Sunday, July 28, 2013

"Murdoch Mysteries" repackaged as "The Artful Detective" on Ovation

The Artful Detective/Murdoch Mysteries
Based on the Detective Murdoch novels by Maureen Jennings
(Saturdays on Ovation)

     While flipping channels last night, I stumbled upon a Canadian TV series titled The Artful Detective on Ovation. It's set in turn-of-the-century Toronto and features some of the inventiveness of other series (the short-lived QED and The Adventures of Brisco County Jr. for two) in that it foreshadows future inventions and real historical persons.
     I was intrigued that I'd never heard of the show (my cable TV remote said it was from 2008), so I looked it up first on IMDB, then Wikipedia, and found nothing. Ovation's home page revealed no further information either, so I did a Google search.
     I discovered it was originally titled Murdoch Mysteries, and that it was based on (or maybe inspired by) a series of seven novels by Maureen Jennings. Before the series, three TV films based on three of Jennings' novels were broadcast (with a different cast and perhaps less use of historical persons and playful inventions), and those are available on DVD.
     The series is still being produced in Canada (season 7 is scheduled to begin, in Canada anyway, on Sept. 30).
     I don't know why the title was changed (maybe -- since new episodes are still being filmed -- to avoid confusion, as they used to do when syndicated reruns of Bonanza were re-titled Ponderosa), but to spare anyone else from the same puzzlement I experienced, I thought I'd mention it.

1 Comments:

Blogger Unknown said...

If you never found your answer... Its because Ovation being an "art" centered station, wanted the series to reflect that.. So in an agreement with the production company they agreed to rename it in the USA to "The Artful Detective"....Which is just silly. IT will ALWAYS be Murdoch Mysteries to me and Ive been watching it on DVD and/or the Internet since 2011.

I do find funny that the show attempts to take credit for everything that has ever been invented, said, created or thought up and attribute it to Canada, and they enjoy villainizing the USA but its a very entertaining, clean show that you cant help but enjoy.

May 17, 2016 at 2:15 AM 

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