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Post by snacky on Sept 8, 2015 5:11:41 GMT
So is that all gone now? Has William Murdoch, after 8 seasons, fully transformed into a happily married, open-minded, liberal thinking content detective? Is he an open book now or is there something he still struggles with, internally? Should there be? There is no drama without angst. Even though it didn't come up last year as expected, I think money/lifestyle is going to be an issue with Julia at some point. I don't think writers will go into William's personal life that deeply, though, because that could verge into soap opera territory. If Father Keegan returns, perhaps William will have a dilemma that involves William's religious beliefs vs. his professional duty. I'd still like to see William at least risk excommunication: that seems to be the high angst waiting to happen.
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Post by snacky on Sept 8, 2015 5:20:04 GMT
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Post by oklahomafan on Sept 8, 2015 22:09:47 GMT
I don't see why there has to be angst for William. After all there are still hundreds of ways to murder someone and plenty of arch enemies to come back and threaten both he and Julia. Eva Piece is on the loose for one and there are many other plots to create and revisit. I am looking forward to fun with their marriage like in the Corset episode and how most of their relationship has been from my perspective. Drama does not mean ongoing personal strife between two people that is soap opera and this a murder mystery series.
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Post by oklahomafan on Sept 8, 2015 22:12:31 GMT
I can't wait until the season 9 DVDs are available to buy. Hope it is soon in 2016.
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Post by snacky on Sept 9, 2015 7:11:38 GMT
Does anyone know how Americans can watch the season nine episodes without waiting for reruns? Last year Ovation got Season 8 fairly quickly and so did an online service called Acorn TV. I've advocated heavily for an American channel to pick up MM, to no avail. I've been told this is a good thing because once Americans get involved with distribution, they use their money to dominate creative decisions: that would ruin MM. Furthermore, when the first few seasons of MM were finally syndicated in the US, those episodes were butchered horribly. In order to make room for commercials, the syndicated version cuts out a lot of the character-centric scenes (especially those related to William's relationship with Julia). I would not want to watch Season 9 on an American channel and have to wonder how many good bits had been cut. CBC usually releases the new episode of MM within 24 hours on their web site, but it's blocked for Americans. I wish they wouldn't do that since Americans have no other legal place to go to see the new episodes, and we want to be able to discuss them immediately with other fans. Some people have special apps that allow them to skip the CBC blocking and they watch MM that way.
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Post by snacky on Sept 9, 2015 7:27:42 GMT
I don't see why there has to be angst for William. After all there are still hundreds of ways to murder someone and plenty of arch enemies to come back and threaten both he and Julia. Eva Piece is on the loose for one and there are many other plots to create and revisit. I am looking forward to fun with their marriage like in the Corset episode and how most of their relationship has been from my perspective. Drama does not mean ongoing personal strife between two people that is soap opera and this a murder mystery series. Ooh, I wonder when Eva Pearce will be back. She has the potential to create some angst. I agree with you about MM's need to avoid soap operas: in my own humble opinion, I think MM functions best on a slightly symbolic level. However symbols work best when they tap into strong emotions. I think this was part of the secret sauce of the early seasons, which seemed to have high quality writing even though their budget was small. IMHO, angst is needed as a counterpoint to William's happiness: otherwise we just have cotton candy fluff that might as well be a kid's Saturday morning cartoon. However, the writers have shown themselves extremely capable of exploring William's personal conflicts and dilemmas as he pursues his suspects. These dilemmas don't have to be about Julia: I'm still hoping William has a brush with excommunication over a decision of conscience. However, since William is married now, Julia becomes another possible source of dilemmas. William has to engage with her. Even if their marriage is highly compatible, William still has to handle points of disagreement. The obvious issues are whether William feels like a Kept Man as he lives off Julia's money (and he might have moral issues about certain extravagances) and when to adopt kids (or get a "miracle baby") and settle down into a their own home. What if William hits another career snag while Julia rises to the top of her profession? All of these situations can take place in the background of William's cases: and in the best written eps the cases shed light on William's interior life.
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Post by murdochic on Sept 9, 2015 10:18:14 GMT
I don't see why there has to be angst for William. After all there are still hundreds of ways to murder someone and plenty of arch enemies to come back and threaten both he and Julia. Eva Piece is on the loose for one and there are many other plots to create and revisit. I am looking forward to fun with their marriage like in the Corset episode and how most of their relationship has been from my perspective. Drama does not mean ongoing personal strife between two people that is soap opera and this a murder mystery series. I completely agree. They don't need more relationship angst to make them or the show interesting. The times when they've been solid over the seasons didn't make things any less interesting on MM. The cases, suspects and other life problems can provide them with enough drama. I think they've moved past the need for any more forced issues to their relationship. The producers even admitted those things were just about delaying them getting married. But now they are married and we wouldn't want them to break that up, even if it's not long term. We had 7 seasons of them having every conceivable problem thrown at their romance. The show has evolved beyond that. The only realistic things left that the writers could do is dealing with the adoption and housing issues. But neither could create a lot of angst.
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Post by murdochic on Sept 9, 2015 10:20:30 GMT
Does anyone know how Americans can watch the season nine episodes without waiting for reruns? You can find links on TV streaming sites or you could download a torrent. That's how I watch the show before it airs in the UK. Then I buy the dvd's when they're available.
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Post by lea on Sept 9, 2015 14:46:35 GMT
I don't see why there has to be angst for William. After all there are still hundreds of ways to murder someone and plenty of arch enemies to come back and threaten both he and Julia. Eva Piece is on the loose for one and there are many other plots to create and revisit. I am looking forward to fun with their marriage like in the Corset episode and how most of their relationship has been from my perspective. Drama does not mean ongoing personal strife between two people that is soap opera and this a murder mystery series. I don't need there to be soap-y relationship drama between William & Julia either. There were many other things he had issues with socially and in his personal relationships, mostly in the earlier seasons of MM, and I'd love to see him deal with these struggles again. I've really wanted another episode with his father. Even if they couldn't get Stephen McHattie back his death would certainly make for great character development for William.
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Post by Hodge on Sept 9, 2015 15:16:40 GMT
Does anyone know how Americans can watch the season nine episodes without waiting for reruns? CBC usually releases the new episode of MM within 24 hours on their web site, but it's blocked for Americans. I wish they wouldn't do that since Americans have no other legal place to go to see the new episodes, and we want to be able to discuss them immediately with other fans. Some people have special apps that allow them to skip the CBC blocking and they watch MM that way. The CBC blocks the website because they don't have the rights to distribute outside Canada. It's easy to overcome though.
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Post by snacky on Sept 9, 2015 17:41:13 GMT
I completely agree. They don't need more relationship angst to make them or the show interesting. The times when they've been solid over the seasons didn't make things any less interesting on MM. The cases, suspects and other life problems can provide them with enough drama. I think they've moved past the need for any more forced issues to their relationship. The producers even admitted those things were just about delaying them getting married. But now they are married and we wouldn't want them to break that up, even if it's not long term. We had 7 seasons of them having every conceivable problem thrown at their romance. The show has evolved beyond that. The only realistic things left that the writers could do is dealing with the adoption and housing issues. But neither could create a lot of angst. I agree about forced issues, and I think the best "shippy" writing actually comes out of interaction with the mysteries. One thing that bothers me is comments to the effect of "we're running out of stories". Since the invention of the television writers have been writing mysteries and coming up with new mystery shows. Mysteries are just formulas: it's the setting and characters that make one show different from another. Since MM has a historical setting, it seems to me that the well probably runs dry because the writers aren't as familiar with that historical period and/or they ran out of materials from the local library so they just aren't reading enough regarding that time period to stimulate story ideas. MM is extra difficult because it requires a passing familiarity with science and technology as well. Maybe writers could get short sabbaticals to allow them to hang out at various academic research libraries to study the time period and refresh their font of creativity.
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Post by carco on Sept 9, 2015 21:49:07 GMT
I don't see why there has to be angst for William. After all there are still hundreds of ways to murder someone and plenty of arch enemies to come back and threaten both he and Julia. Eva Piece is on the loose for one and there are many other plots to create and revisit. I am looking forward to fun with their marriage like in the Corset episode and how most of their relationship has been from my perspective. Drama does not mean ongoing personal strife between two people that is soap opera and this a murder mystery series. I wasn't referring to personal strife between William and Julia....by angst I was referring to those points in William's life where his own personal growth has come after he has gone through an internal tug of war. William started the show with very little wiggle room regarding his personal views on a variety of things. Over time he has gone through numerous periods of angst as he is forced to see that there are other points of view. The William of S8 is a far cry from the William of S1. I loved being on that journey with him. It has nothing to do with a 'soap opera'.
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Post by oklahomafan on Sept 10, 2015 0:22:59 GMT
Thanks everyone for the info about seeing the episodes as they run for Americans. I would be totally against any American involvement in this show and will gladly wait for the DVDs if I have too. In the meantime I will have to decide whether to see the spoilers here first.
Has anyone thought that William is already making many concessions to his faith with Julia not the least of which is sex for procreation only? That has to be a struggle for him that he has dealt with. I think these are all fun story lines but what I love the most is the Canadian History and learning about all of the wonderful aspects that we don't hear in the states. Oh heck I love everything about this show the angst, the history, the mystery, everything. It has been years since any show put it all together like MM. I hope it goes on for years to come.
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Post by lea on Sept 10, 2015 1:07:09 GMT
Thanks everyone for the info about seeing the episodes as they run for Americans. I would be totally against any American involvement in this show and will gladly wait for the DVDs if I have too. In the meantime I will have to decide whether to see the spoilers here first. Has anyone thought that William is already making many concessions to his faith with Julia not the least of which is sex for procreation only? That has to be a struggle for him that he has dealt with. I think these are all fun story lines but what I love the most is the Canadian History and learning about all of the wonderful aspects that we don't hear in the states. Oh heck I love everything about this show the angst, the history, the mystery, everything. It has been years since any show put it all together like MM. I hope it goes on for years to come. The way he views sex as a whole is something I'm always interested in. He did learn of Julia's sterility years before they were married so he did have time to deal with it for awhile. This could have been a big issue for him if he had waited until he was married, if he didn't then it probably wasn't a big struggle. Although, their lack of a honeymoon phase throughout season 8 could be blamed on something like this (even though I think it was just an oversight by the writers).
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Post by lea on Sept 10, 2015 1:14:56 GMT
No trailers yet I'm absolutely dying to get one. Also the 2016 calendar is great! I got mine a few weeks ago and love it!
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