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Featured, Murdoch Mysteries

Murdoch Mysteries: Simon McNabb breaks down “Murdoch and the Tramp”

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[Spoiler alert! Do not continue reading until you have watched “Murdoch and The Tramp.”]

Like a Christmas present arriving late out of the blue, this season of Murdoch Mysteries launched several months later than usual. It has definitely been worth the wait. Monday’s storyline melded several of my favourite pieces of the Murdoch Mysteries puzzle—Murdoch’s technology, historical figures and classic Crabtree humour—to provide a rollicking hour of entertainment. In my inaugural Season 14 chat, I spoke to Simon McNabb, the episode’s writer and Murdoch co-executive producer, about it.

How did COVID-19 affect your life and being able to work on a TV show?
Simon McNabb: It affected the writers in a couple of ways. The most immediate one was just, of course, on March 13th or whatever it was, we disbanded the writer’s room and didn’t see each other face to face for many months after that. It was kind of right in the middle of us breaking the arc for the season and coming up with the first batch of episodes, so we were able to sort of go off and write at that point, but then normally we would come back together and continue to talk about what the next episodes would be and give notes on those first episodes.

Like everybody else in the world, we just started doing everything over Zoom, which was nice in terms of being able to roll out of bed, straight into the writer’s room. But it was also challenging in that it’s a very different dynamic to be talking over video conference as opposed to being in person, in part because we’re not there in person, but also because it’s hard to sit on a video conference for, like, eight hours a day. We would generally do a short meeting where we got everything out—which takes away that opportunity to sit around and put your feet up over lunch and just say something that’s totally out of left field that might add a little creativity to the proceedings—but I think, ultimately, we found a good way of working bringing some of that creativity into the process anyway. It was pretty unusual, but it turned out pretty well.

Maybe the positive is that you are such a veteran writers’ room that, that may be unlike maybe a newer show, you can kind of roll with the punches a little bit better than others can.
SM: Absolutely. I think we were pretty uniquely suited to roll with whatever was thrown at us. And I also think there is an upside to only having a short meeting a day and then having some time as a writer to just sort of think on your own and reflect. It slows the pace down a little bit. But it means that when you do meet again, say the next day for a couple of hours, everybody has more ideas and is a little more refreshed and had something they really are burning to say.

Do you remember if it was you that came up with the idea of having Charlie Chaplin, Buster Keaton and Stan Laurel involved in this episode, or was it a collaborative effort?
SM: Well, it’s always collaborative. I think in terms of somebody saying the words Charlie Chaplin, I believe it was me back in March when we were still sitting around a communal table. But at the same time, I also know that some years ago—probably multiple times over the years when we’ve been sitting around brainstorming ideas and what historical figures we might want to see—Charlie Chaplin has come up before. And then we check the historical record and find out that he was only 11 years old at that time or something and we decided to move on. So it had been a couple of years, I think, since anyone had mentioned it.

I just Googled him and found out that in 1908 I believe was the year that he first got on a boat and left the UK to tour with Fred Karno’s vaudeville troupe. As soon as we sort of got that historical green light—that it was vaguely possible within our fictional world, that he could’ve come to North America—then we ran with it and discovered the truth that Stan Laurel had been his understudy and discovered that Buster Keaton was already touring with his family around North America. And we decided, if we were going to do one of them, we might as well do all of them there to do vaudeville in a new way with some of the biggest historical figures we’ve ever had on the show in terms of fame and profile.

I had no idea about Stan Laurel being Charlie’s understudy.
SM: Yeah, I had never come across that either, but it was true that he was Chaplain’s understudy while they were with Fred Karnos’ company. And I think he was quoted many times in his career as saying that Charlie was just this unbelievable talent who taught him an enormous amount.

You must love it when you’re able to hint that Crabtree invented The Tramp character and provide a wink to the audience.
SM: For sure, and the winking to the audience, and the winking to the historical record and what we now know to be true today, is a huge amount of fun of the premise of this show. It was something that was set up long before I started working on that and it’s such a stroke of genius. I don’t know who exactly came up with sort of that attitude to look back at history in that way through these characters on Murdoch Mysteries, but it’s something that the audience delights in. We see great comments on Facebook and Twitter every time we get a chance to really properly profile a great historical figure. Hopefully people will be pleased with the fun we’d had in this episode.

What is Yannick Bisson like as a director?
SM: Yannick is a fantastic director. I’ve worked with him before. He directed an episode last year about George Crabtree’s father that I wrote, and we collaborated on that episode last year and I got to watch him up close and personal. He comes at it from his enormous experience as an actor and, as a result, is really perceptive in terms of character and in terms of working with not only the main cast but guest actors. He has a real instinct for visual gags, for telling the stories through the set, the location and the great sets that our art department has been making the last couple of years. I remember one of the Christmas movies, him just making a great deal of incredible humour out of something that on the page, there’s only a couple of direction lines. And I think, as a director and an actor, he managed to sort of embrace the spirit of this episode in a big way.

Let’s use the chase scene in this episode as an example: how much of that would have been in the script?
SM: The chase scene was definitely the biggest set-piece in that episode. One of the biggest ones we’ve ever done maybe in terms of just the number of moving parts, the number of characters and the number of what do you want to call them stunts or gags that we wanted to incorporate, and it really paid off. There is Crabtree’s influence on The Tramp, but there’s also a Buster Keaton gag in there. I would say it was very specifically scripted, however, the realities on the day are always different than what’s in the minds of the writers who we’re sitting in the writer’s room.

That was the sequence went through a lot of labour and prep from all the departments that were changed repeatedly due to both constraints in terms of the time and budget. I remember, specifically, new ideas coming up in prep about how to make it funnier and more specific to the characters. I know that Yannick had a couple of ideas during prep of how to pay off gags better and make things a little more lively in that sequence. I know on the day there were things on set that were just like, well, it’s not going to quite work the way we wanted it to in this very specific way. So let’s change it and do it this way instead and, luckily, the result was pretty great.

With this shorter season, how many episodes are you credited with writing?
SM: This year I wrote two episodes. I wrote the Charlie Chaplin episode and another forthcoming episode that features some members of the Newsome family and the writer’s room as a whole collaborated on the last two episodes of the season. So I had a small hand in working on those scripts as well.

How many seasons have you been with Murdoch Mysteries?
SM: Eight seasons.

Wow. Do you ever look back and think about that, or no?
SM: It’s shocking every time I stop to think about it. I feel like it’s a very unusual career trajectory to happen onto a show that’s already well-established and then rise from being script assistant and story coordinator to a relatively senior writer and co-executive producer over the course of eight seasons. It’s crazy and it’s not something I ever, ever expected when I started working on Murdoch Mysteries. I thought, ‘Well, yeah, this show will probably go another season maybe,’ and here we are eight years later. And hopefully, there’ll be more.

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

Images courtesy of CBC.

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Featured, Hudson & Rex

Hudson & Rex: John Reardon and Mayko Nguyen discuss Season 3

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The third season of Hudson & Rex returns on Tuesday with an episode new and veteran fans will love. Entitled “The Hunt,” the instalment serves as the show’s origin story, revealing how Charlie (John Reardon) and Rex (Diesel vom Burgimwald) became partners. Charlie recalls the story to Sarah (Mayko Nguyen) and we view the emotional adventure through flashbacks.

It’s a powerful episode of television, and the perfect kickoff to Season 3. We spoke to stars John Reardon and Mayko Nguyen about the evolution of Hudson & Rex, and what fans can expect this season.

How did COVID-19 affect production on Season 3?
Mayko Nguyen: I’m not going to lie, coming out of strict isolation and then being out in the world which you could be out here at that time and then being on set, being around people, it was a bit jarring for sure. But I felt confident in the measures that we were taking. We’ve shot outside a lot more this year. You know, the adjustment of wearing the masks. It’s funny. It’s just like anything else, it takes a bit, and sometimes you have people who are like, ‘Ugh,’ but then it’s like, you’re just wearing a mask. It’s not a big deal. And then you get used to it. Like now I feel weird when I don’t have the mask on. I feel like I’m missing something. So, I think it’s, again, it’s just like any transition, you just get used to it and I think we’re all happy to be there and happy to do it for the sake of getting to work.

John Reardon: I feel very fortunate that we’re able to be working right now. We’ve been working since July, I think one of the first productions in North America to come back. It’s something that we don’t take for granted because the situation in so many places is very tough for people right now. So, it’s pretty special to have people wanting to see the show and being able to keep it going. I’m definitely excited to get it on the air.

The first episode of this third season really, really well done. It was enjoyable to get the true origin story of how Charlie and Rex became partners, even if it was a tragedy that brought them together.
MN: We had a screening for the cast of that one episode. I think we do really well with this show because there’s a lot of heart, and I feel like that’s unavoidable when you have a dog who is working to help people, that’s just unavoidable, but that episode in particular … oh man, it’s just gut-wrenching. And you see how Rex and Charlie develop the start of that relationship and that also is … oh, it’s such a good episode and I was really excited when I read it for the first time because it is a departure from the standard structure of our show and it’s a special episode and I’m really glad because of course, of course, we want to know how Charlie and Rex started out, right?

JR: I remember reading that episode for the first time about a month before we went to camera and just thinking how much I felt the audience would enjoy it because they’re going to see the sneak peek of how Rex and Charlie meet and how everybody interacted before Rex was there and then sort of see where that relationship starts. I’m really happy with how it turned out and I think everybody is and so I hope people really respond to it well.

Watching the first episode, I feel like the show has confidence going into Season 3. Do you feel that?
JR: Yeah, I do. I definitely feel like I learn more about Charlie every year and I think what’s great is when we have an episode like this and we also have a few other episodes later in the season that has sort of personal stakes or alludes to our characters’ history. I think when we add that stuff in, it helps build the character even more. Things that we might not have known as the actor comes to light and then that adds an extra layer to them. In our very first episode, ‘The Hunt,’ we allude a little bit to how Charlie and Rex met, but when you infuse it with all the heart from that episode and all the scenes that we shot and you create that history, then that I feel that lives on in the future episodes as well. I think it just adds to the DNA of the show.

There are 10 directors during this season of Hudson & Rex. One of them is Tracey Deer. She’s an amazing person and director. What was it like working with her?
JR: I hadn’t worked with her before, but she’s fabulous and I really enjoyed working with her. She’s a very intelligent, very thoughtful director, and puts a lot of thought into how really small things can make a huge difference in the tone of the story. She looks at it not just at the macrocosm, but also the microcosm of everything and that’s great because it just gives you more and more stuff to play with. She’s a lovely person and I really, really enjoyed working with her. She’s very talented.

Mayko, what can you say about Sarah’s journey this season?
MN: There’s stuff going on in Sarah’s life for sure. I think that that first episode is an example of it, sort of cementing this friendship with Charlie and the rest of the team. But, you know, in that first episode, Charlie lets her in on this very special, private thing that he does, this annual thing that she gets to be part of that, and I think I feel very honoured to get be, to have that shared with me. I feel like every season we’re deepening that friendship and deepening those relationships, I feel and maybe this is what you’re picking up on, but the team does feel that much more cohesive this year and I don’t know how to articulate why or what that is, but it feels much more tight-knit and we’ve got some episodes for sure where we’re working even harder as a team to figure out some of these cases.

Hudson and Rex airs Tuesdays at 8 p.m. ET on Citytv.

Images courtesy of Shaftesbury.

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Featured, Frankie Drake Mysteries

Frankie Drake Mysteries: Rebecca Liddiard previews Season 4 and joining the writer’s room

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The arrival of Season 4 of Frankie Drake Mysteries brings changes. When viewers tune in this Monday at 9 p.m. on CBC, they’ll notice a couple of things. As the show advances further into the 1920s the wardrobe and hair sported by Frankie (Lauren Lee Smith), Trudy (Chantel Riley), Mary (Rebecca Liddiard) and Flo (Sharron Matthews) are changing to reflect that. So, too, are the characters themselves, with professional advancement for Flo and personal for Trudy, Frankie and Mary.

Changes were afoot behind the scenes on Frankie too, something I learned while speaking to Rebecca Liddiard. She joined the Frankie Drake Mysteries writer’s room in Season 4, which she and I discussed, along with upcoming storylines and the upcoming animated series Mary and Flo: On the Go!

How did COVID-19 affect the filming of Frankie Drake?
Rebecca Liddiard: I actually found, overall, it didn’t really change very much. I’m sure there was a lot more going on behind the scenes, but from our perspective, yeah, we had to wear masks, we had to check in and have our temperature checked every day. There’s a lot more hand sanitizer, but other than that, you know, it seems to me like business as usual. Every once in a while there was a moment of panic. You know, there’s a lot of people in a room or, you know, there’s a lot of, it seems like things are getting relaxed, there are people without masks on, but for the most part, everyone is trying to keep each other safe, no one wanted to get sick. So once we get settled into that, you know, we’re off to the races.

Do you know whether any storylines changed as a result of the pandemic and you filmed outdoors more often than in the studio?
RL:  I do, because I was also a part of the writing team here. I co-wrote an episode with [showrunner] Peter Mitchell, actually.

So I was privy to a few of the changes that were made. It was pretty basic things, like the number of people in the scene had to be reduced. The thinking was, if there were four people in this scene, then there can be three people. If there are three people, then there can be two people. There was a lot more dialogue between two people and the scenes got extended. We also had more recurring characters this year, which seems a bit strange. But when you think about it, it just meant that we could put these actors on hold and ask them not to do other jobs and they were coming in regularly. So we just kind of expanded that core group of people that we had trust with.

Was being part of the writing team on Frankie Drake a result of Mary and Flo: On the Go? Did Mary and Flo: On the Go come first and then the episode?
RL: I had an idea for an episode last season and I spent a couple of weeks coming up with a treatment. I went to Pete and I said, ‘I’ve got an idea, what do I do?’ He said, ‘Give me your idea.’ So I did, and they kind of sat on it for a while. That would have been like August, September, and then during this time, Mary and Flo started developing. So right when we started the writer’s room on Mary and Flo, which was early March, I had just found out that indeed I was going to be joining the writing team on Frankie. Within a week I suddenly found myself being a writer.

Has writing been something that you wanted to do and that you’ve been doing while you’ve been acting?
RL: I’ve always been a writer. Honestly, I never thought it would be something that I would do professionally. If anything I have this kind of dream of maybe getting into directing someday and I never really thought about writing. And then I had this idea for Frankie and it turned out to have some legs and everyone was really excited about it. It was like, ‘Oh, I think I can do this. I know how mysteries work. Surprise, surprise. I’ve only been doing it for four years now.’ It was a good surprise for me. I mean, it was difficult. It was a very steep learning curve, but Pete Mitchell was my co-writer and he was a great mentor and he made it pretty easy. He was very supportive and let me do my thing and solve my own problems. When I got really stuck, he jumped in and got me unstuck. It’s kind of opened up this door that I didn’t realize it was there.

Let’s get into Mary and Flo. You and Sharron co-created this. It is nine episodes of seven minutes each. Is that right?
RL: Yes.

Was it the result of the two of you just kicking around ideas while you were at craft services or just in between takes?
RL: Pretty much just what you described. I mean, on Frankie, Mary and Flo have a habit of going off and doing kind of these sort of side ventures that supplement the story, and which Sharron and I love, and over the years we’ve kind of increasingly made meals at these adventures that will go on and we just thought, ‘You know, we’re kind of joking around, but it would make a really fun cartoon. Like what if these adventures were like proper adventures?’ There’s a third co-creator named Carmen Albano. He was our prop master. He worked on props on Frankie and he came up with the first session of the first images of Mary and Flo.

We finally sat down around this time last year and we’re like, ‘Let’s talk about this what could this be?’ Carmen has created a couple of really successful children’s shows. Sharron and I had all these ideas and Carmen was the one who really helped focus them and helped give us that structure. The three of us made a really, really great team.

What can people expect when they tune in to watch Mary and Flo: On the go?
RL: Each episode, Mary and Flo go on an adventure and in Season 1, we kept it all to Canada. That doesn’t mean they can’t go to other places, we just found lots to do in Canada for this season, and they meet a historical figure. Sometimes it’s a historical figure who’s well-known—for example, we meet Lucy Maud Montgomery in one episode—and sometimes it’s historical figures that are lesser-known, but we would argue equally as important or as influential or exciting to Canadian history and they help this person solve a mystery or solve a problem. Our show is history, mystery, ancestry. So there’s a historical element. There’s always a mystery and there’s always an aspect of helping someone out of a jam and helping them go on their way to be whoever they are going to be.

Can you give me a peek into the Frankie episode you wrote?
RL: I really wanted to write an episode about Martha Graham because I have always been a Martha Graham fan and I just think as a personality, she’s very Frankie. She’s exactly the kind of woman that would fit into this world. I was reading her autobiography and she talks about having to work and perform as a dancer even when you’re really, really sick and how it’s such a difficult life. I just came up with this idea regarding the Spanish flu. So I was like, ‘That would be like a high stakes, super dramatic plot point.’ It was already in the works in the fall, so when everything happened in March …. hopefully it’s not too on the nose. I mean it is impossible to escape, but you know, hopefully, we did a nice job of kind of combining this very topical element but with some more, and deeper rooted, human aspects of the characters in Frankie and the dance world and everything else. Hopefully, it’s not too blunt.

What can you say about Mary’s journey over this fourth season?
RL: I really loved Mary’s story this season. I mean, she’s always so much fun, she is just continuing on her journey of growing up and becoming the woman that she is going to become. Not that Mary is childish in any way, but I think when we first met her in Season 1, she’s sort of naive. She thought she knew what she wanted and she thought she knew what was right and wrong. And over the last three seasons, we’ve seen that change and you seeing her worldview grow and that just continued this season. And I think a few things happened in the season that I don’t think Mary would have been able to handle in Season 1. As an actor, I’m proud of her that she’s doing these things.

Frankie Drake Mysteries airs Mondays at 9 p.m. on CBC.

Images courtesy of CBC.

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Featured, Murdoch Mysteries

Murdoch Mysteries: Yannick Bisson talks Season 14 plus Audible and VR projects

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It really doesn’t feel like I’m covering a season of Murdoch Mysteries until I’ve spoken to star, executive producer and director Yannick Bisson. Our chats go back to Season 1 when the show debuted on Citytv. Yannick is a busy guy and I always appreciate our discussions and his insight.

With Season 14’s return coming this Monday at 8 p.m. on CBC—with “Murdoch and the Tramp”—we got on the phone to talk about this season, directing, upcoming Murdoch projects and, of course, how COVID-19 has affected television production.

Congratulations on Season 14 of Murdoch Mysteries. I watched the first episode and, wow, what a great kickoff to the season.
Yannick Bisson: Thank you so much. That means a lot because I had the good fortune of directing that one, so I am that much more invested.

Let’s talk about the elephant in the room. How badly has COVID-19 affected production on Murdoch?
YB:  Well, there were a couple of different phases. At first, it was prep and we weren’t sure how things were going to go. We were fortunate to be advised by somebody very high up in the Ontario government who advises policy; that was our point person. We had great protocols in place. Our temperatures were being taken every day we arrived and then we were kept in pods. We kept the entire crew separated into, I believe, five or six different pods to help alleviate any sort of cross should anything happen. And, you know what, for the entirety of the shoot, nothing did happen. We had, I believe, one positive test came up and it turned out to the false positive. The young man went through a second round of testing and it turned out to be fine and then he was able to come back to work.

For me, it was my first time [directing] two episodes. For filming, we [wore] masks, would take off the mask and then, right at the last second the performers who were on camera would take off their masks and then anybody who is seen within any sort of proximity to them—which was already very much limited—would have to have a secondary shield measure in place, which was for their own protection. That went well for a certain amount of time. And then, when we started getting closer to fall … we started to get testing going and we decided, OK, we’ll test the daily actors. We’ll test the main cast weekly and then finally everybody just said, ‘You know what, let’s just test everybody weekly.’ And we carried on to the end and it was fine. It was totally fine. Fears were alleviated.

I don’t think this season suffered as for what’s going to end up on screen. I really don’t think you’re going to be able to tell. As a matter of fact, I think some of the stuff we shot this year—I know I say this to you every year—but I think this year, pound for pound, is going to be the best year we’ve ever done. The writing was incredible. We had the same amount of writers writing for a more concentrated amount of running time. I was really eating my words. I was like, ‘How can we possibly keep going? This is nuts.’ And every new episode this season, I was like, ‘Wow, OK.’ And then we have the ending of the season, which is, we’ve got sort of two cliffhanger episodes that are just going to blow people’s minds.

It’s a bit of a bombshell. We get introduced to a character from Murdoch’s past that I don’t think anybody saw coming. And it’s going to impact the entire cast for good. It’s quite a big deal. And, at the same time, it’s also very exciting and it’s a big new sort of layer to Murdoch and certainly to his relationship with Ogden and everyone else in the cast. It’s going to be very interesting how we move forward from this. I’m really intrigued because it leaves some things open as well that I still don’t know either so pretty exciting.

We learn on Monday that William’s not a fan of vaudeville. What about you? Are you a fan of Charlie Chaplin and the old silent films and Buster Keaton and that kind of stuff?
YB: Oh, absolutely. And, as a matter of fact, I felt so privileged to be able to take on that episode and sort of pepper in some bits of that. We had some limitations because there were some proximity issues and then different things that we can’t do. And then there’s inevitably some limitations within you know budget-wise we can’t do these massive CGI setups that a lot of shows are doing nowadays. I’ve been watching The Queen’s Gambit and man, there are computer graphic installations that they did to impart the 60s, which is mind-blowing.

When you were directing this season, did you have to use certain camera angles that made people seem closer together or for proximity issues or because of the bubble?
YB:  I did have to use some trickery to compress larger crowds when it got into our core sort of cast it was a little less of a big deal. It is less of a constraint because we’re part of one bubble, one group. But yeah, when we had big days we had to really stretch the amount of background and the scenery had to be suppressed. A lot of things had to be compressed in order to make it seem as though there were a lot more people than there were, and also to see some apart.

Is there someone that you’ve looked to as a director for inspiration or someone that you really admire as a director?
YB:  Oh man, there are so many. I wouldn’t know where to begin. I love a lot of older movies where I can kind of see the innovation, whereas nowadays it’s a little more difficult to figure out where the trickery is because it is computers. But you know, to be able to break it down, watching things that still stand up like Casablanca and a lot of Hitchcock films, figuring out how they were able to really transport the viewer with a lot less tech, and again, the guys at the beginning of all of this, Buster Keaton and Charlie Chaplin making it look like they were on top of a big building just with optical illusion. I’m a big fan of that when it comes to directing and sort of stretching the eye with less technology and with more lighting and more sort of staples and then, you absolutely have to blend it with some computers a little bit or optically you blend it a little bit.

Let’s chat about the Audible project, The Secret Diaries of Detective Murdoch. What can fans expect from it?
YB:  The cool thing about it is it is all-new content. It’s all-new stuff. Now, somebody who is an Audible fan or a mystery fan, it stands up on its own because it’s all-new sort of musings and thoughts, feelings. And some of it was quite emotional. Some of it got cut pretty deep, and some of it, I had a bit of a tough time getting my head around. Some of these groupings and musings are about a certain character and then we go and we explore some of the past episodes. There are some sound clips, there are some thoughts, there are all different things that accompany each of the segments. For existing fans, it’s another layer or another level of entertainment of stuff that they can go and sort of expand some of their already known knowledge about the storylines and the characters and so on, but just to get another layer on it. And for somebody who’s not watched the show, they’re probably going to be intrigued, but the Audible segments do stand up on their own as well.

The cool thing about Audible was we were very fortunate to actually be one of the linchpins for Audible coming into Canada as a whole. This is a very new thing and this is really a whole lot of stuff that’s going to be available, but we’re, you know, the head of sort of being a Canadian content created, produced, written, and so on for Audible.

What about the AR project?
YB: This is something that we’re doing in tandem with Metastage, which is a technology and a physical way of filming and capturing assets that are very unique and haven’t been done yet. It’s an immersive experience for the Murdoch fan, and again, it’s something that can stand on its own or just be an added sort of layer for people that just love the Murdoch world. You are going to go into that world with me and you are going to have to be the detective and you’re going to have to prove your mettle.

I was recording this stuff and I’m like, ‘I hope I never have to play. I’m going to be embarrassed.’ I have to speak to all the probable outcomes of every episode since I had to record multiple versions of how things would play out. And I was like, ‘Oh my god, this is going to be hard.’ It’s going to be tough. People are going to have to literally, you know, buck up here and see what they’re missing.

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

Images courtesy of CBC.

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