Murdoch Mysteries Showrunner Peter Mitchell looks ahead to Season 1. Spoiler alert Do not read on until youve watched Murdoch Mysteries Episode 1. Hell to Pay. Now that was one heck of a season finale, wasnt it Murdoch Mysteries fans Its a good thing our favourite series has been greenlit for another season because there are a ton of questions to be answered Will Julia be found How will William get out of this scrapeWatts really there to help William Did Brackenreid fight off Davis, or is he injured or, gulp, dead And, perhaps most importantly did Higgins, Crabtree and Jackson all survive the gunfire We spoke to Murdoch Mysteries showrunner Peter Mitchell about that edge of your seat instalmentthe shows landmark 1. Watch Ben X Tube Free here. Season 1. 1. First of all, congratulations on your writing win at the Canadian Screen Awards, as well as Murdoch Mysteries winning the Golden Screen Award. Directed by Peter Mitchell. With Yannick Bisson, Helene Joy, Thomas Craig, Jonny Harris. Julia is shot at the home of her and William and doctors rush to save her life. Spoiler alert Do not read on until youve watched Murdoch Mysteries Episode 18, Hell to Pay. Now that was one heck of a season finale, wasnt it Murdoch. Is it important to you to win awards, specifically one for writing Peter Mitchell Murdoch has never gotten a nomination for writing, so it was important to give a little shout out to the writers. Its nice to win an award, but its not why Im here. I think Ive been nominated 1. Ive won. Winning is better than losing. It was nice of the movie to win too as a whole. Obviously, Im biased but getting the award for most viewership is more important than anything else. Lets talk about the cliffhanger season finale,. That was just before my time. I dont think it was a cliffhanger, he was exonerated by the end of the episode. At what point did you decide. I just figured everything would go to hell both fictionally and in real life. It was great to see Robin Dunne back on TV. I havent seen him since Sanctuary. He was great. I had never met him before, actually, and he was a ton of fun. It was also especially fun to work with John Wildman, who was on a TV show called The Campbells a million years ago and I used to drive him to work. Thats the first time we had worked together in, like, 3. You started out in the industry as a driver Well, as a production assistant. They didnt have drivers back then. I was the general gofer guy. How long were you a P. A. One season, and then I moved into the writing department fairly quickly once I got my foot in the door. Did you take a TV writing course at the time I took one television writing course at York University for, like, a semester. My instructor was in the business, at CTV, and he got me a gig. OK, lets talk about the episode. Miss Cherrys personality has certainly evolved. In last weeks episode, she was talking shit about William and Julia. There is no faster way to turn the fans on someone than having them do that. Yeah, especially Julia. We learned that when one of the characters Emily was involved with called William a stick in the mud. That was basically her death sentence. I kind of knew what the reaction would be. Is that it for Louise Cherry I wouldnt say so, no. She performs a function in the finale and is not out of the picture. With regard to Inspector Brackenreid. We hear a gunshot go off and thats the last we see of Brackenreid. I guess well see what happens. It appears we might be losing one of the constables. Murdoch is told that one of them is dead. I think you have to think about the reliability of the narrator, the person who is telling him that. I dont think we can end a season like that and have everything be tickety boo. The show, in essence, has five cliffhangers three constables, one Julia and a Brackenreid. And we dont see any of them past the three quarter mark of the show. And, why is Watts offering to be so helpful at the very end of the episode Is he a good guy I dont know. Why didnt he help Murdoch earlier Why is he showing up nowSo, Watts may have ulterior motives Maybe. I never trust those Maslanys. They have many faces How do you clean it up going forward I think its a big enough mess that it will take more than one episode to clean it up. Ive been studiously avoiding the hard work of making it all make sense. I think what Ill probably do is use a couple of the early episodes to deal with the repercussions of last year and then bounce the show ahead three months in time because I dont think were purpose built to go dark, dark, dark. Were allowed to go dark on the show but I dont think we can stay there. Are there any historical characters youre planning on bringing on board for Season 1. I think were going to bring back good old Teddy Roosevelt. I think were going to bring Dr. William Osler back, one of the founders of modern medicine. I think were going to bring in Helen Keller, who will help solve a case. And, with Helen Keller, I think were going to get Alexander Graham Bell. Thats just in the early stages right now and I think were going to try and pay a tiny bit more attention to getting more historical characters in this year than we did last year. That might entail the return of Laurier and Terrence Meyers, of course, some of the regular characters we like to see every year. In terms of the historical characters, they all seem to be in the world of medicine for some reason. What did you think of the season finaleLet me know in the comments below Images courtesy of CBC. Prior to becoming a television critic and owner of TV, Eh, Greg David was a critic for TV Guide Canada, the countrys most trusted source for TV news. He has interviewed television actors, actresses and behind the scenes folks from hundreds of television series from Canada, the U. S. He is a podcaster, public speaker, weekly radio guest and educator, and past member of the Television Critics Association. Latest posts by Greg David see allRelated. Murdoch Mysteries TV Series 2. Edit. In the late 1. Detective William Murdoch takes a new, more scientific approach to solving crimes. Assisted by coroner Dr. Julia Ogden and Constable George Crabtree, Murdoch introduces such concepts as finger marks and lie detecting machines. He has the support of his somewhat doubtful superior, Inspector Brackenreid, though at times, even he finds Murdochs methods and claims somewhat astounding.