Catching the Cumberbatch "P" pop.

Usually when one likes or dislikes a movie of TV show, it's done by consciously remembered certain lines, certain scenes . . . sort of savoring the flavor in retrospect in the case of "likes," chafing at the irritation in the "dislikes." But in all my years of movie-going, I've noticed the strongest indicator of whether or not I truly like a movie: I walk differently on my way out of the theater.

Not as an affectation, not as a conscious imitation, but just because my brain got so into the movie that it starts replicating some part of the movie's motions in my gait. Travolta's strut from Saturday Night Fever. Peter Weller's mechanical motions from Robocop. As those ancient examples tend to demonstrate, it happened a lot more when I was younger, but suddenly I've found that the tendency is still with me.

Sitting at work, pondering some random work thing this week, and suddenly I started doing Benedict Cumberbatch's Sherlock "P" pops. In the show, he usually uses it to finish a "Yep" or a "Nope" with a "Yep(pop)" or a "No(pop)." Me, I was sitting there like some dazed goldfish, just making little O-mouths and popping away. Catching myself unconsciously doing such a out-of-the-norm behavior, I had to do a quick mental backtrack to see where it came from, and found Sherlock as my answer.

It's hard to say, decades from now, what bits Benedict Cumberbatch will have added to Sherlock Holmes's accepted personality long term, but now I'm starting to wonder if we won't have more Holmes "P" pops down the line.

Yeh-puh . . .