Watching – The Doctor Blake Mysteries

I stumbled upon this while looking for background noise and so far, enjoying it well enough through seasons 2 – 4 (haven’t gotten to season 5 yet and season 1 wasn’t carried as part of the streaming service I’m using).

TLDR: Standard formula of TV murder mysteries, enough clues for the viewer, a sadness haunts the various characters but not heavy or gritty.

The Pitch:

Doctor Lucien Blake has returned to his hometown of Ballarat in Australia after several decades spent abroad. He’s taking over for his late father’s practice as well as a role as the police surgeon. It’s a mystery of the week but with some overarching plotlines like the fate of his family, the conflict between him and an influential family, and the struggles of the rest of the cast.

It’s the late 1950s so a time of social change but also an interesting point in police science. There is some science being applied like blood typing, matching weapons to injuries, and toxicology results, but it’s not the high tech science that became the cornerstone of far too many 1990 – 2020 shows with computer enhancement and unrealistic quickie lab results (CSI – much as I loved you bringing forensic science back to the forefront, how I loathe the presentation of the sciences you muddied). There’s logic, deduction, and walking through how the murder happened, as any good mystery doctor should perform.

The Usual Cast:

• Dr. Lucien Blake: Doctor, former soldier, still haunted by the memories of the wife and daughter he was separated from in the chaos during the Battle of Singapore and the death of his mother (as the series goes on, we get some resolution on these from what I’ve seen).
• Mrs. Jean Beazley: Widow, housekeeper of the Blake household since Blake senior. She’s often the sounding board for Blake as he pieces together the mystery in the kitchen with place settings etc. She serves as a foil for Blake and others and isn’t afraid to push back when challenged.
• Chief Superintendent of the Season: They go through a couple, and each one has a distinct style to their leadership and their interaction with Blake, usually slightly antagonistic to begin with but often seeing the value in Blake’s insight.
• Constable of the Season: It’s Daniel Parks for the first season, then Charlie Davis for the ones I’ve seen so far. Another sounding board for Blake to work out his theories with and usually working with him during an investigation.
• Matilda “Mattie” O’Brien: The young lady lodger of Blake’s, a nurse and a very modern lady in her outlook on life.
• Dr. Alice Harvey: Pathology registrar (introduced in season 2) works alongside Blake in the morgue. She’s intelligent, observant, doesn’t connect well with others and sometimes comes off as quirky, but her observations are valued by Blake. Honestly, I’d probably watch a spin off series featuring her.

Downbeats

In looking for details about the series, it came to my attention that the actor for Blake came under fire with accusations of misconduct and sexual harassment in other productions (a stage production of Rocky Horror Picture Show in particular). As of the time of this post, no charges have stuck and he’s considered cleared of most of them. Still, it leaves some ick just for the number of accusations that have come up within a short period of time. It’s likely that even though the producers of the Doctor Blake Mysteries considered him cleared, the show still ended shortly after those first trials and a sequel series featured the name Blake but not the Doctor himself.