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Finding the set of the TV series Murdoch Mysteries is something of a mystery itself. We may only be 50 kilometres outside Vancouver but it might as well be a million miles. Moments ago we were on a highway; we are deep in the mire of a flooded, muddy track, with only a couple of uninterested horses for company.

Once we do arrive on the set, executive producer Cal Coons riffs off the monsoon-like

conditions ripping outside. "We tend to be a sunny show," he chortles. "We rarely see

rain, so this is really. . . ." He casts about for a suitable

adjective, before going with "atmospheric."

Starring Yannick Bisson as the eponymous hero, Detective William Murdoch, the first season of Murdoch Mysteries garnered two Gemini awards and 14 nominations. Originally set and shot in Toronto, the show made the trek across the country to film two episodes out West for the second season - a prerequisite in order for production company, Shaftesbury, to receive all of its funding.

"Ideally, if you had the resources, you'd travel all over, anyway," says Coons.

The bicoastal filming arrangements were instituted as a result of CTV buying CHUM in 2007, he explains. "The funding structure changed," says Coons. "We lost some money because of it and then found we could replace it with some western funding - with a stipulation that a percentage of the show would be shot out here." It was a challenge Coons says he relished - although as Murdoch is set in Toronto in the 1890s, he had to find a good creative reason for the characters to also undertake such a lengthy cross-country journey. "Luckily," he notes, "the show uses flashbacks, so for one episode, we relied on that as a device."

That plot involves the discovery of a body in the jaws of a T-Rex skeleton. Because the murder took place in Drumheller, Alta., the show could film flashbacks in Alberta without Murdoch himself having to make the trip. (Saddled with a modest budget of just over $1-million an episode, Coons says keeping within in it is "a grind.")

That left just one epic journey across Canada for the intrepid Victorian detective to embark upon. Meeting up with his estranged father (Steven McHattie) seemed to be something a man of upstanding morals and a strong sense of religion and duty, like Murdoch, might do. But Coons still needed a frame on which to hang a plot.

With no budget to build a set, Shaftesbury started looking for something already standing that they could rework. The 20-year-old remains of the TV show Bordertown, built to represent an 1880 hamlet, fit the bill.

Which is where we now find ourselves: tip-toeing across the buckled, creaking floors of one of the rickety house structures, hoping not to crash through the rotting wood into the basement.

"The place is unsafe," hoots Coons. "Just look at it!" Indeed. And not only that, what looks like quite a lot of gunpowder is being spooned into a tin above one of the building's doors.

"It's going to be all guns blazing," whispers an actor bedecked in motley Wild West attire for his role as "Accidental Al."

"I had to use the place as it stands," says Coons. "It would cost a fortune to re-dress it."

So, inspired by the Bre-X mining fraud of the 1990s, Coons decided they should construct the episode around a scam - and an ambush. "The plot was very much carved to the specifications of what we had here," he shrugs.

If he's pragmatic about the budget limitations and proud of how he managers them, he's also surprisingly candid about the show, and its overall strategy.

"When we started, we weren't worried about finding an audience," he recalls. "You put the word 'mystery' in the title and your audience is built in. The challenge is whether you can attract beyond that."

After establishing a whimsical tone in the first season, Coons decided to push the quirkiness in Season 2: "I thought maybe we could do something more outlandish on that score and also, spend some time fleshing out the characters a bit more.

"The mystery still drives it," he adds quickly, as Accidental Al comes bursting through the double doors, all guns definitely blazing. "It's not The Sopranos, after all."

He says he likes the idea of shows where it's all about delivering a compelling yarn, week after week. "Delivering a good story is something of a lost art," he says with a sigh. "A story where you reveal and develop characters through plot. . . . The problem is that it can always feel slight." He shrugs again. "It's kind of like a Diet Coke."

Murdoch Mysteries starts

tomorrow at 10 p.m. ET

on CITY-TV.

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