Canon References In BBC Sherlock

[T.o.b.y]

Indeed... Conan Doyle didn't go through with the idea, either, there are plenty of stories where Holmes carries a gun. He wasn't very good at stringent characterization. I just couldn't resist the quote because it is one of my favorites and it sort of reminds me of the way the characters are portrayed in general on "Sherlock".

[Carol the Dabbler]

Oh, no argument there.  But as it's usually John who's the practical one, I just wanted to see Sherlock get his due.

 

[T.o.b.y]

Oh, no argument there.  But as it's usually John who's the practical one, I just wanted to see Sherlock get his due.

 

Oh, I am always in favor of that. And the following could apply to either:

 

"There is no prospect of danger, or I should not dream of stirring out without you"

 

[T.o.b.y]

Sorry, this is vaguer than vague, but I remember a discussion somewhere about Watson in the original versus John on Sherlock. We said that Watson's role as narrator makes it difficult to characterize him. Well, apart from the hints we get about him from Holmes' comments, there is plenty of helpful dialogue, like this bit from "Charles Augustus Milverton":

 

“Well, I don’t like it; but I suppose it must be,” said I. “When do we start?”
“You are not coming.”
“Then you are not going,” said I. “I give you my word of honour—and I never broke it in my life—that I will take a cab straight to the policestation and give you away unless you let me share this adventure with you.”
“You can’t help me.”
“How do you know that? You can’t tell what may happen. Anyway, my resolution is taken. Other people beside you have self-respect and even reputations.”

 

Now, translate that into present-day English and I think you can virtually hear John say it.

[Carol the Dabbler]

Thanks for posting that, and I agree with what you say -- however I still stand by what I (at least I think it was me) said about it being harder to get a detailed picture of Watson than of, say, Holmes.  Assuming that Watson is a reliable judge of human nature (and he appears to be), then we're given a pre-digested character analysis of Holmes, whereas for Watson we need to ferret out passages like the one you quote, and then figure out what they tell us about his character.

 

[Carol the Dabbler]

(... Watson played rugby in his school days)

 

Just noticed this in John's blog (yes, it's actually online):

 

 

 

Met up with some of the rugby lads from Blackheath last night. They haven't changed. Still downing pints like they're in the twenties. Still all taking the mick out of each other. None of them mentioned my leg.

 

Sounds like "our" John also played rugby.

 

[T.o.b.y]

...for Watson we need to ferret out passages like the one you quote, and then figure out what they tell us about his character.

Yes, we do - and that is so much fun!

[T.o.b.y]

Mycroft does not have many lines in the original, but what is there has been diligently worked into the script:

 

"In the present state of Siam it is most awkward that I should be away from the office." (I think on "Sherlock", it was the Korean elections)

 

"You must drop everything, Sherlock. Never mind your usual petty puzzles of the police-court. It’s a vital international problem that you have to solve." (BBC's Mycroft says "never mind your usual trivia" here, doesn't he?)

 

Those are from "The Bruce Partington Plans". And the opening scene of that seems very familiar to a Sherlock viewer as well (as does the whole case, of course, but that has been pointed out here long ago):

 

"...my comrade’s impatient and active nature could endure this drab existence no longer. He paced restlessly about our sitting-room in a fever of suppressed energy, biting his nails, tapping the furniture, and chafing against inaction. “Nothing of interest in the paper, Watson?” he said. I was aware that by anything of interest, Holmes meant anything of criminal interest. There was the news of a revolution, of a possible war, and of an impending change of government; but these did not come within the horizon of my companion."

[T.o.b.y]

Could this passage have inspired the "alone protects me" line?

 

"There was a curious secretive streak in the man which led to many dramatic effects, but left even his closest friend guessing as to what his exact plans might be. He pushed to an extreme the axiom that the only safe plotter was he who plotted alone. I was nearer him than anyone else, and yet I was always conscious of the gap between."

 

Certainly another example of how closely "Sherlock" follows the original characterization of the title character.

[T.o.b.y]

Remember Sherlock's dramatic way of letting Dr Stapelton know he had information about her? It compares to this little scene, which is told from Holmes' own point of view:

 

"I took out my notebook and scribbled one word upon a loose sheet. “That,” said I as I handed it to Colonel Emsworth, “is what has brought us here.” He stared at the writing with a face from which every expression save amazement had vanished. “How do you know?” he gasped"

 

In this story, of course, the word is not "Bluebell" but "Leprosy"...

[Carol the Dabbler]

Remember Sherlock's dramatic way of letting Dr Stapelton know he had information about her? It compares to this little scene, which is told from Holmes' own point of view:

 

"I took out my notebook and scribbled one word upon a loose sheet. “That,” said I as I handed it to Colonel Emsworth, “is what has brought us here.” He stared at the writing with a face from which every expression save amazement had vanished. “How do you know?” he gasped"

 

In this story, of course, the word is not "Bluebell" but "Leprosy"...

 

Sure sounds like the same MO, all right!

 

I haven't read that story yet, but according to Wikipedia, it's "The Adventure of the Blanched Soldier" (which is in The Casebook).

 

[T.o.b.y]

Thank you! I am getting sloppy with my quotes... Yes, that's the story I took it from and it has lots of other interesting elements that I have babbled about right and left all over this forum.

[T.o.b.y]

Remember "if I wanted poetry I'd read John's letters to his girlfriends"? The original Dr Watson's poetic streak is commented on in "The Adventure of the Retired Colourman":

 

“ 'Cut out the poetry, Watson,' said Holmes severely."

[T.o.b.y]

Because I have nothing better to do, I have tried to put together what major plots have already been used from the original stories:

 

A Study in Pink - A Study in Scarlet

The Blind Banker - The Dancing Men, The Sign of Four

The Great Game - The Five Orange Pips, The Bruce-Partington Plans

A Scandal in Belgravia - A Scandal in Bohemia (there is a quote from "The Illustrious Client", but that story does not seem to have been much used otherwise)

The Hounds of Baskerville - The Hound of the Baskervilles

The Reichenbach Fall - The Final Problem, The Dying Detective

 

It seems that, apart from puns on the titles or references to details, each episode was based either on two of the short stories or one of the novels. Unfortunately, that leaves so much over it is nearly impossible to predict what might have gone into series 3, aside from The Empty House and Charles Augustus Milverton. The Illustrious Client would fit in well with the latter, I think, because the idea is very similar (a man has power over women using their past love life, that man gets fatally attacked by one of the women he wronged). I do hope that the "rat" clue refers to Bellarat and so to The Boscombe Valley Mystery, because I like that case. I just don't know how to combine it with The Empty House (but then, I'm not a writer, so what do I know). As to the second episode, no idea. I'd be surprised if they managed to get anything more out of The Sign of Four than they already have (but then, this team is full of surprises). "Wedding" is no help, because it seems to refer to John's wedding. Maybe that will blend into a case (would be nice). The Noble Bachelor, maybe? Would be pretty funny if Mary disappeared from her wedding just after the ceremony...

 

I'm not quite sure whether I expect "His last Bow" will be much used beyond a play on the title. "Vow" sort of smacks of marriage vows, I think - and the episode before that has a wedding in it, so maybe that's where it comes from. I have the feeling that linking the last episode to the last Sherlock Holmes story is just supposed to make the audience feel anxious it will be the last episode ever and so more twitchy about the cliffhanger ending - like with the Reichenbach Fall.

[Bakerstreet Irregular]

Someone pointed out earlier in this thread that all three words, Rat, Wedding, and Bow, could be found in one story, "The Adventure of Charles Augustus Milverton."  And in Season 3, we have the Master Blackmailer himself.

[Carol the Dabbler]

All on one page, actually!  (The reason you couldn't find it with the forum search function is that it was posted as an image.)  But that seems to be merely a coincidence, so presumably Moftiss didn't base their might-be-clues on it. 

 

Hopefully they'll explain the whole three-word thing on the Series 3 DVD!

 

[T.o.b.y]

That is funny. I never noticed it. Of course, those three words appear pretty often in a lot of Holmes stories. I wouldn't be surprised if there were other ones that include all three words (although maybe not on one page).

[T.o.b.y]

Another reference is, of course, the suicide note. Holmes leaves Watson a letter explaining that he went to his death and why. So Sherlock saying "this is my note" is not only a line telling John that he's about to commit suicide but also telling the viewer that the original story is being remembered.

 

What were going to be Watson's last words on his friend is in this paragraph:

 

"...if I have now been compelled to make a clear statement of his career it is due to those injudicious champions who have endeavored to clear his memory by attacks upon him whom I shall ever regard as the best and the wisest man whom I have ever known"

 

(The "injudicious champions" are Moriarty's, who are trying to clear his name at the cost of Holmes'.)

 

"The best man" of course found it's way into the graveside speech. Note that "the wisest" didn't...

[Carol the Dabbler]

John did use the word "wisest" in the cover blurb for Sherlock: The Casebook -- but that was mere publicity, not a heartfelt (and presumably honest) tribute to a fallen friend.

 

[Bakerstreet Irregular]

I wonder if they will come out with a "Casebook" for Season 3?

[T.o.b.y]

I do not think this was a deliberate reference (or was it?), but there is actually a brief scene in an original Doyle story where Holmes discusses a case dressed in nothing but "the sheets which enveloped him". It's in the opening of "The Illustrious Client", a story that was quoted in A Scandal in Belgravia (mystery on both ends of a case) and of course Holmes is not standing in Buckingham palace, but is lying on a couch at the Turkish Bath (which is similar to a sauna).

[Bakerstreet Irregular]

It is really amazing how Gatiss and Moffat can pick out this tiny little thumb nails of detail in the canon and weave and knit them together to make up a whole cloth of a series.

[T.o.b.y]

I wonder whether they do all of it intentionally or whether they have just immersed themselves in the original stories so deeply that some references slip in on their own.

 

Of course, doing an exact reproduction of the original "sheet" scene would have been difficult with today's fandom (or at least parts of it). Imagine John and Sherlock discussing their work naked (well, naked wrapped in sheets) in "an isolated corner where two couches lie side by side" at a local sauna. Some might say "boring" and I don't even want to consider what others would make of it...

[T.o.b.y]

At the beginning of The Reichenbach Fall, doesn't Lestrade mention somebody named "Peter Ricoletti" whom Sherlock helped him put behind bars? The name is mentioned in "The Musgrave Ritual":

 

"Ricoletti of the club-foot and his abominable wife"

 

Also in "The Musgrave Ritual", Holmes mentions "the singular affair of the aluminum crutch" as one of his past cases.

 

It really is too bad that they moved John out of Baker Street before doing a version of the opening of that story, where Watson wants to persuade Holmes to clean up the mess in the flat and they end up poring over Holmes' notes of his old cases and causing even more disorder.

[Carol the Dabbler]

At the beginning of The Reichenbach Fall, doesn't Lestrade mention somebody named "Peter Ricoletti" whom Sherlock helped him put behind bars? The name is mentioned in "The Musgrave Ritual":

 

"Ricoletti of the club-foot and his abominable wife"

 

Yes, indeed, and I hadn't noticed that.  From Ariane DeVere's transcript:

 

LESTRADE: Peter Ricoletti: number one on Interpol’s Most Wanted list since nineteen eighty-two. But we got him; and there’s one person we have to thank for giving us the decisive leads ... with all his customary diplomacy and tact(!)

 

I was hoping that the newspaper article (shown in one of Aithine's screen caps) would have some clever allusions to the foot and/or the wife, but alas it's just a rehash of the kidnapped banker story, with no mention of Ricoletti except in the headline (which does at least confirm the spelling of his name).

 

Also in "The Musgrave Ritual", Holmes mentions "the singular affair of the aluminum crutch" as one of his past cases.

 

It really is too bad that they moved John out of Baker Street before doing a version of the opening of that story, where Watson wants to persuade Holmes to clean up the mess in the flat and they end up poring over Holmes' notes of his old cases and causing even more disorder.

 

Ah, yes, the famous aluminium crutch!

 

I wouldn't put it past Moftiss to do "Musgrave" anyhow.  Surely John will still visit Sherlock at the old place, and could very well scold him for letting things get even more disorganized than ever.  So of course Sherlock would have to distract him by bringing out the old tin box.

 

In the Jeremy Brett series, the actual case takes place while Holmes and Watson are flatmates (rather than before they meet, as a flashback, as in canon).  And they manage to work in the tin box, nevertheless!