Detective William Murdoch stared at the peculiar object in his hands. It was a thin, shimmering disc, no larger than a tea saucer, yet it held, according to his friend James Pendrick, “the sum of human artistry.”

He inserted the disc. Static hissed, then resolved into a crisp image. There, on the small screen, was a constable who looked remarkably like George Crabtree, wrestling a man in a top hat. The title card read: Murdoch Mysteries – Season 10, Episode 1: “Great Balls of Fire.”

“It’s called a ‘DVD,’ William,” Pendrick said, adjusting his spectacles. “A Digital Versatile Disc. I’ve been tinkering with a prototype. This one contains a complete season of theatrical performances. Season ten, to be precise.”

Murdoch looked at the faint rainbow reflection on the confiscated disc. “If they are,” he said, “I hope they solve their mysteries with as much integrity as we try to solve ours. No rips. No shortcuts. Just the truth.”

Using a combination of fingerprint powder (the discs held prints beautifully) and a clever trap involving a static electricity generator (Pendrick’s idea), Murdoch cornered Flint in the lab’s projection booth.

“This is impossible,” he said. “It’s a counterfeit reality. A rip of something that hasn’t happened.”

Julia raised an eyebrow. “You’re becoming almost as eccentric as Pendrick.”

But Murdoch had already swapped the discs. When Flint played his doctored version, the screen only showed a single, looping image: a mirror. In it, Flint saw only himself—a lonely, bitter man, unable to distinguish story from reality.