Rating summary

Movie		4.5
Video		4.5
Audio		4.0
Extras		3.0
Overall		4.5

Murdoch Mysteries: Season 7 Blu-ray Movie Review

Will They or Won't They?

Reviewed by Michael Reuben October 20, 2014

When Canada's TV station CBC picked up Murdoch Mysteries after its fifth-season cancellation on CityTV, the public broadcaster was taking a calculated risk. In its original home, Murdoch's unique combination of police procedural and historical drama had only been moderately popular. As the numbers rolled in on Murdoch's sixth season, however, it became clear that CBC's gamble had paid off. Murdoch's near-death and miraculous resurrection had been great publicity; long-time fans grew even more loyal, and new ones tuned in after discovering the show on DVD, Blu-ray and streaming sources like Amazon Prime. In the U.K., the show quickly became one of the most popular offerings on Alibi, the digital channel of co-producer UKTV.

Faced with such a devoted audience, Murdoch's producers did the sensible thing and expanded Season 7 to eighteen episodes (compared to the previous standard season length of thirteen), which were broadcast in two blocks of nine, with a month's hiatus between them. The additional slots gave the show's writers more opportunities to explore different regions of Canada, to delve further into the country's history for story ideas and, above all, to develop their continuing storylines with an intricacy that would not have been possible without the extended running time. Chief among these stories, of course, is the emotionally fraught love affair between Det. William Murdoch (Yannick Bisson) and Dr. Julia Ogden (Hélène Joy), whose history gives new meaning to Shakespeare's line that the course of true love never did run smooth.

Warning: The discussion of Season 7 below assumes that the reader has seen all previous seasons and contains spoilers for those who haven't. Proceed past the first screenshot at your own risk. Newcomers should stop here and consult the Season 1 review for a spoiler-free introduction to the world of Murdoch Mysteries.

Murdoch's arch-enemy, James Gillies (Michael Seater), casts his dark shadow over the whole of Season 7. The detective's personal Moriarty, as the self-dramatizing villain calls himself, Gillies first appeared in Season 2 (Episode 7, "Big Murderer on Campus") as a university student who devised an ingenious method for killing a professor. After faking his own death, he returned in Season 5 (Episode 11, "Murdoch in Toyland") to commit a string of murders, leaving a talking doll at each crime scene with a message for the detective who had captured him. The final victim was supposed to be Dr. Ogden, a death that Murdoch narrowly averted.

In Season 6, Gillies murdered Dr. Ogden's estranged husband, Darcy, from whom she was seeking a divorce, leaving an ironclad chain of evidence framing the doctor (Episode 12, "Crime and Punishment"). Gillies then captured Murdoch and gave him a choice: let Julia hang for the crime, or call police headquarters to come get the real killer—at the price of Murdoch's own life. Murdoch outwitted his adversary once again, saving Julia from the hangman at the last minute and putting Gillies behind bars, awaiting execution. But the happiness with which Julia and Murdoch had entered the new century was shattered. Overwhelmed by guilt that her husband had been casually dispatched because of her involvement with Murdoch, Julia pulled away from the man she loved.

Season 7 finds the lovers tentatively rebuilding the connection that means so much to both of them. The season opens with a dramatic encounter aboard the SS Keewatin, a massive ship making her native voyage on Victoria Day 1901 from Toronto to Rochester, New York (Episode 1, "Murdoch Ahoy"). Between the disappearance of the owner's daughter and a bomb threat that turns out to be all too real, Murdoch and Dr. Ogden have both crimes to investigate and enough peril to bring their feelings for each other rushing to the surface. As they gradually reunite, their hopes rest on the closure they expect to receive with the execution of Gillies, but the criminal mastermind once again arranges a surprise in Episode 9, "Midnight Train to Kingston". (To say more would be to spoil the fun for first-time viewers.)

Also complicating the reunion of Murdoch and Julia is the appearance in Toronto of her late husband's younger brother, Leslie Garland (Giacomo Gianniotti). Handsome, charming, cultured and well-mannered, Leslie says that he wants nothing more than to explore a new city, to which end he moves into Darcy's former house for an indefinite stay. Neither Murdoch nor Julia knows what to make of the younger Garland, who seems harmless enough but whose presence seems more than coincidental. For Constable George Crabtree (Jonny Harris), Leslie Garland becomes a hated rival, when he sets his sights on the local coroner, Dr. Emily Grace (Georgina Reilly), whom Crabtree has been courting ever since she appeared in Season 5. Even worse, Dr. Grace appears to return Garland's interest, a sore point for the working class constable, who has always secretly suspected that Emily was too good for him.

Despite these romantic and emotional complications, there's still police work to be done, a point of which Station 4's Inspector Brackenreid (Thomas Craig) routinely reminds his staff. Season 7 features the return of several recurring characters from past episodes. Eccentric inventor James Pendrick (Peter Stebbings) reappears with dreams of making Toronto the movie capital of the world by adding sound to motion pictures (Episode 3, "The Filmed Adventures of William Murdoch"). David Kingsley (Andrew Gower), the traumatized young man who has withdrawn into an alternate identity as Sherlock Holmes, now has an office in Toronto and even a clientele of sorts (Episode 4, "The Return of Sherlock Holmes"). Competing spies Terrence Meyers of Canada (Peter Keleghan) and Allen Clegg of America (Matthew Bennett) turn up in Toronto looking for anarchist sympathizers after the assassination of President William McKinley in Buffalo on September 14, 1901; as always, neither of them can be trusted (Episode 15, "The Spy Who Came Up to the Cold").

Murdoch's writers continue to find inventive ways to weave real historical figures and events into their tales. In the episode involving McKinley's assassination, Lisa Norton reprises her role as Emma Goldman, who was suspected of influencing the assassin (a connection that was tenuous at best). Thomas Edison (David Storch) appears in Episode 3 threatening to sue James Pendrick for patent infringement of his motion picture process. Industrialist and philanthropist Andrew Carnegie (Philip Craig) must deny any connection between himself and a con artist claiming to be his illegitmate daughter in Episode 13, "The Murdoch Sting", which is loosely based on fact. In the aftermath of China's Boxer Rebellion, Station 4 is asked by representatives of the Chinese government to hunt down fugitive rebels hiding in Toronto, but Constable Crabtree begins to doubt the information provided to the constabulary (Episode 16, "Kung Fu Crabtree").

The show's writers also continue to draw plots from contemporary popular culture, of which perhaps the most ingenious example involves a bachelorette party attended by Drs. Ogden and Grace at an isolated cabin in the woods on a remote island. Legend tells of a boy who once lived there and slaughtered his whole family, which seems like a ghost story until, one by one, the party attendees are found brutally murdered. The episode is entitled, appropriately, "Friday the 13th, 1901".

Season 7 ends on a cliffhanger. Murdoch's creative team already knew that another season had been ordered, which let them safely fade to black on cries of panic. Rest assured that all will be revealed when Murdoch Mysteries returns for Season 8.

Murdoch Mysteries: Season 7 Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Although definitive information was not available, Season 6 of Murdoch Mysteries was shot with the Arri Alexa, and there is no reason to believe that Season 7 was photographed differently. (The cinematographers were Murdoch regular Jim Jeffrey, with four episodes covered by Yuri Yakubiw.) Acorn Media has spread the eighteen episodes of Season 7 over five 1080p, AVC-encoded BD-50s, and the image on those discs maintains the high standards set by Acorn's previous offerings of Murdoch. Detail is abundant, blacks are solid, colors are either rich and saturated or lightly delicate and pastel, as required, 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. As revealed in the extras included with this set, Murdoch is making ever greater use of digital effects to enhance the period settings, and the quality of that work continues to improve. I don't want to give away any specific scenes, but the establishing shots of turn-of-the-century Toronto, complete with digital people, have progressed from the early seasons to the point where they are almost photo-realistic, which helps support the illusion that the show's events are playing out in a bygone era.

Murdoch Mysteries: Season 7 Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

As with Season 6, Acorn has provided Murdoch's stereo track in lossless DTS-HD MA 2.0, thereby ensuring that we get every whisper, distant murmur, outburst and echo in Station 4 and wherever Murdoch's investigations happen to take him. Some environments offer ample opportunities for the sound designers to create interesting effects, e.g., the deck and interiors of the SS Keewatin in Episode 1, the isolated cabin in the woods in Episode 14 or the crowded beach on Lake Ontario where Captain Brackenreid spots what appears to be a sea monster in the distant waters (Episode 7, "Loch Ness Murdoch"). Several episodes involve explosions, and one involves earthquake-like tremors that reach into much lower sonic registers than one usually encounters in Murdoch Mysteries. Overall, the sound mixes provide an enjoyable and effective support to the stories, and Robert Carli has lost none of his skill at crafting suitable scores for each episode. (The composer discusses his approach in one of the "Making Murdoch" featurettes included with this set.)

Murdoch Mysteries: Season 7 Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

At last! After seven seasons, production company Shaftesbury has finally provided fans with some truly satisfying extras for Murdoch Mysteries. Each episode of Season 7 is accompanied by an entry (and sometimes two) in the series called "Making Murdoch". Each entry is tailored to the particulars of an episode and may include interviews with the episode's writer, director, producer, one or more actors or possibly the curator of a historical site used as a location. Behind-the-scenes and on-location footage is common. There isn't a single entry in "Making Murdoch" that doesn't provide valuable insight into an episode's origin or historical context. A full listing is provided below, with times and disc numbers:

• Making Murdoch (1080p; 1.78:1)


• Disc 1
• Murdoch Ahoy: Aboard the SS Keewatin (6:02)
• Murdoch Ahoy: All Wet (4:07)
• Tour de Murdoch (4:45)
• The Filmed Adventures of William Murdoch (5:20)
• The Return of Sherlock (4:01)


• Disc 2
• Murdoch of the Living Dead (5:58)
• Murdochophobia (5:12)
• Loch Ness Murdoch (5:33)
• Republic of Murdoch (6:01)


• Disc 3
• Midnight Train to Kingston (5:17)
• Murdoch in Ragtime (6:26)
• Journey to the Centre of Toronto (6:02)
• Unfinished Business (5:33)


• Disc 4
• The Murdoch Sting (6:47)
• Friday the 13th, 1901: Murdoch Goes Curling (3:53)
• Friday the 13th, 1901: Cabin in the Woods (4:06)
• The Spy Who Came Up to the Cold (5:58)


• Disc 5
• Kung Fu Crabtree (5:35)
• Blast of Silence (5:11)
• The Death of [name omitted; even when you find out, it's misleading] (4:32)
• The Music of Murdoch (5:28)



• Photo Gallery (disc 5) (1080p; various; 1:20): A slide show of stills covering the entire season.


• Additional Trailers: At startup, disc 1 plays trailers for Acorn Media, Vexed and Republic of Doyle, which can be skipped with the chapter forward button and are not otherwise available once the disc loads. Discs 2-5 have no additional trailers.

Murdoch Mysteries: Season 7 Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Murdoch Mysteries continues to be a distinctively Canadian show, and perhaps nothing in Season 7 better illustrates the series' roots than Episode 8, "Republic of Murdoch", where an investigation leads to Newfoundland, home of both Constable Crabtree and the actor who portrays him. The criminal investigation itself becomes almost secondary to the opportunity to explore Crabtree's roots (which turn out to be quite unusual) and the chance to meet a local scaliwag named Jacob Doyle, who in a bit of stunt casting, is played by Alan Hawco, star of the popular Canadian TV series Republic of Doyle, where he plays a Newfoundland private investigator named . . . Jake Doyle. According to Hawco, the two characters are related. Once again, Murdoch foreshadows Canada's present. Highly recommended.