Everything about Featured, eh?

Featured, Murdoch Mysteries

Preview: Detective Watts is a suspect on Murdoch Mysteries

8 Comments

We Murdoch Mysteries fans have got it pretty good. While many, many television series are cancelled after just weeks or months, we’ve gotten 12 seasons of William Murdoch and his adventures. Over that time we’ve fallen in love with the main characters. We’ve cheered for the good guys and jeered at the bad guys. It’s been a lot of fun seeing the lads and ladies inside and outside of Station House No. 4 in a variety of serious, deadly, hilarious and offbeat scenarios. And Monday’s standalone instalment was certainly offbeat.

I was appalled at the emails and comments on social media denouncing last week’s Halloween episode, “Sir. Sir? Sir!!” Everyone is allowed to have an opinion, but heading online to spew insults at those involved in the show is out of line. To all of those people who have, in the last week, threatened to stop watching: go ahead. I won’t miss you. And learn some manners.

To the cast, crew and writing staff of Murdoch Mysteries: bravo for challenging the status quo and creating interesting tales for these characters to run around in. I appreciate it, and millions of other viewers do too.

As for Monday’s new instalment, “Brother’s Keeper,” here’s what the CBC has said officially:

When Watts (Daniel Maslany) kills a man in self-defence and Murdoch (Yannick Bisson) uncovers the victim’s criminal past, questions surround Watts’ story.

And here is some additional info I gleaned from watching a preview of the episode, written by Paul Aitken and directed by Craig David Wallace.

Detective Watts in the bomb
He showed up in our lives slightly dishevelled and a little scatterbrained, but Watts has shambled his way into my heart. I’m so glad Daniel Maslany has gotten increased airtime on Murdoch because Watts brings a lot to the table. He’s a little off-kilter at times, but he’s as brilliant as William. On Monday, we’re treated to a completely different side of Watts, with Aitken’s script giving Maslany the opportunity to really show off his acting talent. (Speaking of different sides, check out Maslany’s other CBC program, Four in the Morning. It’s weird and wonderful.)

Miss Hart is put out
A cop killing someone is huge, so William asks Julia to oversee the morgue, leaving Miss Hart less than thrilled. Understandable, of course.

Higgins is still married…
And the Higgins-Newsomes are adjusting to life without the finer things. Higgins is suffering from a serious lack of sleep, which may explain what he does to Murdoch just 11 minutes into “Brothers Keeper.”

John Brackenreid returns
Fans have been asking, and Aitken comes through. Turns out John has a real nose for investigations.

Murdoch Mysteries airs Mondays at 8 p.m. on CBC.

Images courtesy of CBC.

Facebooktwitterredditlinkedinmail
Featured

Comments and queries for the week of November 2

2 Comments

I really enjoyed the episode [of Murdoch Mysteries] because I knew it was going to be a standalone episode. How is it that people can say, ‘I have been a big fan and I look forward to this show every week,’ and yet not pay any attention to the fact that the Halloween episode was advertised weeks in advance on this very page? One weird episode and you’re considering throwing in the towel? The episode was brilliantly bonkers and I enjoyed all 45 minutes! The writers and producers decide what the series is about, not the audience. I have noticed over the past few seasons that the episodes have mostly gotten lighter in tone (not necessarily in theme or content) than they were back in the first couple of seasons. I think that only makes it better when they go for a very dark episode because it throws a curveball at us. —Katia

I’ll just take it as the one-off. Please do not make any more episodes that have no ending, or give a warning that it is a special, standalone episode!! Grrr. —Hopefully Not Ex-Fan

This was a great episode! An homage, IMO, to the classic sci-fi thriller Invasion of the Body Snatchers and original book The Body Snatchers. It was hilarious and a little suspenseful—I love it when MM goes a bit out of character and plays it up. —MM

Always loved this show but this episode is not what the series is about. IT’S NOT STAR TREK. GET BACK TO WRITING WHAT MADE THIS SHOW GREAT … SOME REALITY. —Deborah

This was the stupidest episode. My husband said he may give up watching. I would much rather have an Xmas show. The one last year was horrible too though. —Liz

Murdoch Mysteries has lost its way. This episode was was just nonsense. Can we get back to basics and just star Murdoch and Station House 4 solving mysteries? —Harvey

I thought it was a great episode! It was fun and it was funny. It’s wonderful to see these actors who are normally very serious in the roles they play have fun playing a different role. I especially loved the special effects where the bug comes out of their mouths! Creepy! But fun! But, I am looking forward to things back to normal. Keep up the good work! —Joy

Got a question or comment about Canadian TV? Email greg.david@tv-eh.com or via Twitter @tv_eh.

Facebooktwitterredditlinkedinmail
Bletchley Circle: San Francisco, Featured

The Bletchley Circle: San Francisco: Writer Laura Good on the spin-off’s origin story and the Season 1 finale

When The Bletchley Circle was cancelled in 2014, millions of viewers were heartbroken. Not only did the series provide a fresh twist on the British mystery genre by focusing on four sleuthing women in the 1950s, but it also unearthed the fascinating history of female codebreakers during the Second World War. Its premature demise seemed like a wasted opportunity.

Writer Laura Good was one of the viewers disappointed by Bletchley‘s end. However, unlike most fans, she was in a position to do something about it. As then-script development manager for Omnifilm Entertainment, she saw a lot of untapped potential in the show’s concept and pitched the idea of a series spin-off set in North America. Her idea led to the creation of The Bletchley Circle: San Francisco, which will broadcast its Season 1 finale, “In for a Pound,” written by Good and showrunner Michael MacLennan, on Citytv Friday night at 8 p.m. ET.

To help prepare us for the big night, we asked Good—whose other credits include CBC’s Burden of Truth and the upcoming Citytv series The Murders—to tell us more about BC:SF‘s origin story and to give viewers a few hints about the “ambitious” finale.

First, can you explain a little bit about what a script development manager does for a production company?
Laura Good: It differs from company to company, but in my work with Omni it meant endlessly pitching series ideas to the development team, writing short pitch packages to hopefully woo a writer into taking over the project, reading books and scripts and recommending them to the team, and supporting writers and showrunners to develop pitches, bibles, and scripts all the way through funded development with broadcasters.

I was so excited to learn that The Bletchley Circle was getting a spin-off. What was it about the original show that made you want to resurrect it? 
LG: When I first saw The Bletchley Circle, it got me thinking: if thousands of women had played such a vital role in WWII and yet we’d never heard of them until the Official Secrets Act was lifted, is it possible that the same thing was happening over here as well—that women were cracking codes in the U.S. and Canada—and we just don’t know about it yet? I dug into the history of WWII codebreaking and found evidence that women had contributed to key codebreaking achievements during WWII, but their stories had been lost due to the secrecy of the war effort. At the time that we started developing the show, all that we knew of these stories were footnotes, whispers, and a small handful of notable codebreakers, but I thought, ‘Even if there were only three women breaking code during the war, that’s enough for a TV show.’ Eventually, more research would come out and I discovered that over 10,000 women were, in fact, part of the Signal Intelligence Service during in America during that time, and I have to admit, I felt pretty vindicated for my leap of faith.

From a producing standpoint, the spinoff made so much sense—taking a beloved show and transplanting it west of the Atlantic to bring a new side of the conflict to light that we really hadn’t explored yet on this side of the pond. I was intrigued by these stories and felt like the world should know about these women, whose work shaped Allied victory and, as a result, the Western world we all live in today.

When working on the treatment, did you always plan to transplant some original Bletchley characters to San Francisco? How did you decide on Millie (Rachael Stirling) and Jean (Julie Graham)?
LG: We always hoped to bring over some of the original characters in order to honour the roots of the show and the viewers who were already in love with the series. It was established in the first series that Millie travelled the world after the war, so the runway had already been paved for this kind of crossover. Millie and Jean had a deep friendship and history on screen, as do Rachael and Julie, so it felt like a natural progression for the story and the characters. At every juncture, we tried to really serve the story and make the most authentic decisions, building off of what had been established by [writers] Guy Burt and Jake Lushington in the first series.

The first table read, hearing Rachael and Julie reading their first lines—it felt like magic.

Was it at all difficult to sell World Productions, who made the original show, on reviving the series in a new location? 
Working with World Productions was a dream from the word go. I had prepared two versions of the show to pitch them on our first call, and I only got through the first pitch before they were sold. They sent over outlines they had developed for future episodes of the original series, and we married them into what became the series pitch document that helped sell the show. Jake has excellent instincts and had a significant hand in shaping the San Francisco series from beginning to end—and always with enthusiasm and style.

The characters in the spin-off are a bit more diverse in terms of race and sexual orientation. Was that a stated goal from the outset?
LG: This was something that the Omnifilm team decided early on that we wanted to bring to the story. We knew there were some important stories that needed to be featured in a North American perspective of WWII codebreaking. Black women were doing incredible work as mathematicians at the time, helping to turn the tide in the war, and leaving an indelible mark on science and computing.

We also found records of the incredibly complex situation that Nisei codebreakers found themselves in as the few remaining Japanese-Americans on the west coast, breaking code for the Americans, against the Japanese fleet, while their families were interned by the very country they were fighting for. It’s worth stopping here to really think about the significance of that experience for a moment. We felt that if we were painting a picture of the United States and Canada at the time, this story had to be included.

The queer element dovetails with some interesting history in codebreaking—there were few disqualifying factors for women in signal intelligence, but being outed as a lesbian was one of them.

I think everyone on the creative team was excited to get to add new stories and perspectives in the San Francisco series, but these are also very realistic, relevant representations of who was there, doing the work, at the time that American women were cracking codes in the west, and so I don’t know how you tell this story without these characters. It was a very organic process and a stated intention from the beginning.

Can you give readers a preview of what they can expect in the last episode? Last we saw, poor Jean had been abducted by the Soviets. Is everything going to get wrapped up or will there be threads left over for another season?
LG: Episode 8 sees the women coming together and using each of their skills in concert in a way that we haven’t seen before. It’s the most ambitious episode yet, and it’s hard to say much more without spoiling, but suffice to say lives will be forever altered, characters will change in ways that they can’t take back, and I think there’s room for new bonds to be made and even broken between characters in the future.

What about The Bletchley Circle: San Francisco makes you most proud?
LG: Two things. One is the way the cast and crew really put their hearts into the show. It was an ambitious and challenging project to bring to life, but over and over, I saw people really showing up in a big way for each other, and they were passionate about telling these stories. I had an incredible time working with people who were proud of their work, who loved what they were doing, and who put that love into the show.

The other thing that stands out for me was a moment while we were filming block three, [Episode 5, “Not Cricket,” and Episode 6, “Iron in War”]. I was sitting behind the monitor when a set dresser walked up to me and whispered, ‘Is Hailey my people?’ I looked at her and knew she was queer, and it made me immensely proud to say, ‘Yeah girl. She’s canon now.’ I feel that way about all the characters on the show. That’s the nature of The Bletchley Circle, that some people will be able to watch it and feel seen in a way that maybe doesn’t happen as often as they’d like. But here is a place they can.

The Bletchley Circle: San Francisco airs Fridays at 8 p.m. ET on Citytv.

Images courtesy of Omnifilm Entertainment.

Facebooktwitterredditlinkedinmail
Bad Blood, Featured

Bad Blood: Melanie Scrofano on Valentina, shooting emotional scenes, and Wynonna Earp

1 Comment

Melanie Scrofano says things are “relentlessly bad” for Valentina Cosoleto on Bad Blood this season, and based on the first three episodes, it’s hard to argue.

A momentary marital indiscretion put Val under the thumb of Detective Bullock (Lisa Berry), who is squeezing her for info on her husband Nats’ (Dylan Taylor) organized crime activities. To make matters worse, in the last episode, Declan (Kim Coates) kidnapped Val and Nats’ young son to get back at meddling mobster twins Teresa (Anna Hopkins) and Christian (Gianni Falcone) for abducting Reggie (Ryan McDonald), which unfurled a disastrous turn of events that landed Nats in prison.

While Val has her son back, “she still doesn’t feel safe,” explains Scrofano. She also says her character now feels the need to “right some wrongs.”

We caught up with Scrofano while she was filming a new project in Toronto to learn more about Valentina’s dilemma, how she unwinds after filming emotional scenes, and the possible “chaos” coming up in Wynonna Earp‘s fourth season.

You are an Italian-Canadian. Did it excite you to work on a project that tapped into that part of your background?
Melanie Scrofano: I think being Italian-Canadian is very different than being Italian-American, which is what we usually see on TV or in the movies. There’s a certain flavour to it. It’s something that I know very well, and it’s something that’s so familiar to so many people. So it was really cool to just lean into the way that I grew up. But also, you realize how eerie it is that all these people seem so normal. Like my husband in the show, our family is so normal. And it just makes you go, ‘Wow, what is going on in these families that you don’t even realize?’ 

I really feel for Valentina. She made one mistake and now she’s being squeezed by the police—and forced to have too many manicures—under threat of her secret being exposed. 
MS: I think when Valentina and Nats got together, part of her wanted to be like Teresa but without having to do all the work. She wanted to have the clothes and the lifestyle and all of that. And over the years, life was just sort of normal. I think for a minute, she was just—like a lot of people—you have a kid, and your marriage gets a bit stale, and I think she just wanted some excitement, so she had an affair. And that one mistake sort of turned her life around. I think by the time we’re in Episode 3, she’s realizing that maybe this isn’t the life that she wanted after all. I think it’s hitting home what the reality is, and it takes her aback.

Episode 3 was tough on both Val and Nats, with Declan kidnapping their son, Adamo. The scene where Val finds out her baby is gone was very raw and emotional. Was that hard to film?
MS: I was very nervous about that scene, and I said to Jeff [Renfroe], the director, and [showrunner] Michael [Konyves], ‘Is there any way we could shoot it so that it can feel messy and we can talk over each other’s lines and just make it more real and make the urgency more palpable?’ And they were like, ‘Yeah, we’ll have two cameras and we’ll shoot it and just make a mess of it.’ They were very generous with that, and I think that’s what helped Dylan and me get to some really honest places. There was nothing slowing us down. And I think because we both had kids, it’s just terrifying. The little boy had the same hair as my son. He was so similar to my real life boy, and they were actually the exact same age while we were shooting, they’re a week apart. So I think it just hit close to home.

It was a very intense, real-feeling scene.
MS: I did feel bad. The slap wasn’t scripted, and poor Dylan had no idea it was coming. I just watched it back today, and you can see where it’s red on his face. I felt terrible.

Last week’s episode ended with Nats accidentally shooting an innocent bystander and getting sent to prison. How will this impact Val in Episode 4 and beyond?
MS: I think Val has her baby back, but without Nats, she still doesn’t feel safe. So I think her priority is going to be to do whatever she can to get her husband safe. And she’s also, at this point, acting in self-preservation because the fact of the matter is that she’s not only cheated on her husband—which in any culture, but certainly in the Italian culture, is frowned upon—but in addition to that, she’s been talking to the cops. So there’s just going to be a lot of trying to right some wrongs for Val.

What did you find most challenging about playing Val?
MS: It was just relentlessly bad for her. There was no levity. So every time I came to set, I had to go to some dark places. You know, she’s either angry or crying or terrified. This is the worst time of her life, and there’s nothing about it that’s light. So I think it was just coming to set every day and trying to honour what she’s going through without being exhausted by it myself. Because it’s hard. You shoot those things and you get really emotional and, afterwards, the world just moves on, but you still felt all those things and you really need a hug and nobody is there. So you have to sort of take care of yourself. But on the other hand, the hard part is, what if I can’t get there emotionally? So you’re always stressed. You’re either stressed because you’re scared you won’t be able to deliver, or you’re stressed because you did deliver and it hurt.

Do you have a go-to way to decompress after a difficult day of filming?
MS: It sounds so stupid, but I need to be hugged. I come home and I feel like such a drama queen, but [I say to my husband], ‘Jeff, I need you to hug me for as long as possible.’ It’s just that human connection. I think it’s the feeling of being so vulnerable. You just need to have somebody to heal that wound for you with a good, old-fashioned hug.

You’ve been in three very different but very Canadian hits the last few years: Bad Blood, Letterkenny and, of course, Wynonna Earp. Does it mean a lot to you to be getting so many great roles in Canada?
MS: Yes, but here’s the thing: All these shows—well Bad Blood has mostly aired in Canada at the moment, but I suspect it will be viewed elsewhere as well—are known and respected all over the world. So I think we’ve really found our own the last few years in Canada with our programming. And I think finally people are starting to—instead of saying, ‘Oh, it’s so Canadian,’ as if that’s a bad thing—they are searching out Canadian shows. In Australia, I remember doing a panel, and people were naming all these Canadian shows that they loved, and I was on the other side of the world. So it means a lot to me, of course, to be a part of these amazing shows, but it means even more to me that people all over the world are starting to understand that what we make here is special.

Speaking of Wynonna Earp, Season 3 ended with some huge changes for Wynonna, most notably, that she broke the curse. Can you say anything about what that will mean for her in Season 4?
MS: I will say that when we read the script when Wynonna breaks the curse—and the whole premise of the show is to break the curse—we were all just shocked. How do we move forward from this?  I think what I look forward to in Season 4 is going, ‘How is Emily going to dig herself out of this one?’ I mean, what kind of person solves the problem to their show before Season 3 is even over? And what kind of chaos will that lead to in Season 4? I have no doubt that it’s going to be incredible.

Any idea when you’ll begin shooting Season 4?
MS: There’s a rumour about January, but that’s just a rumour.

Oh, Calgary in January. Bless you. 
MS: Oh, I know. That’s such a pain, but I’ve learned to love it.

Bad Blood airs Thursdays at 8 p.m. ET/PT on Citytv.

Images courtesy of Rogers Media.

Facebooktwitterredditlinkedinmail
Featured, Murdoch Mysteries

Murdoch Mysteries: Props master Craig Grant gets buggy over “Sir. Sir? Sir!!”

20 Comments

Spoiler alert: Do not continue reading until you have watched the latest Murdoch Mysteries episode, entitled “Sir. Sir? Sir!!”

I can’t believe it’s been four years since Murdoch Mysteries’ props master Craig Grant and I last spoke. I just proves that old saying about time and fun. I contend Grant has one of the best jobs in the business, acquiring and building the props you set on every set of Murdoch Mysteries. And, in the case of this week’s Halloween-themed adventure, some otherworldly items. Read on for our chat on the inspiration behind the alien pod design and other tidbits of information.

Has your job changed much in the last few years? I do want to ask you more specifically about 3-D printers, but overall has the job kind of stayed the same? You’re able to come up with these awesome creations on a constant time crunch and under a budget?
Craig Grant: In some ways, our timeline has shrunk a little. We have a little bit less time to shoot an episode now. So, therefore everything’s crunched just a little bit. But otherwise, I think it’s about the same. It’s certainly easier now than it was 15 years ago or 12 years ago when we started because there’s a lot more information available, which is both a good thing and a bad thing. We put something out on the screen or on the story and within 30 seconds people are Googling it and, ‘Oh, this is wrong. No, that didn’t happen then.’ A good example of that was this past episode, somebody posted on Facebook about the triple entente. It didn’t happen until 1907.

Our showrunner responded almost immediately saying, ‘We didn’t say this. They actually ended the episode by saying, oh that’ll get signed sometime in the future.’ But how many people really had heard of that and knew that? Most people would’ve Googled it after the fact and found that we were sort of on track.

I spoke to production designer Bob Sher and he talked about coming into the show and making some changes visually and going a little bit lighter. How has Bob’s involvement in the show impacted on you? And how are things different now for you?
CG: It’s different in that Bob comes from a construction background. Bob has worked the floor. He knows what world well on camera. And what works well for a crew. It’s one thing to design a nice looking set and then walk in there with a crew and realize you can’t film it because there’s not enough room for the camera or just some weird thing right there that blocks the view. Bob has a good sense of space. And having come from a construction background, he can also flip our studio scene really well.

And for those people who don’t know, Studio C is kind of our swing stage at our studio where one week it’ll be the star room. The next week it’s the lobby at the Windsor Hotel. The next week it’s a barn and we always are forever changing. And Bob has really made it a point this season—especially of changing that as much as possible—so that you’re not going ‘Oh, that’s the hallway, but they’ve hung a different picture on the wall.’

How has technology impacted on your job? With the 3-D printing specifically, you’re doing more and more of that, aren’t you?
CG: It’s made it easier to prototype things. Years ago if I wanted to build something like Murdoch’s taser, you would’ve had to either farm it out of the building for certain parts of that, or you would’ve simplified it. With the 3-D printing, or the CMC machine, which I’ve used a lot more this season, you can make 12 different variations fairly quickly and see which one looks better and works better.

Let’s get into this Monday’s episode. The prop that you had to make for the alien cocoon, what was the inspiration for that?
CG: In the script, it called for a cocoon. And the first thought I had was the alien pod in Alien. But at the same time, we didn’t want to look like we were ripping off the alien pod from Alien. So I said, ‘We’ll go a little more hard, more like a meteorite type thing with some sharp edges.’ And then, with the technology these days of LED lighting, I was able to mount lights inside them that I can control with my phone and make them pulse, make them change colour. So there was that scene in the basement in the cavern when we had I think nine or 10 of these pods hanging from the ceiling. Each one of those was individually controlled to slightly change color and pulse in and out to give it a bit of life.

The actual design of them was by accident. I wanted to use a fruit called a jackfruit. And I made one, but it was going to be, it was too small. And Craig [David Wallace], our director said, ‘Oh we need something quite a bit bigger.’ So I had bought all this molding material and I ended up just throwing some crap on a balloon and it worked. And the stuff I used was actually this shell for when you make a mold. When you make a mold the inner part is like a latex that you pour your resin inside. But the latex was soft, so you have to cover it with a plaster or in this case a plastic substance. I ended up using the outer membrane, the outer plastic substance to make those cocoons.

And anybody who’s been to the office since we shot the episode, they’re all hanging in the prop room lit up. So I live with those every day.

I also wanted to ask you about Murdoch’s dart gun watch. The fans really like that. Was that something that you made from scratch? Or did you manipulate an existing watch? 
CG: That was actually one of the simplest props ever because I just took a pocket watch, drilled a little tiny hole in the bottom and shoved a brass tube in it. The actual firing and all of that was completely CGI. So that was actually the simplest thing of the episode to make, that particular episode.

What was the most difficult thing then for that episode?
CG: Probably the cigarette case with the knife in it, only because we wanted it to come in and out. But because of the size of the cigarette case, the blade couldn’t be very long. So we actually had multiple blades depending on what the scene called for if it was sliding in and out it was the short blade. If it was the scene where we held it up to the guy’s neck, we actually put the longer blade in so it looked more menacing. And that was actually 100-and-some-year-old cigarette case that we modified for that action.

When it goes from episode to episode or season to season, are you always trying to one up yourself from season to season as you go along?
CG: I would like to think so. Because if I don’t, it would be kind of boring. There’s a reason I stay with this show because I do get to build things like those gadgets. The Roomba, which is still one of my favourite gadgets of this season. It is really a remote-controlled device that we can drive around the studio. And it will be making another appearance this season.

And coming up, there’s an episode that Pete has alluded to where we invent television. And I had a lot of fun building the items for that. Just because we did the research and we tried to get them as close as Murdochly possible to what a real thing would have been.

You’ve already mentioned the fans. You’re very active on social media, you like to share images of the props that you’ve made for particular episodes. Why do you like engaging with the fans so much? 
CG: Maybe it’s just sheer egotism, but I like to show how we did things. I like to show how I built this stuff. So to me, that’s kind of interesting. I really enjoy Adam Savage and some of his one-day builds and how he goes and tries to figure out how people build things or whatever. So if I can give back a little bit of that to the fans, I would like to … I have pitched a couple of times that we should get a little camera and put it in the prop room when I’m building some of these gadgets and do time lapses or whatever.

We’ve never done it, but I think some of that would be interesting. People seem to be very interested in the behind the scenes and I think props have kind of gotten a little bit more notoriety in the past few years and stuff as people who grew up on Star Wars and things like that have gone back to that and want to collect the items. So I think that’s become a thing. And for some reason, people want to listen to what I have to say or see the pictures. So as long as they want to see them, I’ll keep throwing them out there. There’ll be some fun ones of this episode ‘Sir. Sir? Sir!!’ because the bugs are an interesting part of the episode.

What happened with the bugs is we read the script, we went, ‘OK, we need some bugs.’ So I went to the store and bought basically every toy bug I could find. We brought them back, cut them all up, ended up with a praying mantis with all these other bits and pieces and turned them into what we ended up with.

We sent pictures of that to our prosthetics department who normally just do our dead bodies and stuff and said, ‘OK, we want this bug. Can you guys make us some?’ So they hand-sculpted one, sent us back pictures. We said, ‘Change this, change that. OK great, we love it.’ So we had five or six, I think it was, practical prop bugs on our set. So when Daniel was picking the bug up and looking at it, he was actually holding a real bug in his hand.

They then erased and CGI’d the moving one on his hand. And when they were crawling all over the tree we put a couple on the tree, and our computer geniuses then got rid of those and made them run all over the place. So we had real ones in each situation or prop ones for the actors to interact with, to look at, just so that they had a size of scale and a size of what they were looking at.

And if you look carefully in the episode, in the cavern and in other places around, we were placing our prop bugs in the shots in the background. I don’t know if you’ll ever be able to see them, but some of the times when the guys were carrying the leafy plants around—which was basil by the way—we had bugs hiding in those plants. We had bugs hiding on the water cooler and places in between station. It was just another way that if people are really eagle eyes, they might see them just kind of lurking about.

It’s so great to be able to plant those little Easter eggs for the eagle-eyed fans because you know they’re out there.
CG: Yeah. And I like doing that too. I’m always happy when they get to reintroduce something from past seasons. Later this year there’s a moment where we open the armory and take some guns out. And Murdoch’s taser is dressed into the gun cabinet just as a throwback.

Murdoch Mysteries airs Mondays at 8 p.m. on CBC.

Images courtesy of CBC.

Facebooktwitterredditlinkedinmail