Houdini and Doyle Fails to Amaze as a Supernatural Crime Procedural

Houdini and Doyle is a supernatural crime procedural much like that of X-Files or Fringe. The main difference is that the series takes place in 1901 around the lives of Harry Houdini, the great magician and escape artist, and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, the author of many great literary works that include the Sherlock Holmes stories. They have to work together as freelance detectives to investigate supernatural occurrences.

I researched the life of Houdini and Doyle after the show and found that not only did they meet multiple times during their lives, but they were also friends. The focus of their friendship was even discussing the supernatural and spiritualists. Doyle was a known devote believer in the supernatural and Houdini was complete against the notion and even spent his life outing many 1900s spiritualists as frauds.

On the surface the series seems like it would offer something interesting. So if the series appears to be a home run, where did it go wrong? Well, quite simply the blame is almost entirely on the characters and writing. Houdini and Doyle are both boring and don't have any chemistry together. They attempt to have witty batter, but it always falls flat and doesn't add any humor to the story.

The next thing that I felt was out of place was their police liaison. Constable Adelaide Stratton is a female policeman that is striving to fight through the male dominated police force to simply be respected. It is honestly a boring story line that is completely out of place for the time period. If the setting was any time after the 50s it would feel a little more likely, but throwing in a female character just to appeal to the female demographic seems lazy and unneeded.

If you are able to get through the boring dialog, lazy characters, and unneeded plot points, you will finally make it to the big reveal at the end of episode. Was it a ghost, was it a trick, who really committed the crime, and will they do the time? The answer to those questions in Episode One proved to be completely and utterly stupid. I hoping for a Scooby-Doo or Doctor Who like reveal where Houdini and Doyle proclaim with excitement and enthusiasm what was really going on the whole time. Instead it was, just like the rest of the show lazy, boring and didn't make any sense whatsoever.

I had high hopes for Houdini and Doyle. In my younger days I spent much of my time reading biographies on the great life of Harry Houdini. So intertwining his life with the author of Sherlock Holmes in a whodunit would seem perfect. Instead it ended up to just be a lazy, thrown together mess with not enough pay off to warrant the 45 minutes I had to waste to sit through it.

Grade:

Don't Bother
But if you are still interested, Houdini and Doyle airs on Fridays 9/8c on Fox and past episodes are available on Hulu.