I love Murdoch Mysteries, until the new lone came out with its incredible episode on alien possession. Totally turned me off. The Frankie Drake ones are not believable, superficial, and hard to understand (no subtitles). The plots are so stupid that I gave my (expensive) dvd away and was glad to get rid of it.

As a long-time fan of Murdoch Mysteries, I was pleased to see another Canadian mystery series. The Frankie Drake series, which starts out in the year 1922, seems to more reflect current sensibilities and so it doesn't feel "real" as a historical series. But, on the other hand, it is full of spirit and liveliness and, what the heck. I know that whether you're talking civil rights or women's rights or workers' rights, there were always true trailblazers who beat the odds long before there were movements.

This is a mystery series, so there are murders, but it is not a gritty in-your-face show. It has lots of humor and dashes of silliness. I have a DVD of Season 1, and on it, the episodes do not have titles. I'll use the titles given on wikipedia for the heck of it. As with "Murdoch Mysteries", real people sometimes make their way into the stories.

A good detective has friends in many places. For Frankie, that includes Trudy Clarke, Frankie's right hand. Then there's Flo, who works in the city morgue and Mary Shaw, a police Morality Officer. Welcome to Toronto, Canada! And wait for it – there's a guest appearance by a favorite character from "Murdoch Mysteries."
...episode 1... "Mother of Pearl" Abe and Nora Amory, from Pittsburgh, PA, are staying at the swanky Crown Ascot Hotel in Toronto. Abe is hosting an important dinner with Canadians he think will enable his company, Armory Steel, to expand into Toronto. The finishing touch on Nora's wardrobe is a necklace of pearls worth $100,000. But when Abe opens the wall safe in their room, the jewelry box is empty, except for the feather of a drake.
A drake feather used to be the calling card of Frankie's father, a con man dead for 10 years, rather like Flambeau's glove in "Father Brown". The police don't believe Frankie had nothing to do with the pearl theft: "The feather doesn't fall far from the drake." Frankie's only option for saving herself and her brand new detective agency is to find the thief herself.
Real Person: Ernest Hemingway, journalist. He really did work for the Toronto Star in the 1920s for a couple years.
...episode 2... "Ladies in Red" Frankie, Trudy and Flo see a man with a stocking over his head moving through a house holding a pistol. They rush into the house (as would anybody) to scare away two bad guys and rescue the tied up family members. Mr. Conroyd hires Frankie to find the criminals.
Real Institution: The Toronto Police Morality Department was in force from 1886 – 1930s, ostensibly formed to counter crimes that especially harmed woman and children (and it actually did some of that).
...episode 3... "Summer in the City" Francis's personal life is center, as her friend and more, Moses Page, prepares to leave for Chicago for a boxing match with Jack Dempsey. But her goodbyes are interrupted when Eric Morrison wins a car in a poker game, only to find a dead man in the trunk.
Real Person: Dempsey doesn't appear in the episode, but he was in his prime in 1922, as World Heavyweight Champion from 1919 to 1926.
Trivia: Lauren Lee Smith, as Frankie, rides a red motorcycle made by Janus Motorcycles, out of Indiana. It's a boutique manufacturer intent on making "simple" bikes that harken back to years like the 1920s.
...episode 4... "Healing Hands" Trudy and her Mom go to church where Elsie Thompson, the pastor's daughter, is a faith healer. In the middle of a session, though, Elsie suddenly gets upset and rushes out. Then she disappears.
...episode 5... "Out of Focus" Film director Mack Sennett is making a movie at a Toronto beach resort. When watching the day's rushes, he notices something odd in the background. He runs a projector for Frankie and Trudy, and in a shaded balcony in the rear of the scene, a man shoots someone with a revolver. Frankie asks, "That's not part of the movie?"
Mack: "If Mack Sennett scripted a murder, it would be lit and it would be hilarious."
Real Person: Mack "Keystone Cops" Sennett was born in Quebec, Canada. He and his family left for NYC in 1897 when he was 17, and he went from there to Hollywood. He did return to Canada in the 1930s after his career went bust in CA (the talkies done him in).
...episode 6... "Whisper Sisters" One of Frankie's favorite hangouts is Quon's, a restaurant run by Wendy and her son Hung Fah, or Harry Jr. One day the brothers Gino and Giuseppe "Joe" Perry come in and the arrogant Joe ends with shooting up the place, including injuring Harry Jr. Protection money and bootlegging – a dangerous world to investigate.
...episode 7... "Ties That Bind" Jenny Smith teaches English for the Chinese Charitable Society. The class ends late, and Mr. Lee offers to escort her to the streetcar. She demurs, "Thank you, I'll be fine.... I'm a city girl." And then she disappears.
...episode 8... "The Pilot" Phillip Anderson is an internationally celebrated pilot and "all-round golden boy", who settled down and built his own aerodome. Frankie and Trudy take the day off for an airshow and are on hand when someone tries a kidnapping.
Trivia: The comparison to Charles Lindbergh is obvious. He was a passionate believer in eugenics.
...episode 9... "Ghosts" Elspeth Burton hires Frankie. Her husband, Grant, has been pushing her away, and she wants to know why. It turns out much more dangerous than your average marriage problem.
...episode 10.. "Anastasia" The wealthy Louisa Winchester loves all things Russian, as her father had been Ambassador to Russia when she was a girl. So it's not surprising that she has guests, three Cossacks and Anastasia, youngest daughter of Tsar Nicholas II. But Louisa is wealthy, not stupid, and she hires Frankie to determine if Anastasia is the real thing.
Real Person: You probably know that it wasn't until 2007 that two bodies were discovered buried separately from the rest of the royal family. DNA testing proved that Anastasia was dead, undoubtedly since 1916. Incidentally, the Yekaterinburg house in which the family lived and were executed was just torn down a few years ago. The authorities were tired of people visiting to see the bullet holes in the walls.
...episode 11.. "Once Burnt Twice Spied" We know that Frankie was a dispatch rider in WWI. It turns out she was more than that, and in this episode she's recalled to service.

The 11 episodes of Season 1 total almost 8 hours. If you buy it on disc, English subtitles are available, but there are no Bonus Extras. Season 1 originally aired November, 2017, through February 2018. Season 2 originally aired September through November 2018.

Happy Reader

The "Frankie Drake Mysteries" series on CBC has a lot in common with Australia's "Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries" and Canada's "Murdoch Mysteries."
All three, for example, take place in the early part of the 20th Century when social standards were changing. All three series feature smart, fearless women - in the "Murdoch Mysteries" that includes a forensic pathologist - and none of the three flinch when it comes to discussing issues such as racism, xenophobia, and gender inequality.
They are not preachy about those societal ills, however. Rather, they are subtle. In the "Frankie Drake Mysteries," for example, racism is shown in a variety of ways such as the refusal of a white factory manager to shake the hand of a black female employee. In my opinion, these subtle examples are far more effective than they would be if the characters in the series beat viewers over the head with strident denunciations.
The "Frankie Drake Mysteries" is based on a series of novels and there are critics who dislike the show because it does not adhere strictly to the books. To them all I can say is that books and television programs are entirely different mediums. Frankly, I find those kinds of criticisms misplaced in the same way I would if they were comparing a sculpture and a painting of the same figures. We are talking about two very different art forms and that must be recognized if criticisms are to have any value.
That rant aside, what makes this series fun is the fact that it comes complete with great music, snappy dialogue, and historic figures such as Ernest Hemingway and Mack Sennett. The mysteries are not overly complex - a plus in my opinion - but they are interesting. The cast - especially leads Lauren Lee Smith and Chantel Riley - are seasoned actors who know how to carry a scene, and there has been a sincere effort on the part of the producers to give viewers a real sense of what Toronto was like in the 1920s.
Frankie Drake - she's called that because her late father misspelled her name on the birth certificate when he wrote the male version of "Francis" instead of the female version "Frances" - is an intriguing character. A dispatch rider in the First World War, she has a peculiar background. Both her mother and father were criminals, for example. She takes boxing lessons from a professional fighter, did some undercover work for British intelligence during the war, and has a black woman as a business partner. She defies convention but can still manage to pull off the occasional foray into high society though she is much more comfortable in trousers astride her motorcycle. She brews her own gin, can throw a punch - and take one - and she suffers from what, today, we would call PTSD because of her service in the war.
Trudy, her business partner, is a former housemaid who helps start the private detective agency after both she and Frankie get fired from their respective jobs. Like Frankie, she is smart, unafraid, and able to navigate the tricky social and racial boundaries of 1920s Toronto. Together, they make a terrific team.
All that adds up to a 5-star series in my opinion, and one that I hope continues for a very long time.

I enjoy the characters in this series, and the cases are good. What it's lacking is a full plunge into its designated era. The dialog doesn't take the viewer into the 1920's. Even the clothing seemed a haphazard homage to the era. Frankie Drake Mysteries is fun, until you compare it with Miss Fishers Murder Mysteries - then you see how a period show SHOULD be done.

I found this first season to be a lot of fun watch. If you like the "Agatha Raisin" series, or the single season of "Mr. & Mrs. Murder" from a few years back, I imagine you will like this series. It is a somewhat light-hearted "take" on the mystery genre, with very little explicit on screen violence,

Because "Frankie Drake" takes place in the 1920's, it is somewhat naturally compared to the "Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries" series. While the comparison is understandable, it is a little misleading. "Miss Fisher" tended to be a "who-done-it" series, while "Frankie Drake" tends to "take you for a ride", and you just have to sit back and enjoy the company you're with.

I bow to no one in their admiration and love for the "Miss Fisher" series. No one on "Frankie Drake" is of the caliber, acting wise, of Essie Davis, who was remarkable in her role as Miss Phryne Fisher.

But a lot of the charm of "Frankie Drake" is the ensemble on the show, The primary relationship is between the red-headed detective Frankie Drake and her Black partner, Trudy Clarke, who trust each other completely. A very welcome addition to the duo is the very sincere, but sometimes clumsy morality officer, Mary Shaw, who wants desperately to become a "real" police detective someday. Rounding out the all female group is an older Flo Chakowitz, a "mother-hen" pathologist to Frankie and Trudy, who works for the Toronto City Morgue.

The show's mysteries are interesting, but not as heavily plotted and complex as, for instance, "Murdoch Mysteries". The show looks it could be Toronto in the 1920s, but it pretty clearly does not have the budget that some other shows seem to have to recreate ambiance.

So, if you enjoy watching a mystery show that takes itself a little less seriously, (but is not a parody) and has a bit of a feminist bent to it, I would recommend giving the "Frankie Drake Mysteries" a try.

it is very rewarding to see a smart program with women in a detective series that seems both realistic and charming. There are very few bodies, minimal violence, just great acting and interesting plots. The actors make these characters come alive. If you liked Foyle's War, then you may like this post World War I story set in Canada as well. Can't wait for the second season release!

The music and sound effects are annoyingly loud. But much of the dialog is spoken in low conversational tones, often not much louder than a whisper. So the stories are very hard to follow. And there are no closed captions to help, only "English described video" that audibly explains what's happening on the screen (in a voice louder than the dialog), but does not do anything to help you understand the dialog. It could be an interesting series, but I find it too annoying to try to follow, so I will not be buying any of the following seasons.

I purchased this after seeing an ad that said it would also be enjoyed by those who like Murdoch Mystery series. Though it isn't as good yet as the Murdoch series, it has good potential. The stories are very enjoyable, though not time accurate about how bad the prejudice of the time showed itself. The stories include some events to show at bit what it was like, but isn't the main point of the episodes. The acting was okay and each episode pace progressed quickly. I intend to get season 2.