Chapter 20 - Murdoch Mysteries

Murdoch Mysteries is a Canadian crime drama currently in it's 9th season. Based on a series of novels written by Maureen Jennings it follows the adventures of late 19th Century (early 20th Century in later seasons) Toronto Detective William Murdoch (played by Yannick Bisson). 

While most of the crimes Murdoch solves involve ordinary criminals, several of his cases have involved teaming up with notable personalities of the era, including: Nikola Tesla, Arthur Conan Doyle, H.G. Wells, Emma Goldman, Jack London, Alexander Graham Bell, Prince Alfred of Edinburgh and, of course, a host of Canadian personalities. He has saved the life of Queen Victoria and captured Jack The Ripper. The show doesn't take itself too seriously with some Steampunk elements creeping into the show, including death rays and killer German robots but it is well written and it's fun to see all the historical characters mix it up with Bisson's Murdoch who is a likable and charismatic lead.  

I have to admit I haven't seen the show since the end of series 5 (The end of the 19th Century) so I can't comment on how well it covers the Edwardian period but for the early seasons are an easy recommendation for fans of Victorian Detectives.  

Buy Murdoch Mysteries Box sets:

Amazon US  | Amazon UK

Chapter 18: The Ghost of a Murderer

Last week the new British crime drama River staring Stellan Skarsgård started on BBC One. The main character, D.I. River, solves crimes while being haunted by ghosts (real or imagined) of his dead partner, victims of the crimes he is solving and a villain who died because of him. I enjoyed the first episode for the acting and the Scandinavian style mood but I wasn't as sold on the story as much. I'm still looking forward to the rest of the series though.]

Along with the modern ghosts that haunt him, River is also visited by the manifestation of Victorian murderer Dr Thomas Neill Cream, otherwise known the Lambeth Poisoner (Played by Eddie Marsan, recently seen in the Napoleonic set, Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell), whom he is reading a book about in the show. 

Marsen as Cream in the show (photo from The Guardian)

The real life Cream, a Canadian, is known to have killed five people  in both England and the United States. In 1881 he was imprisoned by the United States authorities for the murder of Daniel Stott in Chicago and released in 1891. He then moved to England where he killed four women before being captured and hanged for his crimes the following year. 

The Real Dr Cream (Photo from Wikipedia)

While I was not familiar with Cream's name initially, while looking over articles in preparation of this blog I did realize I had come across him before in this panel from From Hell by Alan Moore and Eddie Campbell:

From Hell

Despite this confession Cream could have not possibly been the Ripper as he was a. not in the country when the Whitechapel killings took place and b. was in prison anyway. 

More information on Cream:
Wikipedia
casebook.org
New York Daily News article

River continues on BBC One Tuesdays 9:00pm BST/GMT (First epsiode on iplayer for UK residents)

Buy From Hell

Amazon US | Amazon UK

Chapter 14: Quoth the Raven

On October 7th 1849, the American master of the macabre, Edgar Allan Poe died. As with many people of my generation I first encountered Poe not in books but through the medium of television. Yes, today I'm spotlighting The Simpsons version of The Raven from the 1990 episode Treehouse of Horror.

The wonderful thing about this version is while it retains much of the horror of the original poem it adds a commentary on the changing face of horror with Bart's comments. What terrified people in the 1840s, isn't as scary in the 1990s. I also adore James Earl Jones as the narrator and Dan Castellaneta's over the top performance as the terrified Homer. 

Buy The Simpsons Season 2

Amazon US | Amazon UK

Chapter 8 - "To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield"

In 2012 the BBC put out an wonderful advert for their BBC 2 television station containing a Cento composed by Alison Chisolm and narrated by Peter Capaldi. In this poetic mash up she used lines from Victorian area poets: Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Arthur O’Shaughnessy, Walter Savage Landor and Alfred, Lord Tennyson (Along with John Keats, Percy Bysshe Shelley, James Elroy Flecker and Chisoln herself)

If you are wondering who wrote what, this blog should help. ;)

But the final line "To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield". from Tennyson's 'Ulysses' was having quite the year in 2012. Not only was it memorably used in Skyfall but it was also the motto of the 2012 London Olympics.   

Photo from the Guardian

Chapter 5: 1864

Yesterday I looked at one under-represented aspect of the 19th Century in English speaking nations: Japanese history and today I will look at another; The Second Schleswig War.

Earlier this year the 2014 Danish drama 1864 was screened on BBC 4. As a big fan of Scandinavian film and television I was really excited. After all it was set in the Victorian period and stared many of my favourite Danish actors (PilouAsbæk, Nicolas Bro, Søren Malling and Sidse Babett Knudsen in particular). I was not disappointed. Beautifully writen and acted it has some wonderful highs and some brutal lows (the Prussian storming of Dybbøl is extremely difficult to watch).

I knew very little about the war coming into watching the series, but it made me want to look into it more. The reasons behind the war are complex. As British Prime Minister Lord Palmerston (played by James Fox here) put it:  “Only three people have ever really understood the Schleswig-Holstein business—the Prince Consort, who is dead—a German professor, who has gone mad—and I, who have forgotten all about it.". The ending of the war would have a huge impact on 19th and 20th century history, however. The Prussian victory gave Otto von Bismarck (Rainer Bock in the series) the confidence to declare war on the Austrian Empire two years later, the resulting defeat of Austria giving Prussia total infulence over the German Confederation. Then of course a the same confidence resulted in a German victory over France in 1871 bringing about the unification of the country and leading, in part, to the Great War of 1914-18. The Schleswig War may be mostly forgotten but it did have an impact.

The series is, however, mostly shown from the Danish POV and doesn’t hold back from showing the horrors the vastly outnumbered and unprepared army went through. Alongside this we see the insanity of the politicians in Copenhagen, who believing they could win the war refused to withdraw from Dybbøl and ensured the bloodbath when the Prussians finally stormed the fortifications (Bro’s performance as the Danish Prime minister Monrad is a highlight of the series). Amid the horrors of war there are stories of love, jealously and personal tragedy. For us literature geeks, Hans Christian Andersen makes a cameo in a couple of episodes. I cannot recommend this series enough. 

1864: Amazon US | Amazon UK

Chapter 3: The Doctor & The Queen

Doctor Who returned to our screens last night so this is a nice opportunity to talk about some of the long running show’s trips to the Victorian Period. 

I was born in 1982 and grew up with the final few years of the classic series. While I remember some of the Colin Baker years I really became a fan when Sylvester McCoy took over in 1987 (and he remains my Doctor). One of the stories that stuck with me for the rest of my life was the 1883 based Ghost Light (1989) writen by Marc Platt.

It is an incredibllly complex tale of fear and evolutiuon set in a gothic house under the control of an alien intelligence. The performances are excellent and the sets and costumes are beautiful by the standards of the 1980s. I would say this is one of the stories that people who only know the post 2005 series should check out. 

This was not the Doctor's first trip to the period. Patrick Troughton battled the Victorian inventers of a time machine who had teamed up with his deadliest foes in 1967s (now sadly missing) The Evil of the Daleks. Tom Baker doned Sherlock Holmes' Dearstalker and faced another time traveling threat on the streets of post Jack the Ripper London in 1977's The Talons of Weng-Chiang. An excellent story that introducted the characters of Jago & Litefoot who would go on to have an equeally excellent series of audio plays from Big Finish.

And, of course, the Doctor has met some of the more prominent figers of the age. 

In 1985's Timelash, Colin Baker's version of the Time Lord met a young H.G. Wells (played by David Chandler) taking him into the future and inspiring the writing of The Time Machine.

Picture from the Tardis Data Core

When the series was rebooted in 2005, Christopher Eccleston hunted ghosts with the ade of Charles Dickens (played by the wounderful Simon Callow) in the Mark Gatiss (One of my favourite Writers of Who) penned The Unquiet Dead.

A year later, the then showrunner, Russell T Davies had David Tennent meet Queen Victoria (Pauline Collins) in the Warewolf themed Tooth and Claw, a title that is, of course, taken from Tennyson's 1850 poem In Memoriam A.H.H.

Both Matt Smith and the current Doctor, Peter Capaldi, would later go on to have more adventures set in the period with the absolutely wonderful Paternoster Gang. I may return to Doctor Who in the future to fully cover some of these adventures. 

But I hope the tradtion of Victoriana in the series continues because there are many intresting events that the Time Lord could visit and people he could meet.

Ghost Light - Amazon US | Amazon UK
The Evil of the Daleks (Audio) - Amazon US | Amazon UK
The Talons of Weng-Chiang - Amazon US | Amazon UK
Timelash - Amazon US | Amazon UK
Doctor Who Series 1 (2005) - Amazon US | Amazon UK
Doctor Who Series 2 (2006) - Amazon US | Amazon UK