Rating summary

Movie		4.5
Video		4.5
Audio		4.0
Extras		0.0
Overall		4.0

Murdoch Mysteries: Season 6 Blu-ray Movie Review

20th Century Murdoch

Reviewed by Michael Reuben December 7, 2013

As Canada's signature drama cum police procedural boldly strides into the brave new world of the second millennium's final century, the show remains as popular as ever. Now comfortably ensconced in its new home at CBC, the Canadian public broadcast station, Murdoch's success is such that the seventh season is already airing in Canada, in two parts and with its span increased from thirteen to eighteen episodes. Acorn Media has had a prolific year with Murdoch. Its release of Season 6 marks the third set it has issued in 2013, following its release of Season 5 and a "catchup" release of Season 2. Acorn also issued a box set of Seasons 1 through 4.

Long-time fans need no background on the series, its premise or its characters. Newcomers would be well advised to skip this review and consult the Season 1 review for a spoiler-free introduction. Murdoch's episodes are generally self-contained, but the series offers larger plot arcs that evolve from season to season. The discussion of Season 6 below assumes that the reader has seen the previous seasons and contains spoilers for those who haven't. Proceed past the first screenshot at your own risk.

Season 5 came to a joyful conclusion on New Year's Eve 1899, as Det. William Murdoch (Yannick Bisson) and his beloved Dr. Julia Ogden (Hélène Joy) finally, after five frustrating seasons, looked into each others' eyes and mutually declared their determination to love each other despite all obstacles. As Season 6 opens, Dr. Ogden has just returned from Europe, where she expanded her medical skills into the realm of psychoanalysis by studying with Sigmund Freud. As Murdoch's cases bring him into contact with traumatized victims, murder witnesses suffering from dementia, an apparently random or "sequential" killer with no apparent motive and other psychological curiosities, the detective will find numerous occasions to call on Julia's newly enhanced understanding of the human psyche's mysteries.

But Julia's main project in Season 6 is obtaining a divorce from Darcy Garland (Jonathan Watton), the physician she impulsively married when she thought she and Murdoch had no future. Under the archaic divorce laws of the era, a woman wishing to divorce her husband must jump through ridiculous hoops, even if the husband consents—and Darcy is wavering. The twists and turns of this treacherous plot snake through the season, and it reaches a disturbing and not entirely final result in the double episode that concludes Season 6 (episode 12, "Crime & Punishment"; episode 13, "The Murdoch Trap").

A secondary, contrasting plot is the budding romance between Murdoch's trusty constable, George Crabtree (Jonny Harris), and the increasingly confident young coroner who replaced Julia, Dr. Emily Grace (Georgina Reilly). Many of the season's lighter notes are supplied by this pair, especially when Murdoch eyes them with a disapproving glance. Murdoch of all people should appreciate the attraction that an accomplished and educated woman offers, but it's almost as if he envies the young lovers their innocence. Besides, anything that distracts the coroner from the priority he expects her to devote to his investigations irks Murdoch beyond words.

All of the familiar elements of Murdoch Mysteries remain, and the writers have lost none of their capacity for the inventive use of history and technology. Episode 1, "Murdoch Air", brings back a former Murdoch adversary, James Pendrick (Peter Stebbings). A contest to build the first flying machine has been announced, and Pendrick may actually have accomplished the goal, but as so often seems to be the case with Pendrick's projects, there are nefarious forces at work, and a murder has been committed. The episode leaves the Wright Brothers with their credit intact, but it presents an interesting alternative to the official history.

The most important historical figure who appears in Season 6 is a young Winston Churchill (Thomas Howes), who is suspected of murder after awakening in a hotel room after a night of carousing with an old friend (episode 2, "Winston's Lost Night"). The friend has been murdered, and Churchill cannot recall what happened. Murdoch exonerates the future leader of England, and his boss, Inspector Brackenreid (Thomas Craig), is sufficiently impressed with the young author to speculate that he'll go far in the world. Another celebrated author, Arthur Conan Doyle (Geraint Wyn Davies), returns in episode 4, "A Study in Sherlock", to help Murdoch sort out a case involving a man who insists that he really is Sherlock Holmes. When Conan Doyle tells the man, "I invented you", he accuses the author of having plagiarized Dr. Watson's journals. Then he explains to Conan Doyle how he faked his own death in The Final Problem. ("Actually, that's not bad", says Conan Doyle, struck by the possibilities.) In episode 2, "Murdoch on the Corner", the detective is confronted with a series of unrelated victims killed by the same method and deduces that he is dealing with that most modern of criminals, a serial killer (though he doesn't call it that).

Murdoch's inventions continue to play a crucial role in solving cases. In Season 6, he invents a metal detector (or, as he calls it, an "induction balancing machine"); a camera that takes time-lapse photography (which Constable Crabtree and Dr. Grace "borrow" in an effort to prove the existence of the supernatural in episode 7, "The Ghost of Queen's Park"); and, of all things, a resin that can lift images off the surface of paper and objects. It has a putty-like texture, and Inspector Brackenreid wants to take it home for his boys to play with, because it is just the kind of "silliness" they'd like. But Murdoch insists it's not a toy.

Murdoch Mysteries: Season 6 Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

According to IMDb, Season 6 of Murdoch Mysteries was shot with the Arri Alexa, which is fast becoming the preferred camera for television production in England and Canada. The cinematographer for most episodes was Murdoch regular Jim Jeffrey. The image on Acorn Media's set of three 1080p, AVC-encoded Blu-rays is easily a match, and in some respects superior, to the excellent quality of Season 5. Detail is abundant, blacks are solid, colors are rich and saturated (check out the greens of the forests just outside Toronto, the rich red of a soldier's uniform or the delicate hues of Dr. Ogden's wardrobe), and contrast levels have been appropriately set so that action in darkness or shadow remains visible but detail isn't blown out in fully illuminated settings.

Production company Shaftesbury has prepared new digital renderings of Toronto street scenes and skylines at the turn of the century, and they are a vast improvement over what they replaced. Although not yet up to big-budget feature film standards, they more effectively convey a sense of life and activity in a city that still retained vestiges of a frontier town as it strove to modernize itself. These enhancements are a welcome addition to the visual texture of Murdoch Mysteries.

Murdoch Mysteries: Season 6 Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Having stuck with lossy audio for all but Season 3 of Murdoch (which was its first release on Blu-ray), Acorn Media has included Season 6 in what now appears to be its Blu-ray standard of lossless DTS-HD MA, offered here in 2.0. As in previous seasons, Murdoch's sound design emphasizes dialogue, although there are a few "big" scenes (e.g., those involving Pendrick's "Arrow" in episode 1) and occasional gunfire (more often for Murdoch's test-firing of a weapon in one experiment or another). Scene transitions still use the sound of a light bulb (or is it a popping flash?). Robert Carli's theme and underscoring have lost none of their charm.

Murdoch Mysteries: Season 6 Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

This is the first set of Murdoch Mysteries from Acorn Media to contain no extras of any kind. At startup, disc 1 plays the usual trailer for Acorn Media, plus trailers for Jack Taylor and Line of Duty, all of which can be skipped with the chapter forward button. But that's it.

Murdoch Mysteries: Season 6 Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

It is disappointing not to have the the web series called Murdoch Mysteries: The Curse of the Lost Pharaohs as an extra on Season 6. This mixture of live action and animation dramatized the sci-fi novel that Constable Crabtree wrote and published during the course of Season 5. Shaftesbury is supposed to be creating a web series documenting the making of Season 7. Let us hope that it is included when Season 7 appears on Blu-ray, hopefully sometime next year. In the meantime, Murdoch Mysteries remains one of the wittiest, most inventive and stylish shows being broadcast today. Even without extras, the Blu-rays of Season 6 are highly recommended.