(Photo by: Darren Goldstein/DSG Photo)

Murdoch Mysteries has a return date. Ovation has announced that season 16 of the popular Canadian series will arrive on American TV screens on February 11th.

Starring Yannick Bisson, Hélène Joy, Thomas Craig, Jonny Harris, Lachlan Murdoch, Shanice Banton, Daniel Maslany, Arwen Humphreys, and Siobhan Murphy, the historical drama series is based on the novels by Maureen Jennings and follows Detective William Murdoch (Bisson) as he solves cases at the turn of the century in Toronto.

Guest stars for season 16 include Siobhan McSweeney, Sean Cullen, Christopher Heyerdahl, Peter Stebbings, and Peter Keleghan. Plus, there will be special appearances by International Space Station Commander Chris Hadfield, Olympic champion Andre De Grasse, and renowned historian Morgan Ross. Will & Grace’s Eric McCormack (above, left, with Bisson) has directed an episode.

Ovation revealed more about the series’ return in a press release.

Next year, Ovation TV, America’s premier arts network, airs the U.S. premiere of the sixteenth season of beloved detective series Murdoch Mysteries. Highlights of the new 24-episode season include an episode directed by Emmy winner Eric McCormack (Will & Grace), two episodes directed by series star Yannick Bisson, three episodes written by showrunner Peter Mitchell, and one episode written by Maureen Jennings, author of the Detective Murdoch book series. Ovation TV will air the U.S. television premiere of Murdoch Mysteries season 16 on Saturday, February 11 at 7:00pm ET.

As season sixteen begins, Detective Murdoch (Yannick Bisson) and Dr. Julia Ogden (Hélène Joy) are settling into life with baby Susannah. His innovative time-saving devices are entertaining the infant and have freed up time prompting Ogden to return to her women’s clinic. But domestic calm and bliss is far from the reality for Murdoch’s associates. Constable George Crabtree (Jonny Harris) has left his betrothed, Effie Newsome (Clare McConnell), at the altar after a prophecy by his aunt foretells marrying her would sign her death certificate. Brokenhearted, he endures the confoundment of Murdoch and Ogden and the wrath of Inspector Thomas Brackenreid (Thomas Craig). Constable Henry Higgins-Newsome (Lachlan Murdoch) presumes he got cold feet and used the curse as an excuse. But then he suspects Crabtree’s aunt might have ulterior motives and enlists Effie and Louise Cherry (Bea Santos) to find out more.

Nefarious goings on are also taking place in Violet Hart (Shanice Banton) and Arthur Carmichael’s (James Graham) world. After her menacing father Maurice Majors (Roger Cross), appeared to extort her and her husband, as well as threaten Brackenreid for a past misdeed, he has apparently died. But has he? When a coffin shipped to New York arrives full of dirt and a corpse mysteriously rises from a pauper’s grave killing two men, Murdoch wonders how desperate and depraved Hart might be. Meanwhile, Detective Llewelyn Watts (Daniel Maslany) has gone missing from work and Toronto, presumably with his paramour Jack the butcher (Jesse Lavercombe) and his infant Samuel. Brackenreid tracks him down to New York to warn the men that their domestic situation is in jeopardy because an odious private investigator has been hired by the toddler’s grandparents. But while there, Brackenreid lets his defenses down and suddenly finds that not only is Watts’ future in peril, so too is his own.

Guest stars this season include Siobhan McSweeney, best known as the acerbic nun on the Netflix hit Derry Girls, appearing as Crabtree’s clairvoyant Auntie Oleander, Sean Cullen as Rudyard Kipling, Van Helsing’s Christopher Heyerdahl as a stoic Mennonite elder, and the return of fan favorites Peter Stebbings as inventive entrepreneur James Pendrick and Peter Keleghan as intrepid, and occasionally annoying, spy Terrence Myers. Plus, there are special appearances by International Space Station Commander Chris Hadfield, Olympic champion Andre De Grasse, and renowned historian Morgan Ross.

Murdoch Mysteries is based on Maureen Jennings’s popular Detective Murdoch series of novels and premiered in Canada in January 2008. Murdoch Mysteries is executive produced by Christina Jennings, Scott Garvie, Yannick Bisson, Hélène Joy, Paul Aitken, Simon McNabb, and Peter Mitchell, who also serves as showrunner, and produced by Jeremy Hood and Julie Lacey. Murdoch Mysteries is developed and produced by Shaftesbury, in association with CBC, ITV STUDIOS Global Entertainment and UKTV, and with the participation of the Canada Media Fund, the IPF’s COGECO Television Production Fund, the Canadian Film or Video Production Tax Credit, and Ontario Creates. Shaftesbury Sales Company and ITV STUDIOS Global Entertainment hold worldwide distribution rights for the series.

What do you think? Are you excited to hear about the return of this mystery series?