. His suggestion? [[WesternAnimation/InspectorGadget Detective Gadget]].
969** The first episode of Season 3, in which Murdoch wakes up in a strange place with no memory of who he is, is called "[[Literature/TheBourneSeries The Murdoch Identity]]" and involves a character named Treadstone.
970** The title of the online episode ''Nightmare on Queen Street'' uses the same font as the ''Franchise/ANightmareOnElmStreet'' series, though the episode has nothing to do with a ghostly serial killer.
971** "Friday the 13th, 1901" is a ShoutOut to ''Franchise/FridayThe13th'' and has Julia and Emily visit a purportedly haunted island.
972** "The Spy Who Loved Murdoch": A French diplomat is murdered and a French female secret agents explains that the diplomat was feeling threatened by showing a pipe. To a puzzled Murdoch she says "Ceci n'est pas une pipe.", this is not a pipe, as it is actually a pistol. This refers to a famous Magritte painting of a pipe with the caption "Ceci n'est pas une pipe." For good measure the agent is holding the pipe in the same position as that of the painting.
973** "Murdoch and the Undetectable Man" features twin brothers named [[Franchise/AlvinAndTheChipmunks Simon and Theodore Alvin]].
974* ShoutOutToShakespeare:
975** In "Body Double", a partially decomposed body falls onto the stage of the Grand Theatre during a performance of ''Theatre/{{Macbeth}}''.
976** Dr. Ogden quotes "I knew him, Horatio." from ''Theatre/{{Hamlet}}'' when she examines a skull. She laughs heartily at her little joke. Detective Murdoch and Constable Crabtree are rather disturbed by her morbid sense of humour.
977* ShovelStrike: The VictimOfTheWeek in "Child's Play" is struck down with a shovel.
978* SiblingTriangle: For one episode, there was a LoveTriangle involving Detective Murdoch and sisters Julia and Ruby Ogden. [[spoiler:When Ruby realized how deeply Julia feels for him, she became Shipper on Deck and started to support their relationship.]]
979* SkinnyDipping: In "Houdini Whodunnit", we learn that Julia was arrested for skinny dipping as a student. This has an interesting effect on William.
980* SleazyPolitician: Some Toronto politicians are thoroughly corrupt, notably in episodes like "Back and to the Left" and the two-parter "Hell to Pay" and "Up From Ashes." They have no problem using murder and {{False Flag Operation}}s to get what they want.
981* SleepingDummy: Murdoch does this to fool a killer after he realises his substitute landlady is trying to kill him in "Convalescence".
982* SlowLoadingInternetImage: Played with, for one case, Murdoch needed a photograph of a kidnapped woman, but the closest photo is in Paris, France. So Murdoch had the Paris police overlay a grid on the photo, assign a number to the scale of grey in each grid square, then telegraph the number to Toronto (i.e. a jury-rigged fax). The final "paint-by-number" job took two days to do, slowing yielding more clues until the case was solved, when the entire painting was done.
983* SmallTownTyrant: A variant occurs in "Mr. Murdoch's Neighborhood" in that the "town" is actually the rural outskirts of Toronto that are still mostly farms. One particular family decided that they "owned" the whole area, and proceeded to rob, threaten and beat the rest of the community. When some of their neighbors finally have enough and kill them, their bodies are buried on a property that's bought by William and Julia. The entire neighborhood gets pissed off at the Murdochs for arresting the killers, prompting them to sell the property and stay in town.
984* SmithicalMarriage: A hotel clerk in "The Knockdown" tells Murdoch "We get a lot of Mrs. Smith and Mr. Jones here. This is not exactly the Queen's Hotel."
985* SmokingHotSex: George and Effie do this after consummating their marriage on their honeymoon.
986* SmugSnake:
987** Doctor Luther Bates. He's convinced his unethical experiments are for the betterment of the human species, and that he'll gain recognition for them one day. Under accusation, he denies everything while sporting the smuggest smirk you can imagine. When Murdoch finally corners him, [[spoiler:he tries to kill the detective, still as proud of himself as ever. His demise is suitably karmic]].
988** Alderman Adrian Prescott is a CorruptPolitician who [[DomesticAbuse violently beats his wife]] and embezzles money from the Toronto treasury along with conning people to donate to fake charities using people who pretend to be disabled and needy. When Dr. Ogden tries to help his wife Abigail escape her abusive marriage, Prescott murders Abigail and frames Julia for what seems like an AccidentalMurder. He has an insufferable smirk almost all the time he's on screen, being FauxAffablyEvil and having Julia attacked when she's in jail. All the protagonists play a part in destroying his empire piece by piece, and it's immensely satisfying to watch.
989* SnakeOilSalesman: Several of these appear, as the show is set during the golden age of this character type.
990* SniffSniffNom:
991** Only the sniff-sniff part happens with various coroners who examine organs while performing an autopsy. It appears it was a standard thing to do and sometimes the smell helps to crack the case. Sometimes even the Nom-part occurs.
992** Dr. Ogden's sister Ruby is visibly disturbed when she watches her sister do it, who tells her she shouldn't be such a mouse.
993** Dr. Grace hands Constable Crabtree a sample of substance from a dead body. He looks at it, sniffs it and then tastes it. He comments that is looks like soot, smells like soot, and tastes like soot. Dr. Grace is surprised that he's in the habit of tasting soot, and George tells her he used to clean his aunt's chimney and was once destined to do so for a living.
994** Murdoch opens a stick of dynamite used to stage a train robbery, tastes the contents and says, "Flour."
995* SpannerInTheWorks: Several characters do this:
996** In "Patriot Games", Margaret interrupts the [[spoiler:Russian spy who framed an innocent Korean family for a Japanese secret agent's murder when the agent tries to kill them]].
997** In "The Write Stuff", the victim of the week appears to have committed suicide. Murdoch is about ready to close the case when Brackenreid shows him the victim's autograph, which he got earlier in the episode. Murdoch has a EurekaMoment when he compares the autograph to the victim's supposed suicide note and realizes the writing doesn't match. He then uses the fake suicide note to track down the real murderer.
998** In "Vengeance Makes the Man", Maurice Majors' plot to [[spoiler:force Brackenreid to confess his FramingTheGuiltyParty several years ago]] falls through when the Chief Constable refuses to [[TurnInYourBadge accept his resignation.]]
999** In "Whatever Happened to Abigail Prescott?", the owner of the hotel Julia and the title murder victim stayed at marches into the station house to complain to Murdoch over an unpaid telephone bill. Murdoch's tracing the call and connecting with Abigail's mother in a key part of the Constabulary's breaking the case.
1000** In Part 2 of "Do the Right Thing", Margaret notices that a fellow passenger on the boat she and Thomas were returning to Canada in somehow acquired a new suitcase she was sure the woman wasn't traveling with. That triggers a EurekaMoment in Thomas that solves the murder they encountered on the ship.
1001* SparedByTheAdaptation: The movie ''Film/{{DOA}}'' ends with the protagonist dying, unable to find a cure for the poison that's slowly killing him. ''Murdoch Mysteries''[='=] WholePlotReference features Murdoch being poisoned in the same way as the protagonist, but [[spoiler:Julia saves him JustInTime with the antidote, which she tricked Frank Rhodes into giving up.]]
1002* SpeakInUnison: Most often PlayedForLaughs, though a notable serious example comes in "Crime and Punishment" when Dr. Grace raises the possibility that Dr. Ogden may have actually shot her estranged husband. Murdoch, Brackenreid and Crabtree all reject the idea in unison and quite loudly.
1003* SpinningPaper: "[[TitleDrop Kissing Bandit]] Strikes Again!"
1004* SpinOff:
1005** ''The Curse of the Lost Pharaohs'', a 13-part web series based on the mystery novel Crabtree's written.
1006** A second web series was made to coincide with Season 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. The episodes are currently available on the official Ovation Website/YouTube channel.
1007*** [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HIU1JsJxaOk Episode 1]]
1008*** [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bCh0JRTwbJ4 Episode 2]]
1009*** [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9EpFmlsD2D0 Episode 3]]
1010*** [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ywxVehQQ3-o Episode 4]]
1011*** [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yhVq7hfw-jQ Episode 5]]
1012*** [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xxn2Dem11fM Episode 6]]
1013** The third web series, ''A Nightmare on Queen Street'' features a dark murder mystery with an interactive component where the viewer can help investigate the murder with the use of Murdoch's Levered Action Portable Truth Overview Protector (a.k.a. [[FunWithAcronyms LAPTOP]]).
1014* {{Spoiler}}: Dr. Emily Grace doesn't appreciate when her boyfriend George Crabtree tells her the whole plot of ''The Wonderful Wizard of Oz''. She bought tickets to see an initial public reading, and he has read the book and enthusiastically tells her what happens, never realizing that she wouldn't want to hear it all just then. She even asks him to "alert me the next time you're going to spoil something."
1015* SquirrelsInMyPants: During an investigation, Crabtree brings a ferret to follow a blood trail (he couldn't find a bloodhound). It works, but not before the critter shortly slips inside the leg of Murdoch's pants.
1016* StarCrossedLovers:
1017** Murdoch and Dr. Ogden, with a brace of {{Romantic False Lead}}s 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. 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.]]
1018** The VictimOfTheWeek in "Let Us Ask The Maiden" was in love with his employer's daughter and the two wanted to marry, but her domineering father would not allow them to be together and instead pushed his daughter into an engagement with a wealthy doctor who would help him further his business interests.
1019* StatusQuoIsGod:
1020** In Season 2 Crabtree meets his birth mother. She hasn't been seen since.
1021** Season 9 has done this in spades. Crabtree is freed and back at Station 4 but reprimanded and most likely will stay a constable permanently, Edna and Simon are gone and on the run, Dr. Grace moves away to England and Dr. Ogden is back working at the morgue. Aside from Murdoch and Ogden's marriage, the show has mostly reverted back to the format of the early seasons.
1022* SteamPunk:
1023** A couple of episodes toy with this concept and era-appropriate feel. Season 3 finale goes full-tilt into it with Tesla's microwave death ray. In season 5, "Who Killed the Electric Carriage?" and its rocket-shaped car nicely fit as well and continues to do so with James Pendrick's inventions. They definitely that Steam Punk aesthetics with lots of gold, brass and metallic surfaces embellished with clocks, gauges and measuring instruments. The inventions also include a proto-aeroplane, a gliding suit, a rocket intended to reach outside the atmosphere (carrying a man no less) or a hyper-train called the Pendrick FLASH (FLASH being an acronym for Frictionless Levitated Accelerated Subsurface Hyper-train).
1024** The series plays with a DownplayedTrope example of this to begin with, with Murdoch frequently inventing anachronistic technology to aid in the solving of murders years or even decades ahead of their time. This includes the lie detector, night vision goggles, the bullet proof vest, the silencer, and radio tracking devices among other things.
1025** As the series moves from the Victorian Era into the Edwardian Era, the series gradually becomes {{Dieselpunk}}. They still keep inventing advanced devices far beyond the period to solve murders but cars as well as other period-appropriate technology become more commonplace.
1026* StickEmUp: In "The Murdoch Identity", Murdoch returns to a house in Bristol, England, in order to find out why two men there have been pursuing him (and shot him in the arm). As he's looking over photos and maps on a wall, he hears someone coming, hides behind the door, and seizes a smoking pipe. When one of his pursuers enters the room, he jams the pipe stem into the back of the guy's neck and acts as if it's a real gun.
1027* StockFootage: Many establishing shots in the early seasons made use of photos in the Toronto Archives, often with carriages or pedestrians animated. A particularly noteworthy example is the second part of "Great Balls of Fire", the two-episode opener to season 10, which briefly faded from color to black and white in order to use film footage of the 1904 Great Fire of Toronto.
1028* StockNessMonster: The monster in "Loch Ness Murdoch" is a huge serpent-like creature resembling a certain dinosaur species. Turns out it's NotTheNessie.
1029* StrangersOnATrainPlotMurder:
1030** "Unfinished Business" has this as a cold case, reopened when one of the conspirators makes a DeathbedConfession, but leaves Murdoch with the impression he killed his ''own'' wife, which he can't have done. When Murdoch realises what happened, he even suggests they may have met on some form of public transport.
1031** The B-plot of "The Cottage in the Woods" has Murdoch and Watts investigating the murder of a man who was bludgeoned to death and the attempted murder of another man who was also bludgeoned but survived. Murdoch and Watts suspect the victims' wives of attacking their husbands, but they both have airtight alibis for the times the men were attacked. Watts breaks the case when he suggests that the wives agreed to murder each other's husbands. When the detectives go to arrest the women, they find them squabbling over the fact that one of the husbands survived.
1032* StudioEpisode: In "The Filmed Adventures of Detective William Murdoch", Murdoch investigates a murder taking place in an early movie house, where during a screening of the first motion picture with sound (in ''1901'', well before talkies and Hollywood), a major investor was killed by gunshot, which everyone first assumed was AllPartOfTheShow. The investigation leads Murdoch into the drama surrounding the house's investor, James Pendrick, and his bitter rival, UsefulNotes/ThomasEdison, with blame naturally shifting between them and their associates, with the belief that someone was trying to sabotage Pendrick's show for infringing on Edison's patents. While this is happening, the same studio is also seeking to make [[ShowWithinAShow a film about Murdoch and his illustrious detective career]], initially titled ''[[TitleDrop The Filmed Adventures of Detective William Murdoch]]'', before Crabtree suggests the much shorter, snappier title: ''[[TitleDrop The Murdoch Mysteries]]''. Murdoch, for his part, [[ItWillNeverCatchOn has little faith in the industry's future]].
1033-->'''Murdoch:''' [[WhoWouldWantToWatchUs I'm not entirely sure I can envy a future where everyone wastes their lives staring at a screen watching made-up stories.]]
1034* SuffrageAndPoliticalLiberation: Established characters like Julia and Emily join the movement of women's suffrage and they try to get a woman to run for an office. It's Miss Margaret Haile who runs for the provincial legislature of Ontario. With a brilliant legal argument from a British lawyer Clara Brett Martin, they succeed. In episode "Election Day", Miss Haile's name doesn't appear on the ballot. The lawyer petitions the court for an injunction and the women protest, blocking the doors of the polling station so that people can't vote unless there is Margaret's name on the ballot. Clara Brett Martin soon has her injunction and the name must be corrected/added on the ballot. Margaret Haile receives 79 votes. And their fight continues... Lilian tries to convince Emily to leave for London and join Mrs Pankhurst's group.
1035* TheSuffragette:
1036** Margaret Haile, a HistoricalDomainCharacter, is a Canadian socialist, teacher and journalist who was active in the socialist movement. She appears in the arch where Julia and Emily join the movement of women's suffrage. She is chosen as the ladies' candidate to run in the 1902 Ontario Provincial Election. When some men see their opposition and how much they must struggle, she gets quite a few votes. 79 actually.
1037** Dr. Julia Ogden is a successful and respected medical doctor in late Victorian Canada, so she's used to fighting for her own and women's rights. She's active politically, she's always happy to speak for women's right to contraception (illegal at the time). She's willing to be arrested and wants to argue her case in front of a judge. (Murdoch lets her go and persuades her not to, as she would be convicted). She considers running in the Provincial Elections, but declines because of her husband's career who nevertheless would support her if she chose to run.
1038** Dr. Emily Grace, Dr. Ogden's protegee and successor as coroner, gladly joins the women's movement. She's one of the most spirited and eager to fight or throw stones.
1039** Lilian Moss, Dr. Emily Grace's friend and eventual LoveInterest. They bond over their interest in women's suffrage and both are politically active in the campaign. She persuades her lover Emily to leave Toronto for London and join Mrs. Pankhurst's group.
1040** Miss Clara Brett Martin (a HistoricalDomainCharacter) is the first female lawyer in all of the British Empire. She argues at court when Margaret Haile was unfairly taken off the list of candidate. She is organizing the suffragette rally in "Troublemakers" and gets injured in the explosion.
1041** Effie Newsome is a bright young woman studying law. She's seen at a suffrage event in "Troublemakers" wearing a sash with reads Votes for Women.
1042** "Troublemakers": Dr Katherine Talbot is a medical doctor and a suffragist who has worked with Emily Pankhurst in London. It turns out they had a falling out because Dr Talbot wants to use more aggressive methods in their fight. Dr Talbot is connected to the Orsini bomb attack. She wanted to use it to make men feel guilty and gain sympathy for women.
1043* SuicideByCop:
1044** An older Jewish doctor commits the Suicide by State variation in "Let Us Ask the Maiden" when he makes sure he will be arrested and executed. [[spoiler:He shoots his fiancée's father in front of Detective Murdoch, Inspector Brackenreid and a couple of constables, which means he gets the noose. He did it because his future father-in-law murdered his employee who was also his daughter's lover. He loved the girl more than anything and he wanted her to be free from both of them -- her evil father and himself.]]
1045** The PoeticSerialKiller in "Werewolves" met his end when he tried to attack the investigators. Inspector Brackenreid shot him dead with a rifle, and was quite shaken by it, claiming it was the first time he killed anybody on duty as a police officer. This was the killer's BatmanGambit, not having any more reason to live after he'd gotten his revenge.
1046* SuicideBySea: In episode "Loch Ness Murdoch", a woman walks into Lake Ontario with weights in her dress, because her fiance has left her for another woman.
1047* SummationGathering: Murdoch has Crabtree summon the family and staff of the Jenkins household for one of these at the end of "Downstairs, Upstairs".
1048* SwanBoats: In "Painted Ladies", the first murder victim is found dead in a huge swan boat floating on the lake. There is lipstick smudged all over his lips and they also find a flirtation card on the body. All subsequent murder scenes also feature swans.
1049* SwappedRoles: Constable George and Inspector Brackenreid in "Loch Ness Murdoch". Ordinarily, George is very willing to believe in all kinds of outlandish things, like Martians and zombies, and ordinarily, the Inspector is rather impatient about this. In this episode, Inspector Brackenreid is the one who believes in a gigantic predatory "lake monster", and George is the one who dismisses the possibility of such a creature.
1050* SweetPollyOliver: A woman basketball team's worth. And back then, cross-dressing was considered quite scandalous. Julia in drag even initially fools Murdoch and Crabtree. When George realizes who he's talking to, he exclaims, "You look like a man...! A very pretty man!"
1051* SwitchToEnglish: Early in "Monsieur Murdoch" when Murdoch, Higgins and Crabtree find a man in a missing woman's hotel room, the constables tackle the man, who speaks in French, demanding to be released. Murdoch asks the man to identify himself in French, and the man does so [[spoiler:turns out he's a member of the Paris police]]. Soon he insultingly suggests switching to English so he can butcher that language instead. Murdoch doesn't take the bait, but later on (once the two are working together), he reverts to French without provoking any complaint from the Frenchman.
1052* SwivelChairAntics: Early in "The Murdoch Identity", Detective Slorach is joining Station 4 to help find the missing Murdoch when he's distractedly playing with Murdoch's desk chair while the others are trying to bring him up to speed on the case.
1053* SymbolicDistance: TableSpace is used between Dr. Julia Ogden and her husband Dr. Darcy Garland is used to symbolise the emotional distance between them during their argument. Julia fights for women's rights to use contraceptives, which is illegal and threatens Darcy's possible promotion. In one previous scene, they were comfortably sitting very close on a sofa.
1054* SympatheticMurderer: On more than a few occasions, which often leads to Murdoch or Brackenreid pledging to sue for clemency. Among others:
1055** A wealthy philanthropist is found beaten to death in his stable yard with a shovel. The killer turns out to be [[spoiler:his wife, who killed her husband after she found out that he was molesting their adopted daughter.]]
1056** The victim in "Belly Speaker" was a horrible human being, who may have even murdered one of his own sons and hidden his corpse in an armoire. The killer was [[spoiler:the surviving son, exacting vengeance for his actions]]. Notable as one of the only episodes in which the killer manages to outwit Murdoch.
1057** Perhaps the most notable case was that of aspiring actress Ava Moon, who was seeking revenge both against Murdoch, and the man who raped and disfigured her: When Murdoch was constable, he inadvertently got the charges against Moon's rapist dropped when he admitted on the stand that the assailant's confession was beaten out of him. The man later attacked and disfigured Moon, destroying her looks and making it impossible for her to have children, in retaliation. Twelve years later, she murders her assailant and frames Murdoch for the crime.
1058** In "Drowning in Money", [[spoiler:the killer of a {{Social Climb|er}}ing couple was their eldest daughter. She and her sister were trained to be "perfect" wives for noblemen through methods that even by the standards of the day would be cruel and abusive. She murdered them to protect her sister, and prevent her from being used as a pawn in their ambitions in the same way]].
1059* TableSpace: Between Julia and Darcy, when he tells her to give up her push for teaching contraceptive methods to women for the sake of his reputation.
1060* TaintedTobacco: In "Rigid Silence", an inmate is murdered when caustic lye soap is concealed in a plug of chewing tobacco. When he bites into the plug, the caustic lye causes his throat to swell shut and he chokes to death.
1061* TakeAThirdOption: The episode "Werewolves" features a young First Nations man who wants to become a police officer, but is stuck working in the stables at Stationhouse #4. He uses his tracking skills to help Murdoch and company track down a killer, and Crabtree says to Brackenreid that he should make the man an officer. Brackenreid agrees that he'd make an excellent cop, but the racism of turn-of-the-century Toronto would never allow it to happen. Undeterred, Crabtree gives the man the card of one of his friends who works for Pinkerton's, the American private detective agency.
1062* TakeThat:
1063** Thomas Edison ''very'' rarely comes off looking good in his appearances. He's inevitably presented as a belligerent and egotistical {{Jerkass}} who's not nearly as intelligent as he purports to be. It's elevated to ButtMonkey status in "Staring Blindly into the Future", where not only is he the ''only'' inventor not kidnapped by [[spoiler:Sally Pendrick]], but an attempt to fake his own kidnapping out of jealousy is brutally dismantled by Murdoch.
1064** UsefulNotes/SigmundFreud is presented nearly as badly in "Murdoch on the Couch". He's portrayed as something of a KnowNothingKnowItAll who infuriates Brackenreid when the inspector asks about Margaret's anxiety problems (which Freud believes comes from his son Bobby's criminal acts being a way to strike back at Brackenreid so he can commit ParentalIncest with Margaret, leading Brackenreid to yell at him to GetOut), is later ''punched'' by the inspector to "save" him from nearly being killed by a former patient's vengeful husband, and when he correctly notices the HoYay Higgins has for Crabtree is dismissed by Brackenreid as a broken clock being right twice a day.
1065** Rudyard Kipling gets a particularly unflattering depiction in "The Write Stuff." He's initally a condescending {{Jerkass}} when Brackenreid asks for his autograph, and only warms up to him when he learns that Brackenreid is a veteran of the Anglo-Afghan Wars. He later rips up his autograph when Murdoch interrogates him, repeatedly stiffs a Black bartender on his tab, and is derided by some of the other writers at the conference he attends. When he later offers to give Brackenreid his autograph, Brackenreid refuses, quoting some of his writing and [[BrokenPedestal saying that the real Kipling doesn't match the impressive character of his writing.]]
1066* TakeThatAudience: A friendly jab the end of "The Filmed Adventures of Detective William Murdoch". Also the Detective Murdoch fan club in "The Murdoch Appreciation Society".
1067* TakeThatKiss: Gillies plants a big one on [[spoiler:Murdoch's mouth]] in "Midnight Train to Kingston".
1068* TakingTheBullet:
1069** [[spoiler:Margaret does this for her son Bobby when the father of the man Bobby killed in self-defence tries to shoot him.]]
1070** [[spoiler:Violet does this for Brackenreid when Maurice Majors tries to shoot him.]]
1071* TakingTheHeat: At the start of season 9, [[spoiler:Crabtree has gone to jail for the murder of Edna Brooks's husband, putting in a plea of "uncontested" because he doesn't want to perjure himself by pleading guilty. He refuses to discuss the case, even with Murdoch, until evidence starts appearing that she didn't commit it either.]]
1072* TakingYouWithMe: While [[spoiler:Timothy Beaton]] is going to hang for [[spoiler:murdering two of his half-brothers,]] he manages to [[spoiler:kill the third surviving half-brother by getting his cousin to use voodoo to induce a fatal heart attack in the man.]]
1073* TarotTroubles: In the episode "Blood and Circuses", Murdoch is investigating the death of a circus lion tamer and is particularly frustrated by the fortuneteller's refusal to answer questions directly. The woman prefers to communicate using her cards and refers to their predictive power, despite Murdoch's objections that he doesn't believe in such things. Crabtree insists her prognostications are valuable, and eventually Murdoch goes along with her conversational style to get information out of her. Interestingly, her cards sometimes need to be taken literally: as the deaths continue among the circus performers, she produces first [[spoiler:the magician]] card and later [[spoiler:the Queen of Swords]], which refer to people involved in the murders. Murdoch also gets two contradictory predictions about his love-life, which the fortuneteller explains away by saying the future isn't fixed.
1074* TearsOfBlood: The VictimOfTheWeek in "Shades of Grey" starts bleeding from her eyes [[spoiler:after taking an overdose of pennyroyal oil to induce an abortion]].
1075* TheTeetotaler: Detective Murdoch doesn't normally drink any alcohol at all as he wants to keep his head clear. Moreover, he avoids alcohol because his father is an alcoholic. Notably averted in "The Green Muse" when Murdoch spends an evening getting drunk on absinthe in order to figure out how it would affect the mind (he really does do it ForScience). Murdoch also knocks back a whiskey with Branckenreid after releasing Ava Moon, [[LiquidCourage slams one before making one of his marriage proposals to Julia,]] and sips a glass at his bachelor party.
1076* TemporaryLoveInterest:
1077** 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 4, 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.]]
1078** Enid Jones for Murdoch. She is a capable woman who used to work as a telegraphist. She's a widow and has an eager ten-year-old son who is fascinated by science stuff and by Detective Murdoch. Murdoch was impressed that she was able to build a telescope.
1079** Telephone operator-cum-lady detective for George. Even though it lasted only one episode. She was ''very'' spirited and spunky.
1080** Edna Garrison/Brooks for George again. A character who he had a brief date with in Season 1, and who then returned in Season 8. [[spoiler:At the start of Season 9, she goes on the run with her stepson once she realizes he's the one who killed his abusive father]].
1081* ThanatosGambit: [[spoiler:Used by Karl Schreier in "Invention Convention". Dying of cancer, he develops a device featuring components from the creations of his rival inventors at the convention that shoots him in the head as he's making his speech after winning the Eaton 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.]]
1082* ThatOneCase: In the aptly-titled "Unfinished Business", Murdoch plays a recording of a man's deathbed murder confession for Dr. Ogden. He's puzzled because the corpse he and his colleagues found by following the man's directions doesn't match other vivid details in the man's statement. Dr. Ogden recognizes the details of the corpse match an early case she worked on; she finds the case file in her old office and expresses regret that she couldn't solve the woman's murder.
1083* ThatPoorPlant:
1084** In "The Tesla Effect", Crabtree sees a dead fern at the crime scene and makes a joke about its "death by bachelor", then he touches it and comments on its unusual warmth. A trail of similar dead plant life outdoors leads Murdoch and Tesla to the place where [[spoiler:a microwave ray cannon was stored and tested]].
1085** In "Murdoch and the Cloud of Doom", Murdoch is ordered to investigate a film of a man killing a dog with a lethal gas. Investigation of the site where the film was shot turns up a large area with dead plants; Murdoch and his consulting expert discuss how powerful the gas appears to be based on the size of the affected area.
1086* TheCallsAreComingFromInsideTheHouse: In "I Know What You Did Last Autumn", Crabtree is alone in the station house processing the shoe that the MonsterClown left at the scene of one of their crimes. Crabtree then gets a call from the ominous music box the clown plays before they kill their victims. When Crabtree calls the operator to trace the call, she tells him that the calls are being made from inside the station house. The clown then attacks Crabtree to get their shoe back.
1087* ThemedParty: In "Murdoch in Wonderland", the characters attend an ''Alice in Wonderland''-themed party, supposedly to honour the recently deceased Lewis Carroll. It's actually a plot to get some characters on the same spot to start a revenge and some costumes are worn to disguise identity. Detective Murdoch is dressed as the Mad Hatter and Dr Julia Ogden is Alice. (They have the most prominent costumes for the party, despite the fact that they are not especially close to the hosts and Murdoch wasn't even supposed to attend.)
1088* ThereOughtToBeALaw: When Brackenreid is investigating the death of a man found lying on a Toronto street, he interrogates a man who ran over the body. Brackenreid accuses the suspect of running over the man because he was driving drunk. The suspect says he didn't do anything wrong, since drunk driving isn't a crime. Brackenreid's expression clearly shows his view that drunk driving ''should'' be illegal. He releases the suspect when Dr. Grace learns the victim was already dead when the suspect ran over his body.
1089* TheWorldIsNotReady: This is the reason James Pendrick scuttles his early version of computers and the Internet. He wanted it to bring people together and is bitterly disappointed that most of them use it for con schemes and pornography.
1090* TheyCallMeMisterTibbs:
1091** In "Murdoch in Ragtime", Leslie Garland uses Dr. Grace's first name the first time they're together in The Blind Pig. She calls him on it ("Awfully forward, ''Mr. Garland'' "), yet he does it again after her objection. Later, the courtship progresses, she doesn't mind his brashness so much and he tells her, [[FirstNameBasis "Call me Leslie."]]
1092** In "The Murdoch Sting", Eva Pearce calls Detective Murdoch "William", then asks if he minds the familiarity. He ''does'' mind and addresses her as "Miss Pearce". Eva deliberately oversteps the boundary again to defy him.
1093* ThisBearWasFramed:
1094** In "Child's Play", the VictimOfTheWeek is murdered by a blow to the head [[ShovelStrike with a shovel]]. Horses are then stampeded over the body to make it look like he was trampled to death.
1095** In "Werewolves", the killer wears a glove with a spring-loaded trap studded with wolf teeth to rip out the victims' throats, making it look like a wolf attack.
1096* ThoseTwoGuys: Crabtree and Higgins often fall into this when they're paired up.
1097* ThrillerOnTheExpress: The tense "Midnight Train to Kingston" episode.
1098* ThrowingTheFight: The VictimOfTheWeek in "The Knockdown" was supposed to throw a prize fight in the 31st round. He decided to change the script (having placed a large bet on himself) and won in the 30th. He was murdered later that evening.
1099* TimeTravel: Part of the plot in "Twentieth Century Murdoch" revolves around a time machine. A man gets involved in a couple of incidents (a suicide attempt and a shooting) and claims he went to the future, saw the events and went back to intervene. He also wants to save a boy from being trampled by horses, and Constables Crabtree and Higgins later go to the street intersection and witness events unfold just as the man said they would. Soon word gets around, and people are lining up and paying for trips to the future. Murdoch is initially skeptical despite the testimony of other paying travelers, but when the scientist suggests he try the device, Murdoch takes him up on the offer. What Murdoch sees (including himself married to Julia in 1912 and an eight year old boy who introduces himself as "William Murdoch Junior") changes his mind, and he's soon closeted in his office with the scientist, with his blackboard covered in equations. It turns out [[spoiler:to be a hoax using a form of shock therapy to show the user the future they want to see]] and [[spoiler:the scientist is using the money to finance a cryogenic chamber for his half-brother Dr. Roberts, who has Huntington's disease]].
1100* TitleDrop:
1101** Both for the series and episode's titles in "The Filmed Adventures of Detective William Murdoch". Crabtree comments that aforementioned title for the movie-whithin-a-show is too much of a mouthful, and suggests "''Murdoch Mysteries''" instead.
1102** A bonus entry occurs in "The Artful Detective", which is the [[MarketBasedTitle name of the show in the US]]. It's both the title of the episode and the nickname given to Murdoch when the mastermind of the HuntingTheMostDangerousGame competition "enters" him in it.
1103* ToBeLawfulOrGood:
1104** Murdoch and Brackenreid are both flagrantly violating the law by not arresting the lesbian Dr. Grace and the gay Detective Watts, given that homosexuality was illegal in Canada until the 1960s.
1105** Murdoch is also breaking the law by not arresting Dr. Ogden for performing an abortion, which was also illegal in Canada at the time.
1106** When Percy Giles (whose crimes were covering up the AccidentalMurder of a pedophile police officer and being gay) escapes from jail to help Murdoch clear the name of an innocent man accused of murder, Murdoch helps him escape into Western Canada even though his legal duty would have been to arrest Giles.
1107** More controversially, Murdoch has covered up Dr. Ogden's euthanizing a terminally ill patient and helped Ava Moon escape after she killed her rapist.
1108* TooDumbToLive:
1109** The late [[spoiler:Roger Newsome]], who comes from a family of [[UpperClassTwit Upper-Class Twits]] and insists on going outside to get a haircut when he's meant to be kept under guard until he can testify at a murder trial. You can guess how he becomes the ''late'' [[spoiler:Roger]].
1110** In "The Artful Detective", the {{deadly game}}'s organizer confesses when confronted, gloating that all of the participants were willing and that he never killed anyone himself and thus can't be arrested. Murdoch reminds him that 1) offering a cash prize for people to kill each other counts as murder for hire, and 2) he told the contestants to try to kill a police detective by "entering" Murdoch in the competition as the "Artful Detective." Murdoch is also technically the winner, since he catches the only other competitor and the competitor is going to be hanged for their own murders.
1111* ToplessnessFromTheBack: When Murdoch learns that Julia was once arrested for SkinnyDipping, he imagines this. Vividly.
1112* ToThePain: Before Mr. Pendrick gets tortured, his tormentor gleefully talks about how he knows that Mr. Pendrick dislocated his shoulder and how that type of injury never recovers fully.
1113* TranquillizerDart: In "Murdoch Air", darts shot by a pistol take out both Murdoch and Pendrick through InstantSedation.
1114* TrappedByGamblingDebts: The killer in "Murdoch Night In Canada" murders the captain of his team so that its star player will be able to play in a championship game and the killer can use his wagers on the game to wipe out his gambling debts.
1115* TrueCompanions:
1116** Murdoch, Julia, Crabtree, and Brackenreid. They stand by and trust one another almost without question, and are willing to go to the limits for one another. They're joined throughout the other series by characters such as Dr. Grace and Rebecca James.
1117*** Notably, when Julia was framed for murder and Murdoch was suspended for pursuing his investigation in defiance of Chief Constable Giles, Brackenreid willingly gets ''himself'' suspended by standing up for Murdoch and telling Giles off. He and Crabtree then join Murdoch's clandestine efforts to clear her name, with Dr. Grace also providing assistance in dismantling the evidence against her (which is instrumental in getting ''Giles'' to quietly support their investigation).
1118*** It's lampshaded in "Up From Ashes" by Murdoch himself. [[spoiler:After Graham is arrested for his machinations, he smugly warns Murdoch that he has friends in the government that will help him. Murdoch immediately throws it back in his face by telling Graham that those friends are not nearly as good as ''Murdoch's'' friends, all of whom risked death and incarceration to help him clear his name.]]
1119** All of Station House No. 4 are this for one another. They're a tight-knit crew for whom they will risk anything to help one another. Higgins and Jackson have both gone out of their way for George and Murdoch, and the entire crew is steadfastly loyal to Brackenreid. When Murdoch is framed for murder in "Hell to Pay" and "Up from Ashes", the conspirators have to ''shut the station down entirely'' in an effort to stop them from helping reveal the truth. And several help ''anyway''.
1120* TurnInYourBadge:
1121** Chief Constable Giles suspends both Murdoch and Brackenreid for their efforts to clear Julia of her estranged husband's murder. They set up shop in Brackenreid's dining room and are joined by Crabtree to continue their investigation.
1122** Again for [[spoiler:Brackenreid]] in "Bloody Hell".
1123** Subverted in "Vengeance Makes the Man". Brackenreid tries to resign for FramingTheGuiltyParty 20 years ago, but the Chief Constable refuses his request. He says that Brackenreid did the right thing in ensuring a murderer was punished, and that there's no point in dredging up dirt from two decades ago to make the police look bad.
1124* TwoLinesNoWaiting: Some episodes involve two cases. Crabtree and/or Brackenreid are usually the ones to handle the B-plot while Murdoch investigates the main case.
1125* UnnecessaryRoughness: In "Hot Wheels of Thunder", Miss James is competing against the Buffalo Queens roller racing team. During the first race Miss James is unfairly knocked out of the race with an ankle injury.
1126* UnpleasantParentReveal: The title character first mentions his father Henry during an interview for a promotion, but only to say the man worked as a fisherman and that they've lost touch. In a later episode, Murdoch and Constable Crabtree discover the man unconscious at a murder scene, and viewers learn that Henry has been an alcoholic for years and that William thinks his father is responsible for his mother's premature death. In a subsequent encounter, William investigates a shady land deal that's tangled with mining and murder only to have his father's name come up, and learns he has a half-brother that Henry fathered with a woman to whom he was not officially married.
1127* UnresolvedSexualTension: UST is an apt description of the relationship between Detective William Murdoch and Dr. Julia Ogden, particularly in the first several seasons. Each of them in their own ways contributes to the difficulties; William seems somewhat lacking in social skills (such as dancing) and [[CantSpitItOut has trouble telling Julia how he feels]], while Julia is torn by her professional ambitions and ambivalence over motherhood in the face of his desire for a family. This is made worse by the Victorian/Edwardian setting and the necessary restraint needed by social standards of the time, as the UST is just as strong (if not stronger) whenever their on/off relationship is actually on. [[spoiler:It is at its highest possible level during season five when Julia is ''married to another man'', but the UST is eventually resolved when her husband pulls an IWantMyBelovedToBeHappy and tells her to be with William. Julia and William rekindling their romance closes the season. In season 6, the tension is back as they are together but unwilling to commit adultery when Julia goes through the unavoidable scandal of her divorce, capped by the murder of her husband, for which Julia is initially convicted!]] Eventually [[spoiler:in season 8]], they do, but [[EarnYourHappyEnding boy howdy have they earned it]].
1128* UpperClassTwit:
1129** Roger Newsome (of the ''Mimico Newsomes'', as he never hesitates to remind people) is a particularly grating example. He brags about his many accomplishments at everything from puzzles to birdwatching, even though he either rigs his successes or steals the credit from others. He's also thoroughly snide and condescending, such that none of his colleagues in his puzzle, golf or auto clubs can stand him. It's so bad that one of his friends outright tries to ''kill'' him. Roger also convinces himself that he's Crabtree's best friend. Even Crabtree, one of the friendliest and most easygoing characters on the entire show, utterly ''loathes'' him.
1130** As Henry Higgins's romance with Roger's sister Ruth (who is a female example herself) grows, he turns into one too. He brags about his knowledge of fancy colognes, gets a personal valet despite being a police constable, and basically begins acting like he's too good for everyone else at Stationhouse 4. It comes to a head in the Season 12 premiere, where [[spoiler:he outright ignores Murdoch's and Brackenreid's orders in favour of planning his wedding to Ruth, gets into a confrontation with Brackenreid and quits before he's fired.]]
1131** Roger's brother Rupert somehow manages to be even worse than Roger. Rupert is trained as a cardiac surgeon, but he doesn't do anything so common as actually practice medicine. As a "gentleman of titles", Rupert became a doctor simply for the accolades and lets lesser men do the actual work. When the Newsome family fortune is gone, Rupert becomes the HenpeckedHusband to a domineering wealthy woman... and it's implied he almost ''enjoys'' his wife pushing him around.
1132* UptownGirl: George experiences this with Emily Grace. Though he wants to invite her to the policemen'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.]] George views Emily as higher on the social chain than he is, even though Emily's former fiancé, the cad, told her she was a mere working-class girl.
1133* TheVerse: Set in the same universe as ''Series/FrankieDrakeMysteries'' and ''Series/RepublicOfDoyle''.
1134* VigilanteExecution: Happens at the end of "Let Us Ask the Maiden". Knowing that the real killer will get off due to lack of evidence, one suspect shoots him in front of the police and allows himself to be arrested. He was also the fiancé of a young woman who was in love with the original victim, and he believes that his arrest (and probable execution) will free her from being trapped in a marriage to him that she does not truly want.
1135* TheVillainKnowsWhereYouLive:
1136** Late in "Unfinished Business" (Season 7, Episode 12), Julia gets a photo of her and Murdoch kissing in an alley (which she and viewers recognize happened after they attended a recent opera performance) together with a letter [[spoiler:apparently]] from James Gillies. The letter threatens that if she marries Murdoch, he'll die, and if she tells him about the letter (and the threat), they'll both die. This starts a subplot over the next several episodes in which she tries to resolve the problem herself to keep Murdoch safe. At one point, she applies Murdoch's methods and finds the room where the photo was taken. In that room, she also finds ''a second photo'' of Murdoch taken inside his office with a second note threatening death if she continues her investigation.
1137** In the two-parter "On the Waterfront", Brackenreid recalls in {{Flashback}} a day when his wife Margaret gave directions to two men driving a wagon. The inspector called sharply to his wife from his wheelchair on the front porch, and Margaret didn't seem to understand what he was fussing about. The men were the O'Shea brothers, who had beaten Brackenreid nearly to death (hence his presence at home in the wheelchair). They don't [[TrespassingToTalk speak to Brackenreid directly]], but one of them does tip his hat to the inspector.
1138* VillainousCrush:
1139** [[spoiler:Sally Pendrick]] gives Murdoch a nude, abstract painting of herself in "This One Goes to Eleven". See also the [[Characters/MurdochMysteries character page]].
1140** [[spoiler:Arlene Dennet]] in "Bloodlust" has one on Detective Murdoch. She tells Murdoch to call her by her first name, clings onto Murdoch several times, stabs herself in the neck to be near him, and tells him a 'secret' that he must vow not to tell because vows are "sacred as say a vow of fidelity between lovers" (cue Murdoch looking around uncomfortably). Made even more squick in that it doubles as a PrecociousCrush since Murdoch is investigating the murder of a popular girl at a boarding school. [[GreenEyedMonster Wonder who did it?]]
1141** It is implied that James Gillies has one on Detective Murdoch, and [[spoiler:it is confirmed in "The Devil Inside", when he calls Murdoch "the object of [his] admiration and ardour"]].
1142* ViolenceDetector: Murdoch performs blood trace detection a couple of times with a(n anachronistic) luminol-like compound:
1143** In "Dead End Street", he uses it to find blood traces in the culprit's cart months after the cart was used to transport the victim's corpse.
1144** Murdoch confidently breaks out the sprayer again in "Murdoch Night in Canada". Only problem, he tests this on ''hockey sticks'', forgetting that [[UnnecessaryRoughness hockey players don't go easy on each other]]. The sticks are covered in blood traces, making it impossible to tell which one was the murder weapon.
1145* VomitDiscretionShot: In the episode "Republic of Murdoch", Constable Crabtree gets friendly with some Newfoundland locals while bragging about an old treasure map he wants to sell in a scam to trap a killer. After an extended drinking session featuring the potent local rum, he awakes the next morning [[spoiler:embracing a fish wrapped in his jacket]], then vomits behind a bush while Murdoch and local man Jake Doyle are watching for the culprit to arrive at the location marked on the map. Murdoch seems concerned for his colleague, but Doyle comments that Crabtree can't hold his liquor, and George replies that he's merely out of practice.
1146* WartsAndAll: Early in "Winston's Lost Night", Inspector Brackenreid is unhappy that the great Winston Churchill is locked in one of the station's cells, and he effusively praises Churchill's book as "stirring stuff". As he learns of Churchill's apparent alcohol-induced blackout and aristocratic ways (including traveling with servants and his treatment of Crabtree as another of his servants -- asking the constable to fetch his hat and stick) and gets insulted by Churchill for requesting an autograph, Brackenreid begins to write him off as another "toff". Eventually, Brackenreid quotes from Churchill's book (to the author's delight) [[spoiler:to talk down a murderer threatening to kill Churchill]], and Churchill apologizes for his insulting comment on the autograph book and asks to sign it.
1147* TheWatson:
1148** Murdoch and Brackenreid often rely on Constable Crabtree to do much of the legwork in interviewing witnesses, looking into interesting leads, and so forth.
1149** Constable Jackson plays this for Detective Watts starting in the season 10 episode "A Murdog Mystery", as he begins a search for missing women.
1150** Later episodes have Constable Higgins, especially when Higgins is trying to understand why Murdoch wants something done.
1151%% ** Brackenreid
1152%% ** Dr. Ogden
1153%% ** Dr. Grace
1154%% ** Creator/JackLondon also serves as one for Murdoch in "Murdoch of the Klondike".
1155* WeddingRingRemoval: In the episode "The Tesla Effect", as Murdoch and inventor/businessman James Pendrick are discussing how and why [[spoiler:his wife Sally Pendrick]] framed Pendrick for murder and masterminded an art theft, Pendrick removes and looks at his wedding ring before placing it on a table.
1156* WeirdTradeUnion: Mick and Tim O'Shea are publicly known as a pair of militant Irish dockworkers and labour organizers. Privately, they also extort waterfront merchants, murder anyone who becomes a threat, and indulge in HumanTrafficking with women who can't speak English.
1157* {{Wendigo}}: Subverted in "Werewolves". Jimmy [=McCloud=] suggests that the First Nations killer might have been infected by a Wendigo spirit, but it turns out that he actually has a very mundane -- and very justified -- motivation for his killings.
1158* WhamEpisode:
1159** "The Devil Within" certainly counts. [[spoiler:It features the return of Murdoch's ArchEnemy James Gillies who was presumed dead... his nearly committing SuicideByCop until Murdoch subdues him, and finally his being killed off as he is hanged. Fans were thrilled with the results.]]
1160** The 2021 Christmas special ends with Dr. Ogden revealing to Murdoch [[spoiler:that she's pregnant with his child, despite the damage she'd previously suffered from having an abortion and miscarrying their first child.]]
1161* WhatDidIDoLastNight:
1162** A young UsefulNotes/WinstonChurchill wakes up in his hotel room after a drunken night on the town... and finds his roommate's bloody corpse on the floor next to him. He's arrested under suspicion of murder, and Murdoch and Crabtree solve the case by accompanying him as he retraces his steps from the night before.
1163** The Season 15 episode "Devil Music" has a young Music/LeadBelly suspected of violently killing a fellow musician. He was drinking heavily the night of the murder and can't recall what happened. He only describes bizarre images when Julia hypnotizes him, so Brackenreid and Crabtree go with him to retrace his steps. [[spoiler:Lead Belly was actually framed for the murder, and the images he recalls were his drunken perceptions of things he saw while he was tanked.]]
1164* WhatHappenedToTheMouse:
1165** [[spoiler:James Pendrick is abducted by his ex-wife Sally Pendrick and forced to film a speech as part of a kidnapping plot. James never appears in person and we're left wondering what's happened to him, although he appears in a second film in TheStinger which heavily implies that he's alright.]]
1166** Subverted with Jack Walker. When he disappears, Watts and the other Canadian characters don't know what happened to him. The audience learns he moved to Greenwich Village in UsefulNotes/NewYorkCity and becomes part of the Village's burgeoning gay community. Walker later writes to Watts to explain where he went, and Watts visits him in New York.
1167* WhatTheHellHero:
1168** Murdoch receives one from [[spoiler:James Pendrick]] after mistakenly arresting him for murder. Again.
1169** A historical version occurs when UsefulNotes/WinstonChurchill becomes a suspect in the murder of his friend. While retracing his steps with Murdoch and Crabtree, Churchill remembers talking about how he criticized Lord Kitchener for wanting to dig up the Mahdi's corpse and use his skull as a penholder. This is a reference to UsefulNotes/TheRiverWar in the late 1800s, and also ties into the ''real'' murderer and his motive for killing Churchill's friend.
1170** When Murdoch's landlady is arrested for murder in "Murdoch of the Klondike", she reacts this way when she learns that Murdoch used to be a policeman but isn't trying to help her. He later rouses himself to do it.
1171** Murdoch is aghast when he learns that Brackenreid was involved in FramingTheGuiltyParty 20 years ago. They argue about their breaking the law, with Brackenreid reminding Murdoch about his letting Percy Giles and Ava Moon go free. Murdoch points out that he let people go instead of sending them to their deaths.
1172* WhenEldersAttack: In "Convalescence", Murdoch's elderly landlady Mrs Kitchen has been imprisoned for several days while criminals search her house. When a weakened Murdoch passes out while fighting one of the criminals, Mrs Kitchen picks up Murdoch's crutch and whacks the crook over the head with it, knocking her out.
1173* WhiteSheep: Effie Newsome, though certainly still eccentric judging by her interactions with George, is the only recurring Newsome who isn't an UpperClassTwit. Being a distant cousin may play a part.
1174* WhoMurderedTheAsshole: Rather frequent.
1175** The victim in Season 1's "Child's Play" was [[spoiler:murdered by his wife after discovering he was molesting the daughter they adopted -- and had done so with their own biological daughter, who he murdered when she grew old enough to fight back. While questioning the girl's brother, who was the prime suspect at the time, Inspector Brackenreid (an orphan himself) reassured him by saying that he would have done it too. Over the course of the investigation, it was also revealed that the victim employed orphans (including their adopted daughter's brother) to steal horses to supply his glue factory.]]
1176** 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 axe, 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. 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."]]
1177** The victim in "Downstairs, Upstairs" was the master of a wealthy household who used his position to rape the maids in his employ without consequences, dismissing them without a thought if they became pregnant. When interviewed, the murderer says he did not regret it in the slightest.
1178** In season 4, the victims of "All Tattered and Torn" are [[spoiler:three men that were guilty or accomplice of raping a young woman and escaped justice years ago. The murderer is a former cop who was obsessed by the case and executed them.]]
1179** In season 6, three young women are beaten and murdered by drowning. You feel less sympathetic when it is discovered that [[spoiler:they accidentally killed another girl by repeatedly submerging her in cold water to "cleanse" her of her love for her Persian teacher, and that one of them was also blackmailing her employer with threats of publishing news of his marriage to a Native woman in the newspaper.]]
1180* WholePlotReference:
1181** "The Accident" is essentially a period-adapted version of ''Series/HomicideLifeOnTheStreet'''s Peabody-winning episode "The Subway".
1182** "Dead on Arrival" is an adaptation of ''Film/{{DOA}}'' in everything from its plot of the protagonist dying from a slow poisoning to being shot in black and white to the jazzy 1940s-style music to the dresses worn by Julia and Violet, which look better suited to the 1940s than they do to the Edwardian era the show is set in.
1183* WhoopeeCushion: In the episode "The Keystone Constables", Murdoch is introduced to one of these by one of the vaudeville performers he's investigating. At the time, Murdoch doesn't seem to get the joke (or many of the other jokes, for that matter), but he later makes his own whoopee cushion and tricks Julia into sitting on it. Murdoch not only laughs heartily at Julia's reaction, he's also very pleased that his version worked so well.
1184* WhoWouldWantToWatchUs:
1185** In "The Filmed Adventures of Detective Murdoch", Murdoch is baffled by the idea of a moving picture based on his cases.
1186** In "Elementary, My Dear Murdoch", Creator/ArthurConanDoyle suggests that forensics may one day be the future of entertainment. Murdoch says the public would find it "too dull and too bloody".
1187* WhyAreYouLookingAtMeLikeThat:
1188** In "Victor, Victorian", Brackenreid and Murdoch need someone to infiltrate a women's basketball team. They first glance at Crabtree, who promptly tells them he's not gonna wear a dress (again). Then Dr. Ogden comes in.
1189--->'''Murdoch:''' Julia, have you ever played basketball?\
1190'''Dr. Ogden:''' Yes, as a matter of fact, I have. Why do you ask?
1191** In "Murdoch au Naturel", Brackenreid and Murdoch are discussing the difficulties they're having with getting information from a group of naturists (whose private nudist colony is where a corpse turned up). They have the bright idea to send in someone undercover, and since the naturists have already met Murdoch, he and Brackenreid turn to Constable Crabtree, who objects. [[GilliganCut Cut to Crabtree entering the colony without clothing]].
1192* WickedCultured: [[spoiler:James Gillies]] is impeccably dressed like a fashionable turn-of-the-century dandy. Don't let his youth fool you, though -- he's arguably one of the smartest antagonists Murdoch has ever faced.
1193* WidowsWeeds: The series is set in Victorian-Edwardian era (late 19th and early 20th century) Toronto, Canada, so many characters who have deaths in their families observe this, and many widows keep their mourning black for years after the deaths that prompted the clothing change. Just after her husband Dr. Garland is murdered in "Crime and Punishment", Dr. Ogden doesn't immediately adopt black clothing, and during his interrogation of her, Giles calls her out on it: "How very modern." Julia does wear widow's weeds after this, particularly when she's planning to meet Darcy's parents at the train station and in court during her murder trial.
1194* WilliamTelling: In "Mild Mild West", Lightning Wilcox's sharpshooting act has him shooting the hat off his partner's head and then a bottle out of his hand.
1195* WireDilemma: Subverted in the episode "Murdoch Ahoy", when Inspector Brakenreid asks Murdoch how he knows what wire to cut, and Murdoch says it doesn't matter. Early 1900s bomb design didn't extend to having wires that would ''activate'' it if cut.
1196* WitchClassic: Minerva West and her apprentices in "The Witches of East York" are classic examples. They wear black dresses decorated with Goth-type accessories, are very close to Earth (West lives alone in the woods with an extensive herb garden, and her spellbook is full of herbal and poison recipes), practice witchcraft (openly scribing a pentagram and casting a binding spell on the AssholeVictim in the streets of Toronto), have familial bonds (West loves her apprentices like daughters, and the apprentices themselves are in a lesbian relationship) and form a trio of TheWeirdSisters.
1197* WithDueRespect:
1198** In "The Glass Ceiling", Inspector Brackenreid gets desperate to find a killer who's threatening him and orders the constables to strong-arm every known criminal they can find to get information on the man. Detective Murdoch uses the phrase "with all due respect" to point out that such heavy-handed tactics are unlikely to work and urges they follow the evidence instead of going after every criminal in the city.
1199** In "Loch Ness Murdoch", Inspector Brackenreid has a very unusual moment and insists he saw a StockNessMonster. Detective Murdoch suspects that Inspector's love of whisky might be responsible and hints at it "with all due respect". But Inspector knows bloody well what he saw. Besides, it was ale -- who'd drink whiskey at the beach? The monster appears again while Murdoch and Brackenreid are talking, and they both see it. Brackenreid then sarcastically asks Murdoch how many drinks ''he'' had that day.
1200* WitnessProtection:
1201** At the end of the episode "The Black Hand", Murdoch explains to Anna Fulford that she needs to leave Toronto because the Black Hand has a contract on her [[spoiler:for the theft of counterfeit money her fiancé committed]]. He gives her a manila envelope with the details of a new life and background for her, telling her they cannot have further contact. She doesn't stay gone, but returns to work as a librarian in Toronto in the two-parter "Stroll on the Wild Side", and Murdoch is aghast when he recognizes her. Eventually, the Black Hand proves to be back in the person of Mr. Falcone, and she has to disappear [[DeathFakedForYou more permanently this time]].
1202** In "From Buffalo with Love", the murder victim turns out to have been relocated to Toronto by the Buffalo police after testifying against Falcone. The Toronto constabulary are rather put out they weren't informed, especially since they have experience with the Black Hand.
1203* WorkingTheSameCase:
1204** In the episode "Buffalo Shuffle", Murdoch and Dr. Ogden are investigating the death of a child patient at Julia's hospital in Buffalo, NY. They go to the home of a nurse who may know something about the boy's death, where they are surprised by a local Buffalo police detective investigating the death of the same nurse (her body having washed ashore).
1205** In the episode "Murdoch on the Corner", Inspector Brackenreid is investigating the death of a pastor who was beaten to death with a blunt instrument, while Murdoch is trying to find a "[[SerialKiller sequential killer]]" who dispatches their victims with a single gunshot. It eventually becomes clear the same killer is responsible, and the deviation from the pattern in the pastor's case is a clue as to the motive.
1206** One season 6 episode has Inspector Brackenreid investigating the apparent suicide of a prisoner who seems to have hung himself in his cell and who was one of the Inspector's old Army friends. Meanwhile, Murdoch and Crabtree are investigating a robbery in which the shop owner was brutally murdered. They eventually find that both cases are related.
1207** "The Murdoch Appreciation Society" starts with Murdoch investigating a murder victim found in a park, while Crabtree is on another case, the theft of a cadaver at a medical institute. The victim and the corpse end up being one and the same.
1208** "Murdoch on the Couch" has Murdoch investigating the mysterious death threats UsefulNotes/SigmundFreud is receiving, while Watts deals with a mentally ill man who dreams that his wife was murdered. [[spoiler:The man who seems mentally ill is just ObfuscatingInsanity, which he used to infiltrate the station house as part of his scheme to kill Freud, who was treating his wife and who he blames for the wife's suicide.]]
1209** In Season 3's "Future Imperfect", Murdoch investigates the murder of a man whose body parts are found floating in a pond while Crabtree investigates a series of dog abductions. Crabtree unwittingly provides Murdoch with a major break in the case when he catches the dog-napper.
1210* WorstWhateverEver: In one episode, Henry is assigned to figure out a sentence from a piece of destroyed paper. The equipment to help him provided by Detective Murdoch looks like proto-Scrabble. However, Henry is not impressed and declares it "the worst job ever".
1211* WritingIndentationClue:
1212** In the episode "Buffalo Shuffle", Murdoch uses graphite shavings from a pencil sharpener to raise some letters from a sheet in a notebook. He only finds some characters, so the meaning of the clue isn't readily apparent.
1213** In the episode "High Voltage", Murdoch asks a hotel desk clerk about the occupant of a hotel room, and the clerk finds the relevant page from the hotel register is missing. Murdoch uses this method and a camera to recover a signature from the register's next page.
1214** Chief Constable Davis does the same in "Bloody Hell", [[spoiler:not realizing Murdoch was setting him up]].
1215* WrittenInAbsence:
1216** Dr. Ogden leaves Toronto for a job at a children's hospital in Buffalo at the end of series 3. She's still in Buffalo at the beginning of series 4, but returns to Toronto and her old job halfway through the series.
1217** Early in season 10, [[spoiler:Brackenreid goes on a scientific trip to Panama with James Pendrick for several episodes.]]
1218* YetAnotherChristmasCarol: "A Merry Murdoch Christmas" has elements of this with Inspector Brackenreid acting like the Scrooge or Grinch of the episode; however, he is obsessed with the Alpine holiday demon Krampus rather than Dickensian Christmas ghosts and there is also a "''Film/MiracleOnThirtyFourthStreet''" plotline.
1219* YouJustRuinedTheShot: In "The Filmed Adventures of Detective William Murdoch", Murdoch and Crabtree see a young woman aggressed by two men on the street, and immediately intervene. Turns out it's part of the movie shot by James Pendrick. One has to wonder how they missed the filming crew, which was only hiding BehindTheBlack.
1220* YouKilledMyFather: Inverted when [[spoiler:Bobby Brackenreid kills a fellow prison inmate in self-defence and becomes a fugitive. When Margaret travels to Windsor to find him, she's aided by a man named Richard with his own agenda. Richard is the man whose son Bobby killed, and is determined to shoot him as payback. Bobby only lives thanks to Margaret TakingTheBullet and Inspector Brackenreid being TheCavalry.]]
1221* YoungFutureFamousPeople: The series features numerous examples of either contemporary famous or soon-to-be-famous people, including:
1222** In one season six episode, the Wright Brothers are interviewed (offscreen) three years prior to the Kitty Hawk flight.
1223** A young UsefulNotes/WinstonChurchill, who is still far from the politician and world leader he would become, is a murder suspect in another episode. However, Churchill was already a celebrity, and at the time newly famous for his actions in, and accounts of, [[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Boer_War the Boer War]].
1224** Amateur painter Brackenreid sells one of his landscapes to a young [[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom_Thomson Tom Thomson]] a decade or so before his rise to fame.
1225** In the ElectionDayEpisode, a young girl who is inspired by the suffragist movement's female candidate [[note]] who was able to run because her lawyer, another HistoricalDomainCharacter, was able to argue there was no law against a woman ''standing'', just voting[[/note]] turns out at the very end to be [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agnes_Macphail Agnes Macphail]], who did in fact become one of Ontario's first two female [=MPPs=] and later Canada's first female MP.
1226** One season three episode features a young Creator/HarryHoudini still making a name for himself. In the same episode, Ruby Ogden is describing her journalistic work to Crabtree, mentions her interview with a firebrand named UsefulNotes/VladimirLenin, and warns the constable to "watch out for him".
1227** The season 8 episode "Keystone Konstables" features Higgins and Crabtree going undercover as vaudeville performers. They share a bill with a young Creator/WCFields, who bombs as a juggler before getting the idea to try DeadpanSnarker comedy.
1228** The season 5 premier "Murdoch of the Klondike" features a young Creator/JackLondon coming to Murdoch's aid in a bar fight when Murdoch is investigating a murder in the Yukon. Jack then serves as Murdoch's [[TheWatson Watson]] for the rest of the episode, and gives Murdoch back his badge when Murdoch's about to return to Toronto. Murdoch unwittingly returns the favor when he uses the phrase "the call of the wild", inspiring Jack to write the book of the same name.
1229** In "Unlucky in Love", the only decent writer in Crabtree's creative writing class is one [[Creator/LMMontgomery Lucy Maud Montgomery]].
1230** The episode "Master Lovecraft" features none other than a young Creator/HPLovecraft as the main suspect of the murder of young woman. His strange mannerisms and morbid obsessions leave a lasting impact on Crabtree and Mrs. Brackenreid. Naturally, we get glimpses of [[Franchise/CthulhuMythos his future works]] in the form of creepy drawings in his notebooks.
1231** "Murdoch Schmurdoch" features a young Al Jolson, still on the vaudeville circuit with his brother Harry.
1232** "Murdoch and the Tramp" features Creator/BusterKeaton as a kid, as well as young Creator/CharlieChaplin and [[Creator/LaurelAndHardy Stanley Laurel]] forming a comedic duo.
1233** In "Dash to Death", a young girl who is impressed by Julia's campaign to let women compete in the Olympics is [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myrtle_Cook Myrtle Cook]], who won the women's 100 metres in 1928.
1234** In "F.L.A.S.H.!", a young [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_H._Goddard Robert H. Goddard]], ''the'' original rocket scientist, appears as a member of James Pendrick's research team.
1235* YourOtherLeft:
1236** Murdoch calls this out to Constable Crabtree while plotting the bullet trajectory in "Big Murder on Campus".
1237** Murdoch says this to Crabtree when he is directing him as they attempt to reconstruct the position of the rifleman in "Dead End Street".
1238** In "The Filmed Adventures of Detective William Murdoch", the right-handed version of this gag appears at a movie theatre as Murdoch has Crabtree sit in the seat of the murder victim and turn his head as if reacting to the film. Crabtree even speaks abashedly of confusing his right and the detective's.
1239* YouWakeUpInARoom: "The Murdoch Trap" opens with Murdoch unconscious in what proves to be a cage. He comes to hearing the voice of Julia repeatedly saying, "I forgive you, William," and he sees a mannequin that looks like Julia in a black dress hanging by the neck outside his cage. There's also a phone with a placard that threatens death if used and a film projector with a similar placard that says, "Turn Me On".
1240[[/folder]]

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