When it's always 1985, you follow the path.

Sometimes, I just let life take me where it will. Today, for example, I was looking for Matt Laffey's "Always 1895" site and transposed two digits. Google quickly took me to an IMDB page for the movie "Always (1985)."

This wasn't the movie with Richard Dreyfuss and Holly Hunter -- that came four years later. This "Always" was about a middle-aged couple considering divorce. I started following up the cast to see if there was a connection to Sherlock Holmes to at least make my mistake somewhat worthwhile. Melissa Leo seemed a familiar name, and her notable part in the recent Olympus Has Fallen gave me a reason for that. Alan Rachins had a long list of TV credits, including Dharma's father on Dharma & Greg, but no Holmes stuff. I was just about to give it up as a lost cause when I looked into Jonathan Kaufer.

Jonathan Kaufer only had two acting credits, but his writing credits were a little more notable. The memorable sci-fi parody Quark, and one of the few Sherlock Holmes related sitcoms ever to air, the very unforgettable Holmes and Yo-Yo.

Of course, Holmes and Yo-Yo was about Detective Alexander Holmes and not Sherlock, and "Yo-yo" was his indestructible robot partner. And it has been called one of the worst sitcoms in the history of television. But nobody creates a detective named Holmes with a Nigel Bruce-ish robot partner without trading on the Sherlock Holmes legend at least a little bit. The show was on in 1976, however, so it doesn't quite qualify in the department of "always 1985."

No, 1985 was the year Young Sherlock Holmes came to theaters and Jeremy Brett first appeared on American TV in The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes. (Never mind that the UK had it almost a full year ahead of us. Curse you, PBS, and your time lags!) You could do a lot worse than 1985, if you had to pick a year for "always." And a lot better than Holmes and Yo-yo.