‘Houdini and Doyle’, TV Series Pairs Harry Houdini & Sir Arthur Conan Doyle as Paranormal Investigators

Deadline recently reported that FOX has picked up Houdini and Doyle, a brand new period drama that pairs the great illusionist Harry Houdini and the legendary Sir Arthur Conan Doyle together to investigate supernatural mysteries of their own time. The 10-episode series was developed by Sony Pictures and created by David Titcher with director David Shore at the helm. The show will also be available in Canada via Shaw Media and the UK through ITV.

In Houdini And Doyle, two of the great characters of the 20th century — Houdini, master magician, escape artist and paranormal debunker, and Doyle, creator of the world’s greatest detective and a paranormal aficionado — grudgingly join forces to investigate crimes with a supernatural slant. Although they’re both rich, famous and brilliant, they’re the original odd couple, with Houdini believing in nothing, Doyle in everything.

History proves that the two great men were close friends at one time, although their differing spiritual beliefs caused an irreparable split between the two.

For a few years, magician Harry Houdini and British writer Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, creator of the Sherlock Holmes stories, were friends. One was an arch-skeptic (Houdini), while the other was a true believer in Spiritualism (Doyle). Possibly hoping to show Doyle how easy it is to be fooled by mediums, Houdini once gave his friend an extraordinary demonstration, in his own home, in the presence of Bernard M.L. Ernst, Houdini’s friend and lawyer. …“Sir Arthur,” remembered Ernst, “came to the conclusion that Houdini really accomplished the feat by psychic aid, and could not be persuaded otherwise.” Doyle’s reaction, and the refusal to consider trickery even when admitted by the trickster, was so typical, noted Houdini, that “here is little wonder in his believing in Spiritualism so implicitly.”

image via Deadline

via Deadline