Murdoch Mysteries: The crime show that has it all

Murdoch Mysteries provides audiences with a spectatorial opportunity to experience crime, corpses and forensic science within a historical setting. Murdoch Mysteries originally began as a book series written by Maureen Jennings spanning 1997–2017. In 2004 the first three books debuted as television movies, and their immediate popularity resulted in the production of a serialized television show in 2008 and is now in its nineteenth season in 2026. While both the books and television forays offer insight into early policing practices, social structures and concepts of deviance, morality and crime, the television series adapts a ‘modern’ approach to hook viewers. For example, Murdoch Mysteries draws on the two ‘stars’ of popular culture – corpses and forensic science – as well as a wide-range of intertextual references to immerse viewers into a fictional historical criminal justice setting. Unlike other crime dramas, Murdoch Mysteries asks audiences to reflect on the power imbalances embedded within the legal, social and political structures present in the late nineteenth, and early twentieth centuries British colonial society and encourages viewers to reflect on whether these imbalances are still evident. This paper explores the Murdoch Mysteries universe to critically explore how crime, criminals, deviance and law enforcement are being portrayed, and thus potentially impacting people’s understandings of these terms.