In retrospect, maybe I was a
little hasty in prophesying the Sherlockian apocalypse based on a CBS
procedural drama. I mean, bottom line: the show probably won’t be all that
popular. And while it may not be good, and may not be true, there a much worse futures awaiting us. How
do I know this? Am I beginning my career as Nostradamus of Sherlock Holmes
events ahead?
Naw, I just remember the last time
I thought something was as bad as it could be.
Remember the horror genre’s
vampire subgenre? Never known for its quality, vampires pulled generations of
fans in with movies like the Hammer Dracula series, television shows like Dark Shadows and Forever Knight, and books like P.N. Elrod’s “Vampire Files” series
(with it’s Sherlock connection) or Laurell Hamilton’s oversexed Anita Blake
run. And those were some of the better vampire works out there. The bad stuff
was really bad. But did any of us
foresee the hijacking of vampires by tweener girls and their faddish moms with Twilight?
We thought we knew bad. And then
the mob came and brought sparkle-vampires, that previously inconceivably silly
concept (“We hid from the sun because it just makes us more beautiful!”), up to the ranking of most popular vampires of
all.
As much I want to cite
the-TV-show-that-must-not-be-named as the low point of Sherlock Holmes
exploitation, I know in my heart that worse things await us. Maybe it will be
the tweeners invading our niche of the storytelling universe. Maybe it will be
some other massive multi-fan movement. Could it be a cuddle-tragic Dr. Watson
and Mr. Holmes in one body? A lonely android Sherlock who just wants to be a real
boy? Gender-neutral, fifty shades of gray-alien Sherlock with his probes of
desire? Who can possibly know?
But we haven’t seen bad yet. But
it’s coming.
It’s coming.
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