The Great White Moose

"The Great White Moose"
Season	11
Episode	14
Airdate	February 5, 2018
Writer	Paul Aitken and Graham Clegg
Director	Leslie Hope
Guests	Martin Moreau as Theodore Roosevelt
Recurring	Peter Keleghan as Terrence Meyers Matthew Bennett as Allen Clegg
Previous	Crabtree à la Carte
Next	Murdoch Schmurdoch

“The Great White Moose” is the fourteenth episode of the eleventh season of the Murdoch Mysteries and the one hundred sixty-fourth of the series. It first aired on February 5, 2018.

Summary

When Theodore Roosevelt sneaks into Canada for a hunting trip, Murdoch discovers the American President is the quarry.

Somebody's requesting that Murdoch and Dr. Ogden meet them at the Queen's Hotel, room 208, – to a scene of a crime. Terence Meyers is back! Murdoch and team delve into the underbelly of government operatives and National (“bloody”) Security one more time when an agent for Spanish Intelligence is found electrocuted to death. Meyers wants Murdoch to find out who killed him and why. Meyers suspects an assassin called 'El Noche' but as usual Meyer’s information is not forthcoming.

Murdoch must disseminate what is real versus what is not and how much danger everyone is in, including President Theodore Roosevelt.

Character Revelations

• Theodore Roosevelt and Clegg met at Harvard as students and, when Roosevelt was Secretary of the Navy, Clegg was a covert operative.
• Brackenreid tells Crabtree, "When Margaret was expecting Bobby, the sight of blood would send her into a fit." George asks him if he is suggesting Dr. Ogden is with child. "Bloody hell, Crabtree! I'm saying women are unpredictable."

Continuity

• William and Julia, after agreeing on the name of a girl child, argue over the naming of their child if a boy.
• Julia references saving William's life twice (noteably ep. 701), while William can't recall saving anyone's life.
• Theodore Roosevelt returns and is in danger again; last time was in Murdoch Takes Manhattan.
• Murdoch and Dr. Ogden return to the Queen's Hotel once again, this time to a murder scene.
• Crabtree's imagination runs wild when he deduces how a murder victim was killed.
• A new Murdochian technology is introduced, the Bolograph.

Historical References

• Crane Lake is located in central Ontario, Canada approximately 15 kilometers (10 miles) south of the town of Parry Sound just east of Georgian Bay. It is the last in a series of lakes that flow down the Blackstone River into Georgian Bay.
• The War of 1812 (1812–1815) was a conflict fought between the United States, the United Kingdom, and their respective allies. British historians often consider it as a minor theatre of the Napoleonic Wars. While Canadian militia units had played instrumental roles in several engagements, such as at the Battle of the Chateauguay, it was the regular units of the British Army which ensured that Canada was successfully defended against several attempts to invade Canada by the United States.
• USS Maine, launched in 1889 as an armored cruiser, whose sinking by an explosion on 15 February 1898  precipitated the Spanish–American War.
• The Battle of San Juan Hill (July 1, 1898) was a decisive battle of the Spanish–American War. It was also the location of the greatest victory for the Rough Riders, as reported  by the press and its new commander, Theodore Roosevelt, who eventually become, first, vice-president, and then U.S. president, and who was posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor in 2001 for his actions in Cuba.
• The rare and elusive white (piebald) moose has been sighted (and video captured) most recently in Newfoundland and Sweden.

Trivia

• After this episode (first) aired, Murdoch Mysteries went on a three-week hiatus during the Winter Olympics, returning to CBC on February 26, 2018.
• Peter Keleghan shared that "There’s certain grounded-ness with Murdoch and a certain loftiness with Meyers that make a good combination to play off one another."
• MM Writer Graham Clegg and Paul Aitken drew from films The Day of the Jackal, For Your Eyes Only and Predator (technology). Paul Aitken likens the relationship between Meyers and Clegg to the sheepdog and coyote, Frank and Ralph. The character Allen Clegg was named after writer Graham Clegg.
• Terrence Meyers’ pseudonym ‘Guillermo Burgos’, for the authoring Clegg's story, is MM writer Graham Clegg’s homage to film director Guillermo de Oliveira of the documentary Sad Hill Unearth following The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (1966) film fans working to restore the set of its climatic graveyard scene (of 5000 graves) in Burgos, Spain.

Cast

Main Cast

Yannick Bisson as Detective William Murdoch
Hélène Joy as Dr. Julia Ogden
Thomas Craig as Inspector Thomas Brackenreid
Jonny Harris as Constable George Crabtree

Recurring Cast

Peter Keleghan as Terrence Meyers
Lachlan Murdoch as Constable Henry Higgins
Martin Moreau as Theodore Roosevelt
Matthew Bennett as Allen Clegg

Guest Cast

Andy Auld as Agent Wilbur Reynolds
Jordan Gray as Agent Victor Palmer
Scott McCulloch as Vagabond
Carlo Essagian as Waiter

Gallery

An assassin leaves a trail of...

clues and ...

victims...

on his path to...

a presidential target.