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Spoilers Houdini and Doyle

I was wondering about how he knew what she wrote too.
The way the kid knew what happened was a surprise, but it made sense. Both episodes have done a good job of giving us interesting cases and nice characterizations. Sometimes with the shows like this you end up with one or the other.
They seem to be setting up a relationship between Houdini and Stratton.
 
Well, the second episode was just as entertaining as the first. The chemistry between Houdini and Doyle and Stratton is very good, and the establishment figures are entertainingly stupid. The dialogue is still very modern, but I didn't notice any really blatant anachronisms this time.

The story involved members of a suffragette group, and once again touched upon the Feminist movement of the day-- even hinting at the sex-positive nature of historical Feminist movements. But they didn't shy away from making the lead suffragette the murderer, which was a nice touch. The explanation of the apparent reincarnation was a bit convoluted, but believable. But, in a way, the format seems to be an untenable situation. Houdini and Doyle are presented as equals, but eventually one of them has to lose out.
 
RJDiogenes said:
But, in a way, the format seems to be an untenable situation. Houdini and Doyle are presented as equals, but eventually one of them has to lose out.
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Not exactly. If something happened that were blatantly, unambiguously supernatural, then Houdini would be proven wrong; but you can't prove a negative, so Doyle could go on believing that the paranormal could exist no matter how many times a mundane explanation is found. That's why there are still so many people who believe in that stuff even though there's never been a shred of verifiable scientific support for it.

And of course The X-Files managed to keep Scully a skeptic for multiple seasons even though the paranormal was clearly real in its universe, by contriving for everything to remain unconfirmed and for Scully to be absent whenever Mulder saw something overtly alien or metaphysical. I much prefer this show's more reality-grounded approach, though. I hate the way paranormal shows like The X-Files paint scientists as closed-minded and blinded by their faith. That's getting it backward. Science is all about expanding its limits to incorporate new truths. In a universe where metaphysical phenomena were real and observable, then science would observe them, measure them, and formulate theories to explain them, just as classical science expanded to include quantum physics. That's why I prefer something like Ghostbusters, that shows science expanding to encompass the reality of the paranormal. Or better yet, something like this show, where the paranormal is just superstition. I loved the pilot's use of subsonics to explain the apparitions, because that is the real-life explanation for most "hauntings." Although I'm not sure if they already knew that as far back as 1901.
 
Christopher said:
Kind of inevitable, since Doyle's married, so that's the only available pairing.
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Well, Houdini should be too. If the series takes place before 1894 he would be married to Bess. Not that marriage ever stopped people from getting together though...
 
Saga said:
Well, Houdini should be too. If the series takes place before 1894 he would be married to Bess. Not that marriage ever stopped people from getting together though...
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I suppose you meant if it takes place after 1894, which it does (1901). But it's already playing fast and loose with chronology, moving up Houdini's anti-spiritualist crusade by a couple of decades.
 
Liked this second episode better but one thing that really jumped out at me was the music, which someone mentioned earlier. The scene where Houdini is breaking into the woman's safe--the music was so modern and so LOUD--it was really jarring. It didn't fit the mood, the tone or atmosphere, not just for the scene but even the series as a whole. It totally took me out of the action.
 
Christopher said:
I suppose you meant if it takes place after 1894, which it does (1901). But it's already playing fast and loose with chronology, moving up Houdini's anti-spiritualist crusade by a couple of decades.
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after. yeah, sorry. you are right though. they are already fudging things to begin with so i guess its no big surprise for them to further muddle things.

i liked the first episode though. and as you and auntiehill have said, the music is kinda jarring.
 
Hmm. I had to search all the way to page three. Not a good sign.

But, anyway, I'm really enjoying this show. It actually has standalone stories, and no overarching plot about the world imminently coming to an end. There are plenty of anachronisms, but it strikes me as kind of a Steampunk world, minus the Steampunk-- so far.

Houdini's illness and Mrs Doyle's remission were a bit convenient, but there's always the psychological component. Mrs Doyle could hear Conan Doyle praying (which I loved-- "You probably prefer Dickens") and Stratton speculated on Houdini's subconscious being at work.

But the best part of the show is the characters and their interactions. Houdini showing his concern for Conan Doyle by slapping him around, Stratton's comment to Conan Doyle, "How can you not like fritters?" and Conan Doyle's desperate plea for his wife to be saved. The situation seems untenable in the long term-- for it to work, Houdini and Conan Doyle must be equals, and yet the format demands that one of them lose in the long run. But I'm enjoying it for now.
 
Not really. People to this day believe in the supernatural, they don't give up their belief because this or that case is proven false and even hardened skeptics can occasionally fall in to irrational beliefs or behaviours.
 
I thought this week's episode was rather good, although I figured out who the murderer was extremely quickly -- not from any specific clue, but just because it seemed predictable. I've probably seen similar mystery plots play out the same way. Still, the stuff around the mystery was well-done. (Except I was a little unclear on whether that was really Houdini's mother or a fever dream. I guess it was supposed to be real, since it wasn't established to be otherwise, but it just seemed so strange. I thought he'd wake up and realize his mother had died years ago, but in real life, his mother Cecilia Steiner lived until 1913, and this is set in 1901.)

I laughed at the bit where Houdini touted the virtues of modern medicine over faith healing and mentioned the reliable, scientific cure of "a mercury treatment." :lol: Well, even science makes mistakes...
 
Yeah, I got a laugh out of the mercury treatment bit too.
I wasn't to surprised when Doyle's wife ended up falling back to sleep, I thought that would have been to big of change of the status quo this early in the series.
I have admit, I like the way they are approaching the mysteries. They actually make you wonder if things might be what they look like, but then manage to give you explanations for most of it.
I can't remember now, did they give an explanation for how Houdini got sick, was the timing just a coincidence?
I was little surprised the healer guy wasn't in on it.
My only real complaint so far is that most of the cases haven't been all that different from the kinds of things that could easily be done on modern shows. I was really hoping we'd get more stuff that would be directly related to this specific era, stuff they couldn't do on a modern show.
 
JD said:
I can't remember now, did they give an explanation for how Houdini got sick, was the timing just a coincidence?
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It was 1901. That's probably explanation enough.


My only real complaint so far is that most of the cases haven't been all that different from the kinds of things that could easily be done on modern shows. I was really hoping we'd get more stuff that would be directly related to this specific era, stuff they couldn't do on a modern show.
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I think the main difference is that such ideas were more mainstream at the time. Like, the police were perfectly willing to accept it as their leading theory that Batch was actually killed by the wrath of God.

I mean, really, what supernatural beliefs did they have then that we don't still have lingering today? The whole essence of such things is that they're steeped in the past, in old superstitions and preconceptions.
 
Christopher said:
I thought this week's episode was rather good, although I figured out who the murderer was extremely quickly -- not from any specific clue, but just because it seemed predictable. I've probably seen similar mystery plots play out the same way. Still, the stuff around the mystery was well-done. (Except I was a little unclear on whether that was really Houdini's mother or a fever dream. I guess it was supposed to be real, since it wasn't established to be otherwise, but it just seemed so strange. I thought he'd wake up and realize his mother had died years ago, but in real life, his mother Cecilia Steiner lived until 1913, and this is set in 1901.)

I laughed at the bit where Houdini touted the virtues of modern medicine over faith healing and mentioned the reliable, scientific cure of "a mercury treatment." :lol: Well, even science makes mistakes...
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I laughed at the mercury bit, too.

We saw his mother in the first episode, when Adelaide met him at his hotel suite, so in the show, she's real. They never explained why he was sick, but hinted that perhaps he got sick because part of him expected to be sick. But they also touched on how much damage his body has taken from his performances over the years--when Doyle was rather horrified while looking at his x-rays.
 
Bob The Skutter said:
Not really. People to this day believe in the supernatural, they don't give up their belief because this or that case is proven false and even hardened skeptics can occasionally fall in to irrational beliefs or behaviours.
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Sure, but the point is that the dramatic dynamic of the show is whether Houdini or Conan Doyle are correct in their beliefs. If the bad guy always turns out to be the janitor or the dude who runs the water slide, then Houdini is the winner by default. If something finally turns out to be supernatural, then Conan Doyle wins. It has to be one or the other. There's no possible way that they can both be right.
 
Christopher said:
I loved the pilot's use of subsonics to explain the apparitions, because that is the real-life explanation for most "hauntings." Although I'm not sure if they already knew that as far back as 1901.
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I'm surprised no one has made a haunted house using infrasound--oh wait--they have:
http://boingboing.net/2010/11/08/testing-infrasound-t.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infrasound

I might go one farther. There is this bit of tech called an audio spotlight: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sound_from_ultrasound

You can fire a beam of sound that will decay into the audible range at a target's location--even bouncing the beam.
Then too--there is this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/God_helmet

I've even heard of folks using magnetrons
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http://msgboard.snopes.com/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=56;t=002481;p=1

Combine these effects, along with a Ouija board with a magnet to drag a planchette around--and you might even spook some skeptics.
 
The ray gun needs a little work, but that's some pretty interesting stuff.
 
Nice idea to draw on the mythology of Spring-Heeled Jack and the mass hysteria surrounding it -- it's just the sort of thing JD was wishing for last week, a story based on something specific to the show's historical period. But I'm disappointed they went for the copout at the end suggesting that "Jack" was real.

Doyle and Houdini breaking into Stratton's flat and going through her belongings was really inexcusable. I wish they'd found a way to advance that subplot without making both leads into stalkery jerks. I did like H&D's little philosophical chat about the value of fear. It's nothing we haven't heard in a hundred other works of fiction, but I like scenes where characters discuss ideas and compare points of view instead of just advancing the plot.
 
Sto-Vo-Kory said:
This show really needs to lose the modern songs inserted into each episode.
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And hey should also get rid of the modern expressions. In the last episode, Houdini used air quotes. In the episode involving the laundry workers, when one of them ran away, Houdini said "Really? You're going to out-limp us?" Penny Dreadful, this show is not.

However, I am enjoying the chemistry between Houdini, Doyle and Stratton. Interesting that they are giving her some backstory.

I agree with Christopher that Houdini and Dole breaking into Stratton's flat was jaw droppingly inappropriate. I started going over my memory to see if I'de missed some suspicion about her, or something.

Still, I haven't lost interest yet, and I am not a murder mystery fan.
 
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