Here’s our ratings for season 9 of the Canadian early-twentieth-century detective series Murdoch Mysteries:
- “Nolo Contendere” – 6.5
- “Marked Twain” – 4
- “Double Life” – 4
- “Barenaked Ladies” – 5
- “24 Hours ’til Doomsday” – 8.5
- “The Local Option” – 6
- “Summer of ’75” – 4
- “Pipe Dreamzzz” – 6
- “Raised on Robbery” – 8
- “The Big Chill” – 6
- “A Case of the Yips” – 4
- “Unlucky in Love” – 6.5
- “Colour Blinded” – 8
- “Wild Child” – 4
- “House of Industry” – 4.5
- “Bl**dy H*ll” – 7.5
- “From Buffalo with Love” – 4
- “Cometh the Archer” – 0
The average rating for this season is 5.4, which puts this season right about the middle with some seasons averaging higher and some lower.
There’s some cast shakeups and character development under way. Dr. Grace departs the series and her place as Dr. Ogden’s science sister is taken by Miss James, the first main character of color. We miss Dr. Grace, who was a favorite, but it’s nice to see the series continue to improve on acknowledging the diversity of turn-of-the-century Toronto. Constable Crabtree and Inspector Brackenried both get some good character development this season, as Crabtree’s romantic adventures drag him into some odd and dangerous places (“Nolo Contendere,” “From Buffalo with Love”) and Brackenried gets mixed up in a political scandal (“Bl**dy H*ll”).
Most of this season’s episodes rate in the 4-6 range, which is okay but not great. The season average is brought up, though, by a handful of better episodes, while only one really bad one drags it down. The bottom of the barrel comes at the end of the season with “Cometh the Archer,” a peculiar and tedious episode bringing back master criminal Eva Green and turning her into an unstable Murdoch fangirl. It’s a strange episode which seems to exist for little reason other than showing Dr. Ogden on a leather-clad, bow-wielding rampage of revenge—which is not a bad goal in itself, but it deserves a better treatment than this episode gives it.
Our highest-rated episode of the season, at 8.5, is “24 Hours ’til Doomsday,” a rollicking adventure with a steampunk edge about an ambitious experiment in rocketry. This episode brings back favorite returning characters James Pendrick and Terrence Myers, and ends with Myers taking an unexpected ride into the upper atmosphere. Two more episodes come in at 8, “Raised on Robbery,” a bank heist story which makes for a nice change of pace from the usual murders, and “Colour Blinded,” which gives Miss James some development and explores some of the complexities of race relations in early twentieth-century Canada.
Feel free to share your own favorites from season 9!
Image: Pendrick showing Murdoch his wingsuit design, from “24 Hours ’til Doomsday,” Murdoch Mysteries via IMDb
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