As a literature nerd, my heart always skips a beat when one of my favourite tv shows ‘does’ Shakespeare; I will happily spend hours chasing down the references, going from one rabbit hole to the next. But don’t worry if the works of The Bard are not as you like it: writer Maureen Jennings has also filled this episode to the brim with assorted Murdochian delights. Like Shakespeare’s beard, this episode possesses magical powers that will transport you to a different world of words, storytelling, and performance.

Oh boy, Peter Mitchell has done it now! Murdoch Mysteries "fans" complaining about the wokeness of the show will likely have a meltdown over this instalment, which confronts bigotry and discrimination in all its forms and proves that you need to play with a full deck of cards if you want to win the game. I was gripped from the start by this episode, which reminded me of how Star Trek's Gene Roddenberry used to address current social and political issues by setting stories in a different era.

As great as last week’s episode, The Wrong Man, was, it did little to lift the audience’s spirits. Fortunately, we can always count on Murdoch Mysteries to follow a gloomy episode with some brightness, both figurative and literal. A Murder Most Convenient is funny and entertaining—sunny and colourful. It makes for an enjoyable hour of television, where even the crime is committed out of love—albeit the murderous kind.