I had no idea that Harry Houdini and Arthur Conan Doyle were buddies. That sounds as if it'd make a swell TV series.
Fox also thinks so. Houdini & Doyle debuts at 8 p.m. Monday. This is a British/Canadian series that has been picked up by Fox and touted as "a supernatural adventure drama."
Indeed, the American master showman/illusionist/escape artist and the prolific British writer and creator of Sherlock Holmes were real-life friends. At least for a while.
Whether they actually worked together to solve what amounts to the X-files of the early 20th century -- unsolved and inexplicable crimes with a supernatural twist -- is doubtful. Still, it makes an intriguing premise for a TV show.
I found the pilot, which used a sudden Sherlockian epiphany to solve the crime, a little facile and fabricated, but I was prepared for the formula in the second episode. Hopefully, the remainder of the 10 episodes will continue to grow on me.
First, some historic background to set the stage for the series, which takes place in 1901 London.
Houdini, born Erik Weisz and the son of a Hungarian immigrant rabbi, would have been 27 in 1901, at the top of his game and treated like a rock star in London.
In 1900, Houdini launched his first European tour and drew enthusiastic crowds by challenging each local city police force to put him in shackles and lock him up. He invariably escaped and that showmanship packed theaters.
Meanwhile, author/physician Doyle would have turned 42 in 1901. He had been writing his immensely popular Sherlock Holmes tales since 1886. The first, A Study in Scarlet, appeared in 1887. His crime fiction caught on and made Doyle famous and wealthy.
But Sherlock was time-consuming and kept Doyle from his many other interests, so Doyle killed him off in 1893. Thanks to public demand, Holmes didn't stay dead and was resurrected in 1901 with The Hound of the Baskervilles.
Doyle and Houdini were opposites. Doyle had a deep interest in the mystical and supernatural, while Houdini spent much of his life trying to expose so-called spiritualists. And that's the main source of odd-couple conflict for the drama.
In real life, Doyle was convinced Houdini actually possessed powers and they eventually had a very public falling out, but that's not the concern in this series.
In Houdini & Doyle, the mismatched friends work together to solve cases seemingly involving the paranormal. There's frequently a bet riding on the outcome.
Trivia: Doyle was not knighted until 1902, so nobody refers to him in the series as Sir Arthur.
Another plus -- the series has some impressive folks behind the scenes. It was executive produced by David Shore, who created Fox's long-running series House. It was written and co-created by Shore's longtime collaborator, David Hoselton, and Canadian screenwriter David Titcher (The Librarians).
Stephen Hopkins (24, Californication) directed the series.
"I've long been intrigued by both Houdini and Doyle," Shore says in a Fox news release. "[They were] men who were ahead of their time, each fascinating in his own right. But the idea that these two, seemingly so different, could have been friends is almost too perfect."
The cast nicely showcases that dichotomy.
Stephen Mangan, who viewers may know as the hapless Sean Lincoln on Showtime's Episodes, portrays Doyle, who is caring for his beloved, coma-stricken wife.
Michael Weston, who has appeared in a number of series but had an especially memorable story arc on House (2008- 2010), plays a brash and frequently irritating Houdini.
The program's best surprise -- and I hope she's utilized more as the series progresses -- is relative newcomer, Canadian actress Rebecca Liddiard as Adelaide Stratton, the first female constable on the London Metropolitan Police Force.
The exceedingly capable (and underappreciated) Stratton serves as the police liaison for the two famous crime busters while facing overt sexism from the good ol' boys on the force.
Frequently caught between the true believer Doyle and the jaded skeptic Houdini, Stratton realizes their diverse views make solving these mysterious crimes all the more challenging. Her task is to get them to work together as they face cases that appear to involve vampires, ghosts, monsters and poltergeists.
In Monday's first episode, "The Maggie's Redress," Houdini, Doyle and Stratton investigate when a nun from one of the infamous Magdalene laundries is murdered. A witness claims that the murderer was a young woman tormented by the nun. The twist: The alleged murderer has been dead for six months.
Historic note: Magdalene laundries, or Magdalene asylums, were commercial institutions used to house "fallen women." The first one, Magdalen Hospital for the Reception of Penitent Prostitutes, was founded in London in 1758.
Style on 05/01/2016