Mystery Maniacs

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Sarah
Below my note that says Niagara. Hey, maniac.

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Mark
Hey, Murdock. Me?

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Sarah
No, no, no, no.

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Mark
We're Mr. Max Beauvoir. Cover and Murdock today. Yeah. Season one Mystery Maniacs is a comedy recap podcast dedicated to mystery TV. Every week we dig up an episode of the show, including the murders, the mayhem and the loonies and everything else we love. This Week. Murder Mysteries Power Season one Episode one Yes.

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Sarah
Welcome New People.

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Mark
Yes, Welcome New People, Especially people from the Murdoch Mysteries Appreciation Society on Facebook. Ooh, you are our people.

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Sarah
You are all welcome. I'm Mark. I'm Sarah. You may not know this, but as mystery maniacs, we have covered many different shows, some just a couple of episodes. But we started as Midsomer Maniacs.

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Mark
We covered all of mid-summer. If you haven't listened to us in midsummer together, you're in for a treat.

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Sarah
Yes, that's right. You should go back. If you're a new listener, you should go back if you are an old school maniac.

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Mark
Welcome back.

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Sarah
Yeah, We.

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Mark
Love you, guy.

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Sarah
And we're excited to have you. Do just know this is a spoiler podcast. If you have not seen Season one episode one of Murdoch Mysteries, we're about to ruin it for you now. We will try not to ruin future episodes of Murdoch as we cover this one, and.

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Mark
Certainly not future seasons.

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Sarah
That's what I mean. So if you've not watched all of Murdoch, we're going to try not to give anything away that happens in the future so that those can be surprises for you as you experience Murdoch for the.

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Mark
First time, Absolutely.

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Sarah
You and I have seen it seven, eight times and.

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Mark
Saw so many new things.

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Sarah
Hoping when we first decided to talk about Murdoch. I really need to rewatch that one. I mean, it's been a long time since we watched season one. Yeah, I should probably rewatch it and I just kept pausing and going, Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. What just happened? What did I just see in the background? What was that? How did I miss that?

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Mark
Yet this episode also does a fantastic job of setting everything up. Yes. And I mean every yes.

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Sarah
If you and the people who might listen with you can handle an episode of Murdoch Mysteries and all of its insanity, then you can handle this podcast. We do our very best not to curse more than the show recovering or get grosser than the show we're covering.

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Mark
We may say bungalow. There's no friggin rejiggering.

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Sarah
I'm not saying that we're perfect, but we do our very best so you don't have to worry about sensitive ears. They might not understand what we're talking about, but they're not going to pick up any. Well, they might pick up bad habits from us. Like, Yes. Hey, nice corpse. A couple of updates.

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Mark
First of all, so one of our listeners, we love our listeners, carved our logo out of ice.

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Sarah
I could not believe it when you showed it to me, I was like, Oh, boy.

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Mark
Yep. Jesse from Minnesota carved our logo in ice and ice carving competition.

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Sarah
Not only that, it was her first time carving ice. Yes. And she chose our logo, the teacup in the bag and the little logo on the bag label and everything.

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Mark
And it looks fantastic. And we posted pictures on all of our social media.

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Sarah
You rock? Yeah. That's so fun.

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Mark
Absolutely. Secondly, we once again want to welcome any new listeners. We posted two new Facebook groups, including the Murdoch Mysteries Appreciation Society, Plus we posted on the Reddit Murdoch group. So if you're a new listener, welcome. And, well, you're in for a ride. Oh, yeah. Welcome to the Maniac Train. Yes, it gets kind of crazy here finally. And I wanted to talk about a listener that reached out to us from Turkey because of the the horrible events that have been happening in Turkey and.

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Sarah
Syria and.

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Mark
The border with the earthquakes. And she is fine and her family is fine, but she asked me to post some charities on on our social media, which I reposted for her after I checked. We also have another friend who's Turkish, and he agreed that those were great charities. So we're just thinking about you people in Turkey. Yeah. And so, yeah, this episode is for you guys everywhere.

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Sarah
Yeah, it's tough every day. I feel so lucky.

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Mark
Yeah. Oh, boy, we're lucky.

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Sarah
Hopefully we can make you laugh wherever you are a little bit. Maybe we can be a little break. Maybe.

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Mark
I'll tell you what we are. We are talking about Murdoch power. So Murdoch, like mid-summer, started off as a book series by a woman named Maureen Jennings, who's still in the credits. She is checking in this.

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Sarah
Yeah, she wrote a handful of books and now she can just sit back, right.

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Mark
Because there are 15 seasons of this show that have been shown in the US and 16 in Canada. Yeah, yeah. Not 16 additional. No. One extra.

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Sarah
They just it's released in Canada and not everywhere.

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Mark
And this is a Canadian show. And for new listeners, Sarah, we're live in Bloomington, Indiana. Sarah is American and I am Canadian. Yeah, I basically lived in downtown Toronto for six years in this area.

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Sarah
Yeah.

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Mark
So when they say Shuter Street Power Station, I'm like where on Shooter Street would have been that Yeah.

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Sarah
I've been on that corner before. Yeah. Yes. So if you're new to Murdoch or if you're not, there's a little bit of craziness in Murdoch, which is why we like it. Right. Yeah. You sort of have to suspend reality every once in a while. That's okay. Yeah, that's always the case. And cozy kind of mysteries, which is, you know, our milieu.

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Sarah
It's what you love. So before we dig into this episode specifically, I went back and tried to find reviews from the time that this first episode aired to see what people thought of it right off the bat.

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Mark
So this is one of the things we do. We research into things that you, while you're watching the episode, sometimes say, Hmm, I wonder if that's real or I wonder about that. We do the digging for you.

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Sarah
Yes. So you don't have to.

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Mark
Sometimes it leads us into very strange Google searches.

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Sarah
On the most part, the reviews are very positive. A lot of them mention the movies that made for TV movies that were released. First, feel free to go and watch them if you want to, but they are completely different.

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Mark
With a very different tone and different Murdoch.

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Sarah
They're much darker. They're much more serious. They don't have the whimsy and the wit and the funniness that the show has. Yes, they're they're fine. They're just not the same. Right. But this one review, the author's name is Vinay Menon from the Toronto Star.

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Mark
Put a real Toronto play there as opposed to the Toronto Gazette.

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Sarah
Yes. In the in the show, this author put their finger right on Murdoch. One episode is all it took. Nice and nailed it down.

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Mark
Okay. Okay. So what did they say?

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Sarah
So if you're new to Murdoch, everything that's pointed out in this review is what you are in for. And if you're not, you're going to go, Yep, yep. Okay. So this is specifically a review of this first episode. Power Okay, you ready? Yeah. I'm kind of starting in the middle of the review here. Admittedly, I'm not familiar with the novels from which the character is adapted, so maybe Murdoch is supposed to be an accidental detective.

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Sarah
Maybe he's supposed to ask questions. Maybe he's supposed to strike ponderous poses and pace slowly, not doing much of anything. This would certainly explain why others forge ahead with tonight's detective work. Who decides to first question? Edna George. Yeah. Who determines the precise method of switch box tampering? Tesla. Who determines Pratt could not have children? Dr. Ogden Who checks stock prices?

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Sarah
Inspector Bracken Read.

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Mark
Follow the money.

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Sarah
Solve a murder. I'm not sure Detective Murdoch could solve a crossword puzzle. Another oddity Historical accuracy. Light bulbs glowing spontaneously in high frequency field. The routing of a voice signal from a remote box to a landline. Is Murdoch mysteries set in the past or future? In one scene, Tesla says, Please tell Mr. Fox from me that if I had wanted to disrupt this silly demonstration, I could have fired a million volt pulse and his generator, thereby disabling it.

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Sarah
Captain Picard, is that you hiding in Tesla's body? Is that why his accent keeps toggling between Serbian and tobacco in Tokyo? Now, to be fair, this is not a terrible show. It could appeal to, say, viewers with niche interests, For example, fans of Victorian era era romantic subplots with a hint of screwball comedy might enjoy George's wooing of Edna.

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Mark
Yes.

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Sarah
Fans of real Nikola Tesla might enjoy seeing a pop culture portrayal that doesn't seize upon the man's legendary eccentricities, and fans of distractingly cockamamie props are encouraged to not miss tonight's closing scenes. Yeah, here's an excerpt. DODD What's this? FOX My new suitcase, Dad Very stylish. FOX Not very, but surprisingly practical. Surprisingly practical. It is £35 and has a giant looping antenna sticking out of it.

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Mark
I have dubbed this box Chekhov's Rabbit. Yes.

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Sarah
You see, this is the real mystery here. Why can't you watch this show without screaming at the television end of review?

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Mark
I think they love it.

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Sarah
I think they love it, too. But like, yes, everybody does something to contribute to solving the murder. And sometimes Murdoch doesn't do a lot of it, but he's the one who kind of like puts it, has a little brainstorm and pulls it together. Right. And and, yes, there's some things that are anachronistic. There's the signature or, oh, like link to the audience where they almost invent something from the future but don't yet, you know.

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Sarah
But if you like Murdoch, you don't care about any of you love or you love him.

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Mark
So charming. Yeah.

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Sarah
It's really.

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Mark
It is extremely.

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Sarah
Charming. So I just I just thought that it was funny that he was he supposed to strike a ponderous pose and paced slowly, not doing much of anything? Yes, that is what Murdoch is supposed to do sometimes. But by and large, this first episode is quintessentially Murdoch. There are some things that get improved in terms of production value and stuff as we go forward in seasons.

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Sarah
They didn't have a great big budget for this first season and you can sort of tell it in places, but I don't think it hurts it at all, except I kind of want to just go back up. Can you just back up? Oh, we'll get from everybody.

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Mark
Just get their back up a little.

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Sarah
Bit, otherwise it's perfect.

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Mark
This was originally broadcast on Citi TV, which at this point in time is is an independent television station in Toronto. It's a different thing now. Yeah, I am of the city TV of Midnight Movies and Mark Daly and all the great stuff from the eighties and nineties. So I love City TV, but I know it's changed. It was originally broadcast on the 20th of January 2008.

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Mark
Yep, seems like a million years ago. And it was directed by Farhad Mohn and written by RB Carney. Now Farr Hardman is our first rabbit hole.

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Sarah
Okay.

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Mark
Because he also directed a life changing television show for me. Uh huh. He directed the first episode of Max Headroom.

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Sarah
Wow. How different is that?

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Mark
So Matt Frewer is Max Headroom.

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Sarah
That's like in the future. And this is so this is in the 1890s.

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Mark
It is a very if you don't know about Max Headroom, go down that rabbit hole. If you don't know about Matt Frewer.

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Sarah
Here is Max Headroom set and do you remember?

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Mark
No, I don't.

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Sarah
After I don't think it's too far away.

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Mark
I don't I don't think it's too far away from where? Yeah, but Sarah made a lovely image that I'll post with this episode of Murdoch kind of dress.

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Sarah
Max said it's Max Headroom.

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Mark
Yes, absolutely. So there is a crossover there. I was kind of stunned. You can't think of two more different shows. He's done a lot of work. He's a very busy dude. He likes television directing. So yeah, and he does a great job.

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Sarah
Well, they did a good job here.

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Mark
Yeah, absolutely. So we have our cold opening, which is sort of television speak for the stuff before the credits. Even though the credits start this episode, they're steampunk. They are not bom.

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Sarah
Bom bom.

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Mark
Bom, not.

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Sarah
Bom bom.

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Mark
It's subtle steampunk like it. I love the theme. I do love.

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Sarah
That. And they keep it. They do. It never changes.

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Mark
And I don't know. But I think it changed at some point. Well, it's a berenstein bear thing with me.

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Sarah
It's the same song. They might rerecord it. Yeah, you're a music guy. You might pick up on that. The rest of us are like, It's the same song.

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Mark
And right off the bat, very first thing you see is something that I've never seen before in this episode.

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Sarah
That you never notice. Yeah, I.

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Mark
Never noticed it. There's a guy juggling Thunderbolt, lightning bolt.

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Sarah
Thunderbolts don't make.

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Mark
That's true. Lightning bolt.

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Sarah
Yeah, because it's one of these All alternating current is evil. Direct current is better exhibitions, which really did happen. They really did electrocute animals, unfortunately, and trying to demonstrate that alternating current was dangerous. And we're at this exhibition and of course they've got some a warm up act and one of them is a juggler and he's juggling lightning bolts.

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Mark
Yes.

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Sarah
Little plastic, metal, wood. I don't know what they are. Lightning bolts, which would be kind of hard to juggle, I think, because they're like.

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Mark
20 and they're off balance. There's no he does a great job.

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Sarah
Yeah, he does. And men, there is no like first episode exposition, no warming you up on who characters are. It's just like, here's Murdoc and Julia. Boom.

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Mark
Well before that, how many people do you think are actually there?

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Sarah
Oh, like 20.

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Mark
There is a crowd shot. I looked very closely.

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Sarah
Of course you did. This is what we do. People. We pause, we we zoom, we take screenshots. Mark reads every bit of text on every newspaper and fire and finds the weirdest stuff that you and I would never, ever notice.

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Mark
I think this is the first CGI in Murdoch Murdoch really.

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Sarah
To be because it's the first episode.

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Mark
If you watch the entire series of Murdoch, it's really the history of CGI because it's gotten better. Yeah, but there's a woman in the crowd that has a white umbrella and there's three versions of So I see you.

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Sarah
Think she's not.

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Mark
Racing. I think they may have doubled a couple of people.

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Sarah
Oh, okay. Okay.

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Mark
And William Murdoch is on the mic right away. Oh, yeah. He's like, I brought a picnic basket.

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Sarah
Oh, picnic basket on his bicycle.

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Mark
He seems to be a little more forward in this episode at the beginning. Yeah. Than he is. Maybe later.

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Sarah
On. Yeah. His character is.

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Mark
So one of the things I looked into was all those things about AC and DC current, but I was interested in the media around that and I found this picture that I'm going to, I'll post it on the show notes and also I make a reel of all the pictures that we have. So if you follow our social media, you can see these pictures or just email me, I'll send you the picture.

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Mark
But it is a a alternating current and alternating current sign and it has a light bulb spider with a skull for a head and a light bulb as a body. That's terrifying with thousands of legs all over. It has a cowboy wrapped up in the wires. There's a dead horse in the background. It's chilling. A mom, a cop is running away.

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Mark
This is just her being image of of electricity.

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Sarah
That's all you knew about alternating current. You would certainly not want it in your house.

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Mark
But that that spider.

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Sarah
Do you want that electric spider in here?

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Mark
Oh, with the electric light body in the skull head. It's really disturbing.

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Sarah
And that's all Edison, right? Yeah, because that's a big PR push from Edison. Yeah. Trying to to, you know, to promote direct current, which was his thing, where he was making all of this money and all this stuff. It's it's a really it's a it's a fascinating time in history, if you want to know more about it. There's tons of stuff out there about it.

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Mark
I will point out.

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Sarah
This is a little snapshot of the debate that was going on.

00;17;11;10 - 00;17;21;24
Mark
I will point out this is a Canadian show. So immediately, if you're American, your source right away, sorry, it's just any of those.

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Sarah
Americans there, you know.

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Mark
Us right away.

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Sarah
They're conniving and sneaky and money hungry.

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Mark
And if you're an American watching the show, you if you can't get over that, this is not going to be a fun show.

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Sarah
We are always baddies in in Murdoch. Yeah, that's okay. Yeah, it's okay.

00;17;40;08 - 00;17;57;13
Mark
So the Toronto Electric Light Company actually was created in 1882, so there was an actual light company like that and one of the characters were introduced to right away is Miss Toronto Electric Light Company. I don't believe there was ever such a person.

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Sarah
Well, and she's just the guy who runs it. Secretary Yeah, I don't think there was actually a competition. There wasn't a pageant to choose her. I think they just picked her immediately.

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Mark
We're right into it, though, because Miss Toronto Light and Power does not make it.

00;18;13;28 - 00;18;20;25
Sarah
No, I mean, they're going to Electrocuted Dog. Yeah, right. So of course, we get Edna with her sassy sides.

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Mark
Did you see our fans see their signs?

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Sarah
Their signs are a little bit too nice as far as I'm concerned. They're very uniform. Yeah, but. But she's there to to try to save the dog. They put the dog in a cage and they're supposed to pass current through it. Why do they make miss power in light? Flip the switch. It seems a cruel thing to do here, Beauty pageant lady.

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Sarah
You kill the dog in front of all these people. Oh, what an honor. Shame. No, I wouldn't have to do that.

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Mark
We know later on why it happens. Yeah, but, yeah, it's definitely.

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Sarah
It doesn't seem like much of an honor. No, like, didn't cradle the dead dog in front of the crowd, you know, give it a little. I mean, like, they just. It's a bad idea.

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Mark
It's a bad idea. And what they do really well here is not hurt the dog in any way, Right? So you get a tone for the show right away.

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Sarah
Yeah. You know that super bad things don't happen to people. The people don't care about.

00;19;17;11 - 00;19;29;23
Mark
Toronto Humane Society existed at this point. It started by a journalist. It's it's an actual thing. These people would have actually been there and been real and would have protested this. Yes. Then our boss shows up.

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Sarah
Back and read.

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Mark
And.

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Sarah
Read. Yeah. So then back and read shows up and again just thunders into the scene like there's no here comes our boss. Inspector Brock can read and just here he is being broken, right? Yep. And that's who he is all the time.

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Mark
So he's from British?

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Sarah
Yes. Sheffield.

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Mark
So now for shorthand for Canadian shows, British people are slightly paunchy and full of themselves. Not boisterous, not.

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Sarah
Better than us Canadians. Yeah, they think they are.

00;20;00;14 - 00;20;01;18
Mark
Better than us. Canadian.

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Sarah
Okay, Yeah, but. But he's very down to earth. He's all right.

00;20;05;07 - 00;20;11;09
Mark
And this is really the first example of the close shooting.

00;20;11;09 - 00;20;20;12
Sarah
They just back up a foot or so. Like we don't need to see in your ear. You don't need to see in Murdoch's ear.

00;20;20;12 - 00;20;33;14
Mark
Well, I think I think we can forgive them. I think they were trying to figure all of this out. And it's very tough to show to film a show in modern day that is so far in the past.

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Sarah
Yes. Without accidentally having something in the background. Right. So should we assume, you know, more about filming than I do? Should we assume that the reason why some of the scenes are very closely shot is because the sets just aren't quite as good as they'd like them to be? So they're trying to just focus on the actors or.

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Mark
They they want to focus on the actors and they don't want to like maybe the sets are not finished or complete or dressed in a way that they.

00;21;02;07 - 00;21;06;09
Sarah
Like, but like at least back up enough to see the top of the actor's head.

00;21;07;00 - 00;21;19;01
Mark
It's a reminder. There's a movie called Son of Saul, which is very disturbing, depressing movie about the Holocaust, which is shot like this, where it works perfectly.

00;21;19;01 - 00;21;23;15
Sarah
Yeah, because it's done for a purpose, but you just want to keep going. Can you just back up?

00;21;23;15 - 00;21;26;05
Mark
Can you back up, back up, back up a little bit.

00;21;26;09 - 00;21;30;18
Sarah
So we get to the police station. Yes. Which is jam packed of no spitting.

00;21;30;18 - 00;21;35;01
Mark
Sighs. Yes, there are a lot of no spitting signs and there are a lot of no tended to them.

00;21;35;09 - 00;21;38;22
Sarah
Yeah. The desk sergeant is constantly giving them notes.

00;21;38;26 - 00;21;43;23
Mark
I would have so written goofs on those notes to make the actors. Wow.

00;21;43;27 - 00;21;45;04
Sarah
What would you have written on them?

00;21;45;05 - 00;21;52;07
Mark
Oh, all sorts of things like Julia loves you or I think you like Julia Ex. Yes or no?

00;21;52;14 - 00;21;57;07
Sarah
I think I would have written either your fries and done or you got something in your nose.

00;21;57;07 - 00;22;08;10
Mark
Friggin Julia. Did you notice? You really notice here because you don't see back in Reid's office. But Jeff Murdoch has a giant office.

00;22;08;10 - 00;22;09;04
Sarah
Yeah, he does.

00;22;09;04 - 00;22;13;23
Mark
And he's so messy in this episode. Later on he cleans it up and.

00;22;13;29 - 00;22;14;27
Sarah
He's much tidier.

00;22;15;08 - 00;22;22;15
Mark
We got to warn you, I'm a little messy phobic about certain things, but that office is dangerously messy.

00;22;22;16 - 00;22;45;17
Sarah
Yes, It's like things hold up to batteries and stuff that are just laying around. I love the overall design of the police ation through the whole the whole series. I mean, it's just guys, do they have enough glass that you can kind of see the hustle and bustle in the back? And yet Murdoch has this awesome office where he's like, I guess he just spends his free time when there are no crimes, inventing things and tinkering with things for reasons.

00;22;45;17 - 00;22;46;10
Mark
Extra time.

00;22;46;10 - 00;22;49;22
Sarah
I guess, never goes home. I don't know. Of course.

00;22;49;29 - 00;22;56;22
Mark
Time is weird in this episode. Yeah, I don't want to. I don't want to be Debbie Downer, but there is some weirdness in the nighttime part.

00;22;57;20 - 00;23;07;23
Sarah
And like any cozy, they don't they don't worry about details of how things are done. It's just like that happened and here's the result. Yeah, I'm grateful for that. I'm just like, Move it along, move it along. You know.

00;23;07;24 - 00;23;45;27
Mark
I asked George to talk to the people at the shooter's street station. I couldn't find an example of the shooter Street station, which is unfortunate, but it did find out this incredibly weird, interesting thing that Toronto Toronto's high power system was purchased by the government in the thirties like it was part of a nationalization of provincial ization of all right it and what they did in the early years of Toronto this is like thirties, forties and fifties is they would have power stations and have houses in front of them.

00;23;46;16 - 00;23;47;15
Sarah
To hide them, to.

00;23;47;15 - 00;24;00;10
Mark
Hide them. And there's some really good pictures that I have. They'll post on our our show notes of like the front of the house and then it shows the back of the house with this giant power station in the house.

00;24;00;11 - 00;24;19;19
Sarah
Well, you have to remember when they were using direct current, one of the downsides of direct current was they had to have a power station like every quarter mile. Yeah, that's one of the reasons why it was impractical. So they had to knock down buildings to put power stations in and people got upset about it. So then you had to at least disguise it as something, right?

00;24;19;24 - 00;24;35;00
Sarah
Until you get DC, you get AC, DC current, you get alternating current and then you can, you can send electricity much, much further. So you don't need that all the time. Yeah. So we get to go. Next we get Murdoch volunteers, you know of course to go to Tesla.

00;24;35;06 - 00;24;36;29
Mark
Because he knows Tesla on site.

00;24;37;04 - 00;24;50;26
Sarah
Because Tesla shows up. Yeah. Just a little side note about Tesla. He wears gloves throughout the whole episode and Nikola Tesla actually did that because he contracted TB when he was younger and became kind of a germaphobe. And so he wore the gloves.

00;24;50;26 - 00;24;59;05
Mark
Like that review. It does a really good job of characterizing Tesla as an interesting, practical, pragmatic person.

00;24;59;05 - 00;24;59;25
Sarah
Yeah, that.

00;24;59;29 - 00;25;00;15
Mark
Isn't.

00;25;00;15 - 00;25;05;09
Sarah
Crazy. Who's was a little quirky only because he's so smart and excited about stuff.

00;25;05;10 - 00;25;07;18
Mark
He's he's very excited about things.

00;25;07;18 - 00;25;25;06
Sarah
I just, out of curiosity, checked. Tesla was in Canada around the time he emigrated to the United States in 1884 and hooked up with Westinghouse pretty much immediately and started working on the first hydroelectric generator and then, of course, was working at Niagara.

00;25;25;16 - 00;25;47;13
Mark
So for our American listeners who don't know the geography here, Niagara is about 90 miles, 80 to 90 miles away from Toronto. So at this point in time, a train would have gone maximum 45 miles an hour. So they would have taken about 2 hours to get to to Niagara and back, which is totally doable by train at this time.

00;25;47;16 - 00;25;50;08
Sarah
I have in my notes I am a moron.

00;25;50;09 - 00;25;51;21
Mark
Oh, okay. Why? Why?

00;25;51;21 - 00;26;02;14
Sarah
And then the word Niagara spelled out in about 25 point fine, because as long as I've lived, I didn't know that there was an extra syllable in Niagara.

00;26;02;14 - 00;26;03;29
Mark
What did you think it was?

00;26;04;01 - 00;26;09;01
Sarah
It's Niagara. No, it's Niagara. Yeah, right.

00;26;09;04 - 00;26;09;24
Mark
Yeah. It's not.

00;26;09;27 - 00;26;15;16
Sarah
American. Say Niagara. Gray at the end by the way are a Niagara.

00;26;15;16 - 00;26;17;15
Mark
We have visited before.

00;26;17;22 - 00;26;21;09
Sarah
I've been there and I didn't notice it was Niagara.

00;26;21;15 - 00;26;26;03
Mark
A do yourself a favor and look at that power station. It's gorgeous.

00;26;26;03 - 00;26;26;25
Sarah
It's incredible.

00;26;26;25 - 00;26;28;07
Mark
Yeah, absolutely gorgeous.

00;26;28;14 - 00;26;37;12
Sarah
Just I've been saying Niagara my whole life. And then I went to look it up and it said, Do you mean Niagara? And I was like, Hmm, yes.

00;26;37;18 - 00;26;40;25
Mark
Yes, I realize.

00;26;41;03 - 00;26;53;26
Sarah
Oh, I guess I've been saying it wrong my whole life. And in test car. So we get the really close up like back up a little bit camera thing and then any time we're in Tesla's workshop, we got to be spinning.

00;26;53;26 - 00;26;54;21
Mark
We're spinning.

00;26;54;23 - 00;26;55;15
Sarah
Around and.

00;26;55;15 - 00;26;56;21
Mark
Around and around.

00;26;57;04 - 00;27;01;09
Sarah
Like so much so that watching it this time, I almost felt a little sick. It's.

00;27;01;13 - 00;27;01;22
Mark
It's.

00;27;01;22 - 00;27;04;03
Sarah
And you just stop going around and around.

00;27;04;03 - 00;27;10;14
Mark
Not this first time in the lab, but the second and third time it's like you're on a tilt a whirl.

00;27;10;15 - 00;27;21;20
Sarah
They they've put a track around around this little arena that that Tesla has built. And the cameraman is just jogging, jogging, jogging with the camera, jogging, jogging around that track.

00;27;21;26 - 00;27;22;00
Mark
Yeah.

00;27;22;02 - 00;27;24;03
Sarah
It's like stand.

00;27;24;17 - 00;27;34;07
Mark
Up. And the characters are moving in different ways, too. And it gets a little. But did you notice in the station that there is a duck faced hand?

00;27;34;07 - 00;27;38;07
Sarah
TAPPER Only because you show it to me.

00;27;38;07 - 00;27;39;25
Mark
So on the desk.

00;27;39;29 - 00;27;43;12
Sarah
We're obsessed with background artists or extras.

00;27;43;25 - 00;27;54;27
Mark
On the desk. When George and Murdoch are talking way too close, George goes around and Murdoch go around behind the front desk and they pass this guy who's a short.

00;27;54;27 - 00;27;56;27
Sarah
Guy, he's an impatient little man and.

00;27;56;27 - 00;28;05;17
Mark
He's tapping his fingers on the side of the on the top of the desk. And boy, does he have a duck face. He's got that. Well, he's.

00;28;06;18 - 00;28;09;12
Sarah
He's a little disgruntled man and he wants some attention from.

00;28;09;12 - 00;28;10;17
Mark
Some of the attention.

00;28;10;19 - 00;28;11;24
Sarah
Nobody's paying attention to.

00;28;11;24 - 00;28;21;24
Mark
Me, George. Are you sweet on this girl? Okay, we're going to give you a spoiler here through the entirety of this series. If anyone asks George if you're sweet on this girl, the answer is yes.

00;28;21;25 - 00;28;24;15
Sarah
Yes. If George meets a girl, he's sweet on her.

00;28;24;15 - 00;28;26;10
Mark
By the way, George, so much.

00;28;26;11 - 00;28;30;10
Sarah
Speaking of sweet, I love how star struck Murdoch is for Tesla.

00;28;30;10 - 00;28;31;09
Mark
Oh, yeah.

00;28;32;27 - 00;28;56;11
Sarah
Yannick Bisson has these eyelashes. Yeah. Yeah. He's. I wish I had his eyelashes, and he uses them to full effect with these little bling bling bling. Oh, Nikola Tesla. Bling bling, bling, bling bling. And that's just. That's the Murdoch thing. I've just met one of my heroes. Bling. Bling. Bling. Bling bling. Yep. I'm going to be starstruck. He has nerd crushes on all kinds of people.

00;28;56;11 - 00;28;57;09
Mark
Yes, he does.

00;28;57;18 - 00;28;58;26
Sarah
This first one.

00;28;59;02 - 00;29;04;06
Mark
Do you know what this episode needs? An incredibly fast zoom on it, Gold says.

00;29;04;12 - 00;29;09;16
Sarah
Oh, my gosh. The coroner's office is another amazing set. Yeah, the white tile.

00;29;09;16 - 00;29;10;02
Mark
Beautiful.

00;29;10;21 - 00;29;24;03
Sarah
The way that you step down into it. And Julia's office is up above it with the windows. I love it. I love how it's designed. It's great. At least in this scene. She's there in the daytime setting. A lot of times it's night.

00;29;24;10 - 00;29;27;13
Mark
So I noticed how little Julie is in this episode.

00;29;27;13 - 00;29;27;27
Sarah
Yeah.

00;29;28;00 - 00;29;31;18
Mark
Now, if you watch the movies, the actress.

00;29;31;22 - 00;29;32;16
Sarah
Colleen Joy.

00;29;32;17 - 00;29;37;29
Mark
Helene Joy is in those movies, but she does not play Julia.

00;29;38;00 - 00;29;40;14
Sarah
Right? She plays a prostitute. Really?

00;29;40;14 - 00;29;42;19
Mark
No, she plays a really rich woman.

00;29;42;19 - 00;29;44;18
Sarah
Oh, that's right, That's right. I'm getting confused.

00;29;44;18 - 00;29;57;21
Mark
Yeah, And but I love Julia. She's fantastic. And I love how she is unabashedly gross and interesting and, like, is like, pulling guts out and blood.

00;29;57;21 - 00;30;05;23
Sarah
And also, my gosh, that's one of the things that just drives home that this is set in the 1890s. They don't have any rubber gloves.

00;30;05;23 - 00;30;06;06
Mark
No.

00;30;06;14 - 00;30;19;02
Sarah
And she wears these like white blouses and where's this apron? And like there's just blood everywhere. I like that. But it's not strange. No, it's never, never.

00;30;19;06 - 00;30;19;15
Mark
Never.

00;30;19;18 - 00;30;38;20
Sarah
Gory. It's just factual. You know that as a coroner, she would have had to, you know, look at bodies very closely and do autopsies. And they didn't know a lot about germs yet. And they didn't have the rubber gloves yet. And it's just like, woman, go wash your hands again.

00;30;38;29 - 00;30;44;12
Mark
Now, would you think that a woman could be coroner in Toronto at this time?

00;30;45;14 - 00;31;10;04
Sarah
Julia is supposed to be the exception. She's the she's the at the forefront of women in medicine in Canada. Yes. And that's a plot that we see in other episodes later, I think. And I don't know this for sure, but I think in the original books, the inspiration for Julia comes from an actual doctor, a real woman. Her name was Emily Howard Stowe.

00;31;10;04 - 00;31;10;23
Sarah
Do you know about her?

00;31;10;23 - 00;31;11;15
Mark
No, I don't.

00;31;11;22 - 00;31;38;22
Sarah
So she was born in 1830 and she's the first woman to graduate from medical school in Canada. Okay, so she's the first practicing doctor in Canada, but she also and this is relevant to later seasons, was the founder of the Canadian Women's Suffrage movement. Oh, excellent. And again, relevant later on, she was tried for performing an abortion in the 1870s in Canada, and that was a really like watershed trial, too.

00;31;38;23 - 00;31;42;05
Sarah
So I think Julia's loosely based on Emily Howard.

00;31;42;08 - 00;31;43;00
Mark
I think that.

00;31;43;04 - 00;31;45;02
Sarah
Who is an amazing woman.

00;31;45;02 - 00;31;47;02
Mark
Certainly she would have known about her.

00;31;47;09 - 00;32;02;21
Sarah
Yes, yes, agreed. My notes also say super goldfish zoomed. It's funny because I have confirmed that at this time, just up the road from us was the largest goldfish farm in the United States.

00;32;02;21 - 00;32;04;12
Mark
Actual fish may have come.

00;32;04;24 - 00;32;12;27
Sarah
In in the 1890s. It may have come from a goldfish farm that is just up the road from us in Indiana, which is in Turkey. Thank you.

00;32;13;05 - 00;32;14;22
Mark
Absolutely fantastic.

00;32;14;24 - 00;32;25;03
Sarah
So Julia says that Alice, the pageant queen who was electrocuted, was five weeks pregnant. So now we've got a twist. Yes. Who was the father is a big motive, right?

00;32;25;09 - 00;32;28;15
Mark
I'm British, so I'm going to do a guy Fox joke.

00;32;28;15 - 00;32;30;01
Sarah
Ha ha ha ha. Yeah.

00;32;30;22 - 00;32;33;05
Mark
Alice wasn't shy. Clearly not.

00;32;33;09 - 00;32;33;29
Sarah
Yeah.

00;32;34;08 - 00;32;41;29
Mark
There's some how George and his girlfriend interact is a little bit anachronistic here. Oh.

00;32;42;09 - 00;32;52;02
Sarah
Oh, my gosh. Him going into her room after dark. Yeah. They're married now. Yeah. Basically, like, congratulations. You're married and can we talk about Pratt?

00;32;52;18 - 00;32;57;25
Mark
Okay, so Pratt is the guy who runs the electric company.

00;32;58;01 - 00;33;01;11
Sarah
Who? How Miss Howard was having an affair with.

00;33;01;12 - 00;33;10;20
Mark
Now, we've said many times about midsummer that there is a small group of actors in England. Yes, because there are many reoccurring actors.

00;33;10;24 - 00;33;13;10
Sarah
Playing different characters in different episodes.

00;33;13;10 - 00;33;16;17
Mark
We will see this particular actor in the future.

00;33;16;20 - 00;33;23;07
Sarah
Yes, he's Pratt. Thing is, he's eating oranges all the time. Yeah, he is. Do you know why he's eating oranges all the time?

00;33;23;14 - 00;33;25;24
Mark
Because it shows that he is Richie Rich.

00;33;25;28 - 00;33;27;24
Sarah
Mm hmm. Yeah, kind of.

00;33;27;25 - 00;33;29;12
Mark
Because they're from Florida.

00;33;29;13 - 00;33;30;29
Sarah
No, they're not.

00;33;30;29 - 00;33;31;18
Mark
Oh.

00;33;31;28 - 00;33;34;12
Sarah
Oh, I know something you don't know.

00;33;34;12 - 00;33;37;15
Mark
He's wrong. No, because he says they're from Florida.

00;33;37;15 - 00;33;45;01
Sarah
They may have been from Florida, but that's not the most important thing about oranges in the 1890s in Canada.

00;33;45;01 - 01;03;07;10
Mark
What is the most important thing about oranges in.