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Murdoch Mysteries - I, Murdoch
Apr. 18th, 2013 04:54 pmThe Alibi channel in the UK have been repeating the Murdoch Mysteries from the beginning in the early hours of the morning and I've been recording them. This is a series about the adventures of a detective in 1890s Toronto who keeps abreast of the latest scientific discoveries and uses them in crime detection, a sort of Victorian CSI.
Just seen the season 2 episode I, Murdoch.
This involves the sighting of a giant war robot in the countryside outside town and a mathmetician working on its algorithms being murdered. The government agent suspects a Prussian agent. (Curious, Prussia was part of Germany by then, but it allows them to make a comment on a Prussian agent using prussic acid as a murder weapon.)
Turns out it was a massive con perpertrated by the factory owner building the robot. But it reminded me of the classic fifties SF story, Noise Level by Raymond Jones. (The young boy who observes the robot was called Jones, but I think this may be a coincidence.) In that story, a group of scientists are shown a film of a man who has claimed to have invented an anti-gravity backpack but he dies and the machine is destroyed, so the scientists are asked to duplicate the device. Knowing that such a device is possible, they do so, only for it to be revealed that the film was a hoax to persuade them such a device was possible.
In I, Murdoch, government agents are shown footage (just about possible, I suppose - the projector was allegedly built by Edison) of a Prussian war robot so they have to finance a Canadian version to maintain the balance of power. But the film is a hoax. At the same time, the Prussian agent sees a demonstration of a Canadian war robot (actually operated by a dwarf) as the factory owner also owns a factory in Prussian that he hopes will get the contract there.
Just seen the season 2 episode I, Murdoch.
This involves the sighting of a giant war robot in the countryside outside town and a mathmetician working on its algorithms being murdered. The government agent suspects a Prussian agent. (Curious, Prussia was part of Germany by then, but it allows them to make a comment on a Prussian agent using prussic acid as a murder weapon.)
Turns out it was a massive con perpertrated by the factory owner building the robot. But it reminded me of the classic fifties SF story, Noise Level by Raymond Jones. (The young boy who observes the robot was called Jones, but I think this may be a coincidence.) In that story, a group of scientists are shown a film of a man who has claimed to have invented an anti-gravity backpack but he dies and the machine is destroyed, so the scientists are asked to duplicate the device. Knowing that such a device is possible, they do so, only for it to be revealed that the film was a hoax to persuade them such a device was possible.
In I, Murdoch, government agents are shown footage (just about possible, I suppose - the projector was allegedly built by Edison) of a Prussian war robot so they have to finance a Canadian version to maintain the balance of power. But the film is a hoax. At the same time, the Prussian agent sees a demonstration of a Canadian war robot (actually operated by a dwarf) as the factory owner also owns a factory in Prussian that he hopes will get the contract there.
