Hee!
Geraint Wyn Davies as Arthur Conan Doyle in The Murdoch Mysteries
It looks like in between filming guest stints for the fourth season of ReGenesis, doing a theatrical run of The Elephant Man, and preparing for his role as Polonious in MacBeth in a return stint to the Stratford Festival, Ger has managed to fit in a guest stint on Citytv's The Murdoch Mysteries.
The show has been billed as a 19th century C.S.I. It's the story of a dashing detective who uses then radical forensic techniques to solve some of Toronto's more gruesome murders.
Ger's episode was the fourth one and has already aired. It's called " Elementary, My Dear Murdoch". The synopsis according to the show's site is as follows: Murdoch teams with his hero, Arthur Conan Doyle, to solve a murder that was revealed during a séance led by medium Sarah Pensall. It seems the victim, Ida Winston - a member of a paranormal watchdog group - had not been convinced of Sarah’s abilities, which makes Murdoch wonder if Sarah killed Ida because she was about to be revealed as a fraud. Despite mounting evidence of the spirit world, Murdoch remains determined to use scientific means to solve the case. Sure enough, evidence starts to stack up against Sarah’s little toady, Lisgar Gall. But when Murdoch accuses Gall of killing Ida in order to protect Sarah, he winds up in the middle of an unexpected lovers’ triangle that further complicates the case.
I find Ger playing Doyle so amusing because during the 3rd season of Forever Knight Nick has a brief encounter with a young Arthur Conan Doyle. Before the episode's end Nick saved Doyle from certain death at the teeth of Nick's new vampiric dog Raleigh (after Sir Walter). So with Ger now having played both Nick and Doyle does that mean that he pretty much saves himself?
And lastly, I was looking around the show site for The Murdoch Mysteries when I came across the character bio for the female lead. Shows with police elements love to place women in the traditional male role of pathologist or forensic expert. Natalie on Forever Knight is an obvious example, followed by Scully on The X-Files, Dr. Juliana Cox on Homicide: Life on the Streets, Jordan on Crossing Jordan, Bones on Bones, Dr. Mohadevan on Blood Ties, and I'm sure I'm missing a few from the procedurals that air on CBS and the Law & Order franchise. So not surprisingly, because aside from being set in the 19th century, Murdoch is still a cop show, the female lead also happens to be a doctor and a pathologist to boot.
Her bio reads: Julia Ogden is a pathologist who works with the Toronto police force. She's a forward-thinking, modern woman who can be quite blunt and straightforward. She shares Murdoch's fascination with forensic science and has become one of his staunchest allies. Though her family supports her ambitions, they can't help but feel a little scandalized that she’s not married, lives alone, and spends her life cutting up dead people instead of raising children.
OK, so seriously since Ger is making the professional rounds in Toronto I find it absolutely imperative that The Border get picked up for a second season and that Ger do a special guest arc. I need him to go toe to toe with Mannering in the arrogance department and then share some quality banter with Maggie. Hey they can even be slightly adversarial towards one another. He can be the guy that pushes all the wrong buttons but they keep coming back to each other. Then all three characters can meet for a drink and engage in a great big group hug that would have me smiling all year long. Come on, you know you wanna see that too. :-)