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Spoilers Houdini and Doyle

Christopher

Christopher

Writer
Admiral
This is a fun idea, a show based in the real-life friendship and rivalry of supernatural believer Arthur Conan Doyle and skeptic Harry Houdini -- basically casting them as an Edwardian Mulder & Scully. Fortunately so far it seems to be coming down more on Houdini's side of the issue, which I like, although it seems they're being deliberately cagey about it, so maybe there's a bit of a fantasy element.

The pilot did a good job of laying out the characters and their motivations and relationships, although maybe it was a bit unsubtle about it at times. Although it was kind of funny how they just happened to fall into a deathtrap tailor-made for Houdini's skills -- and then Houdini didn't succeed in freeing them. Stephen Mangan is pretty good as Doyle (the second detective I've seen him play, since he was the lead in the Dirk Gently series a couple of years ago), though I'm not entirely sold on House's Michael Weston as Houdini. I like Rebecca Liddiard as Constable Stratton, a female PC determined to prove herself in a man's world. She's utterly gorgeous and rather fun and lively, and I wonder if she's related to Jenna Coleman, given how similar they look and sound.
 
Oh, I forgot to mention -- the one thing I really disliked was the music -- not only anachronistic, but just not a style I enjoy at all. Even the music that was supposed to be diegetic, the accompaniment to Houdini's stage show, was ridiculously modern-sounding action music, totally wrong for the period. There were also some dialogue anachronisms, like Houdini saying "Garbage in, garbage out," a phrase from computer science whose earliest known appearance was in 1957.

I think they're also fudging the timing of Houdini's interest in debunking spiritualism, since that was a cause he didn't really take up until the 1920s, at least according to Wikipedia. But I can accept that for the sake of the story. Hearing modern synth drumbeats and electric guitars in a show set 115 years ago is just jarring.
 
This was pretty fun. Nothing amazing, but still quite entertaining. The writing and acting were pretty, even if there were a few anachronisms that I picked up on. The case was pretty interesting and gave us introduction to the way they'll be approached.
 
The two lead actors are mostly unknown.

If the episode was set in 1901, Houdini (born 1873) would've been 28. The actor who plays him though (born 1973) is a bit older for the role. Also, the guy reminds me of a young Tim Curry. Must be the curls.

Doyle (born 1859) would've been 42 in 1901, and the actor who plays him is about the right age.
 
Kinda fun; like both actors. Houdini needs to be a bit more forceful I think, and Doyle, frankly, comes off as a bit daft (and why is he NOT Scottish?). Still, there's great potential--I just hope they don't fall into the idiotic "maybe ghosts are REAL" in every episode.

As I'm a big fan of both historical figures, I was a bit annoyed how the true timelines of their lives were pretty much chucked right out of the window, so I'm just trying to see them as characters, not historical figures. This definitely isn't a bio-pic, after all. It's harmless fluff with a very interesting premise, so I'll give a few more episodes.
 
auntiehill said:
Kinda fun; like both actors. Houdini needs to be a bit more forceful I think, and Doyle, frankly, comes off as a bit daft (and why is he NOT Scottish?).
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Oh, good point. I suppose, theoretically, a Scot living in London could adopt a localized accent to blend in, but we actually know what Doyle sounded like from this 1930 film interview, and there he has what sounds like a hybrid accent, recognizably Scottish but softened by decades of living in England. Which is not unlike what Doctor Who's Frazer Hines calls "television Scottish," the toned-down fake Scottish accent he used as Jamie McCrimmon so as to be more comprehensible to non-Scots audiences. So it'd work well for the fictional version here. So it's a little surprising Mangan doesn't use that kind of accent.

As for Michael Weston, his New York City accent is a pretty good fit for Houdini, who was born in Hungary (as Erik Weisz) and moved to Wisconsin at age 4, but lived in NYC from age 13 onward.


Still, there's great potential--I just hope they don't fall into the idiotic "maybe ghosts are REAL" in every episode.
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I like the idea of an X-Files-type show where the "Scully" gets to be the one in the right for a change. Although I guess that's basically Scooby-Doo.

And there's more at issue than my preference for scientific plausibility. There's also the dramatic issue. Part of the dramatic impact of Doyle's search for the supernatural is its futility, his yearning that could never be fulfilled and thus drove him onward, so if he ever encountered something overtly and unambiguously supernatural, his quest would be ended. And Houdini's passion for debunking spiritualists would also be scuttled if he found proof of the supernatural. So I think they're going to have to avoid anything more than vague hints and ambiguous outcomes.


As I'm a big fan of both historical figures, I was a bit annoyed how the true timelines of their lives were pretty much chucked right out of the window, so I'm just trying to see them as characters, not historical figures. This definitely isn't a bio-pic, after all. It's harmless fluff with a very interesting premise, so I'll give a few more episodes.
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I've seen worse portrayals of historical figures in fiction. At least the basic elements come from the leads' real lives, even if they're mixed up chronologically.
 
That linked video is pretty cool. I didn't realize there were video interviews of Doyle that were still around.
 
JD said:
That linked video is pretty cool. I didn't realize there were video interviews of Doyle that were still around.
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Well, it was film, since video hadn't been invented yet, and I think it's the only one in existence. But yeah, it is cool that we can actually see and hear him speaking.
 
This just appeared out of nowhere with hardly any promotion before hand. Seems to just be something to be dumped in the middle of things


Rating's were pretty weak

http://tvbythenumbers.zap2it.com/2016/05/03/tv-ratings-monday-may-2-2016/


This review pretty much says it all

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/review/houdini-doyle-tv-review-889441




For starters, this British-Canadian-American hodgepodge of a production seems wonky from the get-go, feeling barely American (and when it does, that's the worst part of it), connected to the States via executive director David Shore (House), whose production arm (distributed by Sony Pictures Television) is the only part that makes it feel like it wasn't bought outright from elsewhere as a space-filler on the schedule — but of course it is. And there's no real harm in that (or that it aired in the U.K. and Canada first).
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Hm... doesn't sound likely to top the similarly themed Murder Rooms, a show about Doyle and his real-life mentor, on my list of stuff to maybe check out someday...
 
Murder Rooms was a great little series-- a clever drama with a brilliant cast. Far and away superior to Houdini & Doyle, but they aren't even really in the same category. That would be like comparing Wire in the Blood to Scooby Doo.
 
Murder Rooms was the one with Doyle as the "Watson" to a crimesolving Dr. Bell, right? That was fun -- conflating the real-life inspiration with the fictional character he inspired.
 
Well, I enjoyed it. I like how it focused on the conflict between Doyle's spiritualism and Houdini's rationalism. The characterizations are well done, and include references to Doyle's wife and Houdini's mother (in real life, Houdini's relationship with his mother was fascinating, so I hope they delve into that). There is also a contemporaneous Feminist character on the team, which is cool, since most people don't realize there was a very active Feminist movement in those days. The actors are all pretty good, and the guy who plays Houdini reminds me a bit of Paul Michael Glaser, who actually played Houdini once back in the 70s. Overall, it's pretty good. I'll watch a couple more to see if I get into it.

I also liked the way they had the characters, especially Conan Doyle, expressing how much progress had been made in the recent past and how modern their age was. It's something I try to include in my own period pieces, especially my Blue Cowl radio show. It's a nice reminder that the people of the past weren't primitives and the people of any age feel like they are on the cutting edge.

And here we have another show, like Agent Carter, where it's fun to spot the anachronisms. Sometimes the writers get a little lazy or forget or just don't do sufficient research, and some contemporary slang slips in. I noticed "Play the [something] card," "Well played," "Really?" (used in the modern sardonic manner), as well as "Garbage in, garbage out.".
 
Samurai8472 said:
This just appeared out of nowhere with hardly any promotion before hand. Seems to just be something to be dumped in the middle of things
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I don't know if I'd say hardly any promotion, I saw quite a few commercials for it the last few weeks before it premiered.
 
Not a bad episode this week. The explanation to the mystery of the boy's knowledge wasn't something I would've anticipated. Although the murder wasn't much of a mystery, since we were basically told whodunnit at the start.

I was a bit annoyed when they couldn't get the boy to talk and the best they could come up with was "Get the woman to try." I mean, hello? You had Harry Houdini in the room. You want to get a 10-year-old's interest and you have a world-class magician standing right there. How did they not put two and two together?

I'm also not convinced by the explanation of Houdini's trick with the slips of paper. He handed her his paper before he read hers, so how would he have known which one to give her? I assume the missing element is that he was watching her reflection in the window as she wrote. I remember that from when Johnny Carson and James Randi exposed "psychic" Uri Geller as a fraud. He would turn away and cover his eyes when he had people draw things that he would "psychically" perceive -- why do both, when it's redundant? It's because he had mirrors hidden in his hands.
 
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